Supreme Court – Opinions

Does the Second Amendment protect the right of abusers to own a gun? We’re about to find out.

Posted on November 20, 2023Updated: November 20, 2023

Nov. 15, Natalie Nanasi, an associate professor at SMU Dallas Dedman School of Law, for a commentary evaluating the arguments brought before the U.S. Supreme Court as they consider a petition to strike laws that presently prevent domestic violence abusers from possessing guns. Published in The Hill under the heading Does the Second Amendment protect the right of abusers to own a gun? We’re about to find out: https://tinyurl.com/y5p8kyfj

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week in U.S. v. Rahimi, a case that will determine whether a federal law that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic violence offenders is constitutional. In a country where an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every month, the outcome is a matter of life and death.

Before we begin, however, we must better understand how Zackey Rahimi became the focus of the case, and how and why it advanced to the Supreme Court.

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How the Texas ban on mifepristone could jeopardize telemedicine for everyone

Posted on September 5, 2023Updated: September 5, 2023

Sept. 5, Carliss Chatman, law professor at Dedman School of Law, SMU Dallas, for a piece pointing out how the Texas ban on the abortion pill could have a negative impact on life-saving telemedicine healthcare channels and prescription delivery. Published in The Hill under the heading How the Texas ban on mifepristone could jeopardize telemedicine for everyone: http://tinyurl.com/2ntve4j4

Telemedicine’s expansion during the pandemic minimized exposure and addressed the problem of health care deserts.

Roughly 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas and too often must travel long distances to receive health care. The National Rural Health Association reports the “patient-to-primary care physician ratio in rural areas is only 39.8 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to 53.3 physicians per 100,000 in urban areas.” But during the pandemic, technology, including telephone and video, bridged the care gap, allowing patients to receive critical treatment and prescriptions.

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Why a graphic designer should not be compelled to produce websites for same-sex couples

Posted on May 23, 2023Updated: May 23, 2023

Dec. 16, Dale Carpenter, Dedman School of Law professor, SMU Dallas, for a piece arguing that Colorado should not be able to coerce web designer Lorie Smith to create online material for a gay couple in the celebrated 303 Creative case before the Supreme Court, because to do so would violate her right to freedom of expression. Published in the Boston Globe under the heading Is web design a form of free speech?: https://tinyurl.com/yckmn88h

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case called 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which raises the question of whether the state of Colorado can force a graphic designer to create websites for same-sex weddings that she opposes. The argument revealed weaknesses in the government’s case, but also a court that may not give the petitioner everything she wants.

In the case, Lorie Smith proposes to create custom websites only for those weddings uniting a man and a woman. But Colorado’s public accommodations law (like those in 28 other states) prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in the sale of goods and services to the public.

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A First Amendment for Everyone

Posted on May 23, 2023Updated: May 23, 2023

Dec. 3, Dale Carpenter, Dedman School of Law professor, SMU Dallas, for a piece supporting web designer Lorie Smith whose 303 Creative case — which is about Colorado attempting to compel her to create web designs for a gay couple — was the subject of oral arguments before SCOTUS Dec. 5. Published in the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy under the heading A First Amendment For Everyone: https://tinyurl.com/3jv7rkty

Over the past century the First Amendment’s protection of “the freedom of speech” has been interpreted to shield the reprehensible — White Supremacists and homophobes—as well as the admirable — the Black Civil Rights movement and the gay-rights cause. This jurisprudence reflects an American commitment to its own brand of classical liberalism in matters of conscience and expression.

On Monday, that commitment will be tested against another important one — equality under law — when the Supreme Court hears oral argument in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. Lorie Smith, a graphic designer who holds traditional religious views about marriage, wants to create custom websites only for weddings uniting one man and one woman.

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A smarter path to firearm safety through property rights

Posted on July 1, 2022Updated: July 1, 2022

July 1, Eric Ruben, an assistant professor at the SMU Dallas Dedman School of Law, for an op-ed suggesting establishing property rights law and policy can help New Yorkers to safeguard their domains against an influx of concealed carry proponents following the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling. Published in the New York Daily News under the heading A smarter path to firearm safety through property rights: https://bit.ly/3yfSEPg

New York State legislators were called back for a special session this week to consider a groundbreaking response to the Supreme Court’s far-reaching expansion of gun rights. Last week’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen will make it easier for people to obtain concealed-carry gun licenses in New York and across the country. But nothing in the Second Amendment — nor anywhere else in the Constitution — gives people a right to carry guns onto other people’s private property.

