LATE CHIEF JUSTICE HAILED BY CRIME VICTIM ADVOCATES
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist is being hailed as a great
jurist by the advocates for victims of crime. "No judge in American
history has done more for the safety of ordinary people than Chief Justice
Rehnquist," said Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director of the Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California. "A great many people have
not been murdered, not been raped, and not been robbed because of his
decisions and leadership on the Supreme Court. We will never know how
many people or which ones, but they are very real nonetheless."
Under the leadership of Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court
did not overrule any of the major decisions expanding the rights of
criminal suspects and defendants. In 2000, the Chief Justice himself
wrote the opinion in Dickerson v. United States, which
reaffirmed the Miranda rule and declared unconstitutional Congress's
attempt to abrogate it. However, the Rehnquist Court pruned back the
more extreme extensions of these rules and struck a better balance with
the needs of public safety.
Important criminal law decisions by Chief Justice Rehnquist include:
- Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe
(2003): Upholding Megan's Law, allowing public access via the Internet
to information on registered sex offenders. The U. S. Court of Appeals
in New York had declared Megan's Law unconstitutional.
- Estelle v. McGuire (1991): Upholding the use in
evidence of a pattern of prior injuries to an abused child, known
as Battered Child Syndrome, to show that the child was the victim
of repeated abuse, not an accident. The U. S. Court of Appeals in
San Francisco had overturned the conviction of a man who beat to death
his 6-month-old daughter.
- United States v. Knights (2001): Upholding searches
of convicted criminals on probation, based on reasonable suspicion
they are involved in new criminal activity. Knights was engaged in
sabotaging public utility facilities, and the police discovered bomb-making
materials in a search conducted pursuant to his conditions of probation.
The U. S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco had suppressed the materials
as evidence.
- Felker v. Turpin (1996): Upholding the limits
on repeated appeals enacted by Congress in the wake of the Oklahoma
City bombing.
- Payne v. Tennessee (1991): Upholding the use of
victim impact testimony in the penalty phase of capital cases, overruling
a 1987 decision. From 1987 to 1991, the convicted murderer had a constitutional
right to tell his own story, while the victim's family was banned
from explaining the full impact of the crime.
- Michigan v. Harvey (1990): Allowing a voluntary
statement made without a lawyer present to be used to refute the testimony
of a defendant who later takes the stand and tells a different story.
- United States v. Salerno (1987): Upholding the
Bail Reform Act of 1984, allowing bail to be denied to particularly
dangerous defendants. The U. S. Court of Appeals in New York had declared
the Act unconstitutional in the case of a Mafia boss detained without
bail.
- New York v. Quarles (1984): Allowing police to
question an arrested suspect to avert an imminent danger to public
safety (in this case, a loose, loaded gun) notwithstanding the Miranda
rule.
- California v. Ramos (1982): Upholding California's
death penalty law, after the California Supreme Court had declared
a part of it unconstitutional.
CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger is available
for comment at (916) 446-0345.
Foundation arguments helped win seven United States
Supreme Court decisions benefitting law enforcement and public safety
during the 2004-05 term.
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