Naomi Zimmermann
Notable Supreme Court Cases in the 2000s
Bush v Gore - 2000
Lawrence v Texas - 2003
Hamdi v Rumsfeld - 2004
The election of 2000 resulted in the Supreme Court case Bush v Gore. Florida was decisive in the election as whichever candidate won the state would receive enough electoral votes to become president. There were suspected issues with the count of votes as there hadn’t been uniform counting standards across counties, which resulted in the a recount after the first count declared that Bush had won the state and the election along with it. The Bush administration filed a lawsuit to stop the lawsuit, and the Supreme Court, headed by justice Rehnquist, took the case. The supreme court ruled that the recount had to stop and established that federal power was supreme to states rights as it ruled against the Florida Supreme Court(which had ruled to allow for the recount). They ruled that the recount was a violation of due process. Ultimately, Bush v Gore was one of the most judicial activist cases in American history, which is even more notable as Rehnquist was traditionally more inclined towards judicial restraint.
In Lawrence v Texas in 2003, the justices nullified a Texas law which established that homosexuality was a crime. John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested after Houston police caught them engaging in a consensual sexual act as buttressed by a Texas law which forbade same sex sexual intercourse. The Texas state SC affirmed the constitutionality as they ruled that the law was constitutional under the due process clause of the 14th amendment. The SC however ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Texas law was a violation of the due process clause of the 14th amendment, making the law unconstitutional. Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision that citizens rights as guaranteed by the due process clause given them the freedom to private and sexual matters without government intervention. This was a liberal view from an interpretation of the constitution that reflected the current social situation in the United States.
Hamdi v Rumsfeld in 2004 affirmed United States and captive rights. Yasir Hamdi was an American citizen who moved to Saudi Arabia and was later captured by US forces in Afghanistan during US Afghan War. He was declared an “enemy combatant” by the military after he was detained for fighting for the Taliban. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay and then a military prison to Virginia without being granted a trial or lawyer and after being held indefinitely. His father filed a lawsuit claiming that Hamdi had been deprived of his rights as he hadn’t been granted due process as guaranteed by the 5th Amendment. The Bush Administration claimed that they had the right to imprison Hamdi without a hearing or lawyer and claimed in court that Hamdi was too dangerous as an “enemy combatant” and therefore could be deprived of his due process laws. The supreme court decision affirmed that the US government has the right to detain enemy combatants, but that they were guaranteed the fifth amendment right of due process. In the end, Hamdi was returned to Saudi Arabia and his US citizenship was revoked.
Sources:
Chapter 28 of Give Me Liberty
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