An astute group of policymakers is aware of this and crafted a commonsense legislative response to the Bruen decision. Alongside vital changes to the training requirements for gun permits and other reforms, the legislation requires gun owners to have express permission from property owners in order to carry their guns onto private property: homes, stores, restaurants, offices, nightclubs, movie theaters and the like.

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Make no mistake, this is the ‘McConnell Court’

Posted on June 30, 2022Updated: June 30, 2022

June 30, Joseph Kobylka, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at SMU Dallas, for a commentary summing up the work of the 2021 Supreme Court term and how influencer Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shaped the membership and caused an abrupt turn in rulings toward the right. Published in The Hill under the heading Make no mistake, this is the ‘McConnell Court’: https://bit.ly/3uak07R

The Supreme Court’s just completed 2021 term marked a distinct turn toward the constitutional right and vision of the Federalist Society. There is no turning back, at least not in the near term. This is one of the youngest courts in over 100 years; its major constitutional decisions are likely to endure for a decade or more.

This is largely attributable to three most recent appointees: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. In tandem with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the court has a stable five-person majority — six when Chief Justice John Roberts joins them — steering it on politically salient issues of constitutional law. Many will attribute this result to President Trump, but that would be wrong. This isn’t “Donald Trump’s Court”; it is a court largely made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And, for better or worse, it has brought the jurisprudential style of nearly 70 years to a hard stop.

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50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It’s Time to Revive it, Permanently

Posted on June 29, 2022Updated: June 29, 2022

June 28, Rick Halperin, director of the SMD Dallas Human Rights Program, for a piece recalling a brief period 50 years ago when the U.S. was without the death penalty. Published in History News Network under the heading 50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It’s Time to Revive it, Permanently: https://bit.ly/3OOlj4A

Fifty years ago in 1972, as spring faded and summer arrived in late June, America (and the world) was a vastly different place.

The United States was still entangled in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of individuals still marched on city streets and on university campuses demanding an end to the bloodshed that would ultimately claim the lives of over 58,000 American soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese.

On May 15, Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace was shot (and paralyzed) by Arthur Bremer in a parking lot in Laurel, Maryland. Within 2 weeks, there would be two failed break-ins at the Watergate complex in Virginia, a crime that led to the downfall and resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.

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Happy 25th Anniversary to the Supreme Court Decision That Shaped the Internet We Have Today

Posted on June 29, 2022Updated: June 29, 2022

June 26, Jared Schroeder, associate professor of journalism at SMU Dallas and a specialist in Frist Amendment issues and co-author Jeff Kosseff, for an op-ed underscoring the impact 25 years ago when a Supreme Court ruling, Reno vs. ACLU, helped shape the Internet as we now know it. Published in Slate under the heading Happy 25th Anniversary to the Supreme Court Decision That Shaped the Internet We Have Today: https://bit.ly/3bzLiyb

Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court told the government to keep its hands off the internet. Today, the internet is vastly different—and far more central to everyday life—than it was on June 26, 1997, but the court’s reasoning in Reno v. ACLU is more important than ever.

At the heart of the case was a massive overhaul of U.S. telecommunications laws that President Bill Clinton signed on Feb. 8, 1996. While much of the law involved local telephone competition, broadcast ownership, and cable television, one section—the Communications Decency Act—tried to prevent minors from accessing obscene and indecent material on the nascent internet.

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Texas deepfake law unlikely to survive scrutiny of the courts

Posted on September 25, 2019

Sept. 13, Jared Schroeder, SMU journalism professor specializing in Freedom of the Press issues, applauds the Texas “deepfake” laws but wonders if they will survive the scrutiny of the courts. Published in the Texas Tribune: http://bit.ly/2lGewSj

Texas this month became the first state to criminalize deepfakes — the practice of making it appear people said or did something they did not actually say or do with manipulated video or digital information. What concerns Texas lawmakers are deepfake videos, and especially those used for political purposes.

It’s a shame such good intentions, designed to thwart an emerging threat to democracy, are likely to be struck down by the courts. Without such a law, partisans can use artificial intelligence to create such convincing deepfake videos we literally will not be able to believe our own eyes.

While text can easily be used to mislead, video clips tend to be more believable. It puts the viewer in the moment. If politically motivated deepfakes become commonplace, our trust in information we encounter will falter. We simply will not know if what we are seeing happened or not. Truth could become whatever the deepfake puppeteers want it to be. . .

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