WASHINGTON – With cases over Donald Trump, abortion bans, battles with baristas, homeless camps and gruesome tattoos, the Supreme Court weighs in on debates affecting everything from the volatile 2024 election to health care, workplaces and police. It’s going to be a packed week.
Most notably, the high court has ruled against impunity for acts committed by the former president while in office, as President Trump, currently on trial for allegedly concealing hush money from an adult film actress, faces three additional charges for attempted attempts. We will consider whether and when we can make a claim. To subvert the 2020 election and hoarding of classified documents.
But President Trump’s broad argument that former presidents cannot face criminal charges unless they are impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate is just one of several major cases the nine justices will hear this week. .
Fasten your seat belt.
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No camping allowed for homeless residents
Illegal blanket?
Judges are being asked to decide whether the city can punish people who sleep outdoors. The city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon, where winter temperatures dip into the 30s, has cracked down on homeless encampments by banning tents, blankets and pillows in public parks.
But a federal appeals court has ruled that the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, does not authorize criminal charges against people who sleep outdoors because they have nowhere else to go.
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California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom joined many cities in supporting Grants Pass’ appeal to the high court, writing that the 2018 ruling “tied the hands of local leaders.” The government “needs flexibility to address immediate threats to health and safety in public places,” Newsom said.
Residents of the Grants Pass homeless camp say the strict anti-sleeping law is an “effort to push homeless residents into neighboring jurisdictions” by punishing them “for existing within city limits.” It states that it was.
The only faith-based shelter in the city of 36,000 people wrote to the court saying the number of people using its beds has fallen by 40% since an appeals court ruling blocked enforcement of public sleeping laws.
Tuesday: Starbucks union clash and visa line tattoos
In 2016, Salvadoran tour guide Luis Asensio Cordero was denied an immigrant visa to reunite with his wife, Sandra Muñoz, an American citizen, in the United States. After three years of trying to figure out why, he learned that consular officials suspected Asensio Cordero had a criminal past.
The couple speculated that Asensio-Cordero’s tattoos – one of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the other a theatrical mask – might indicate membership in the violent street gang MS-13. They told the U.S. consulate that he had no connection to the crime and provided a report from a gang expert that said his tattoos were unrelated to MS-13. However, the decision was upheld.
Asensio Cordero “was not and is not a gang member,” attorney Charles Ross told USA TODAY.
Although visa officers have wide discretion to decide who to admit into the United States and don’t need to say much to justify a denial, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday morning that Asensio Cordero is an American and It will be asked whether there is a right to further consideration by virtue of being married.Whether anyone’s interests are affected by the visa decision and whether the court has any say in the visa decision.
Rachel Zoglin, a lawyer with the Jewish humanitarian organization HIAS, said the couple “have been denied any meaningful opportunity to overcome their visa denial and are forced to choose between family and citizenship.”
Latte giant Starbucks, which has been in a bitter battle with union organizers at stores across the country, told a judge late Tuesday that the National Labor Relations Board will force the employer to rehire workers who say they were unfairly fired. The government plans to ask for clarification on when such orders can be issued.
The lawsuit does not directly involve Starbucks employees, but comes against the backdrop of clashes between organizers and the company during contract negotiations between the $98 billion coffee chain and the union Workers United. .
Last year, an NLRB administrative judge ruled that Starbucks committed “hundreds of unfair labor practices” during a unionization campaign at stores in the Buffalo, New York, area.
Wednesday: Post-Roe abortion ban in Idaho
After hearing arguments on immigration and labor law, the Supreme Court will take up a fight over Idaho’s strict abortion ban, which the Biden administration says harms emergency room patients.
While the Idaho law and similar measures in other states make it a crime to perform an abortion unless a doctor can prove that the mother’s life is in danger, the Biden administration has made it a federal law to restrict access to emergency rooms. It says it requires the provision of “stabilizing care,” including abortion. If the patient’s health is at “grave risk”.
In January, a court allowed Idaho’s abortion ban to continue as the federal government challenged the state’s emergency room standards.
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Abortion has risen to the top of the national agenda since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, with states moving to either abolish the procedure or create new protections. There is.
Last month, the court heard arguments restricting access to the widely used abortion drug mifepristone, and on April 9, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law banning abortion in key battleground states. revived.
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Thursday: Donald Trump brings ‘Seal Team 6’ argument to Supreme Court
Can the president get away with murder? Mr. Trump’s lawyers say that is possible unless he is first impeached by the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict him.
This is at the heart of the former president and potential 2024 Republican nominee’s argument that he should not face federal charges for election interference.
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When an appeals court judge asked in January whether this meant the president could not be prosecuted for selling military secrets, peddling pardons or ordering Navy SEALs to assassinate political opponents, Trump’s lawyers said: replied that criminal charges are only possible if the president is first impeached and then convicted by the Senate.
William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said he was “shocked by how fundamental questions about presidential power and its limits remain undefined by the courts.” “It’s amazing that a president 250 years old can make such a claim.”
President Trump warned that anything less than complete immunity from prosecution would open the door to a never-ending cycle of partisan prosecutions against former presidents. Trump’s lawyers say the immunity claim is a “novel, complex and serious issue.”
In addition to the ongoing hush money trial and federal election lawsuit in Manhattan, Trump faces federal indictments in Florida for storing classified documents and state election charges in Georgia.
Howell said Trump’s appeal Thursday was “part of a larger effort” to delay criminal proceedings. “His biggest concern is not defining the limits of presidential power. It’s surviving this judicial onslaught.”
