LogFAQs > #955349633

More SCOTUS decisions today.

First decision is a unanimous ruling that pursuing someone who committed a misdemeanor does not categorically give the police warrantless entry into a home.

Specifics of the case were that a California man was playing loud music and honking his horn when passing by a cop car. Cop followed and turned on his lights to signal him to pull over. Guy didn't stop but drove to his nearby house and parked inside his garage. Cop followed him and put him through sobriety tests and would find that his BAC was above the legal limit and he was charged with driving under the influence. He countered that the cop had no right to enter his house without a warrant and that all evidence obtained after he did so (so the sobriety stuff) had to be tossed. State countered that by ignoring the cop's signal to pull over they had probable cause to arrest him for the misdemeanor of failing to obey a police signal and thus the pursuit qualified for the allowed exceptions to requiring a warrant and he couldn't dodge it by just fleeing to his house.

SCOTUS ruled that the mere pursuit of someone for a misdemeanor doesn't give the cops the automatic right to ignore a warrant requirement - it's requires a case-by-case analysis of whether it's justifiable to perform a warrantless home entry and while some instances may fulfill an urgent/emergency type situation where it may be justified to do so, it's not automatic as the state claimed.

Though the judgment of the court is unanimous, Roberts writes a concurrence that basically reads as a dissent where he complains that the logic of the Court is wrong and that the act of flight itself justifies warrantless entry and that they're wrong for saying the underlying offense is relevant. Alito joins this concurrence. Thomas writes a concurrence on similar lines but is much less cranky about it. Kavanaugh joins part of this while adding his own where he basically goes "I mean, I assume most flights from police will involve circumstances that justify a search so I don't really think there's much difference between the official ruling and Robert's complaining and this is just academic."

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Another ruling that basically strikes down a law that was preventing Biden from firing a Trump appointment - the appointment in question was the Federal Housing Finance Agency director who was trying to deregulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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Yet another regarding how/if schools can regulate student's off-campus speech. The ruling was 8-1 (Thomas dissents) that while there may exist some cases where a school has a special interest in regulating off-campus speech, it'd be a pretty high bar to clear the student's First Amendment Rights. They give examples of severe bullying and harassment among others as hypothetical cases where the school would maintain a special interest to restrict/discipline off-campus behavior.

Specifics were a highschool student failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and posted "vulgar language and gestures" on Snapchat in frustration of the school and squad. In response, the school suspended her from JV cheerleading for the year. (Also lol at dry legalese describing the posts. She posted a picture with her flipping off the camera and saying fuck a few times. Actual excerpt from the opinion: "The caption also contained an upside-down smiley-face emoji.")

Anyway, the ruling was this falls under First Amendment protection and the school had no right to discipline her for it given it was off-campus.

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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?