Federal Judiciary

Snyder v. Louisiana

By AndrewHyman

In the post immediately below, Quin criticizes Justice Alito's opinion in Snyder v. Louisiana. I read the case, and am not quite as upset about it.

It always aggravates me when a court overturns some governmental action, without bothering to say what constitutional provision is empowering the court do so, as if the Court does not even really need constitutional authority to do as it pleases. On that score, I would fault Justice Alito for never bothering to mention the "Equal Protection Clause." If he had done so, I think his opinion in this case might also have been more persuasive to people like Quin. Instead, Justice Alito merely asserted that the overturned governmental action was inconsistent with another previous SCOTUS case: Batson v. Kentucky. But it's pretty clear that the Court was significantly modifying what it had said in Batson, in order to apply the Equal Protection Clause.

In this Snyder case, the Court shifted the burden when a peremptory challenge is alleged to have racial overtones, so that the trial judge can only allow the peremptory challenge if the judge specifically and plausibly addresses why the allegation of racial bias is not persuasive. Such a requirement was not laid down in Batson, but it is arguably consistent with the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Thomas seemed to be more faithful to precedent in this case, whereas Justice Alito seemed to rely more on the underlying equal protection principles.

Incidentally, there was another elephant in this room, besides the Equal Protection Clause. Try searching the oral argument transcript for "Simpson."

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Full post as published by ConfirmThem on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).