Supreme Court Rules 5-4 on DNA Evidence and Age Bias

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered a conservative-leaning swing vote in two 5-4 decisions this morning. In District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, the Court ruled 5-4 that criminal defendants have no federal constitutional right of postconviction access to DNA evidence. In the other 5-4 of the day, Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., the Court said plaintiffs in "mixed motive" Age Discrimination in Employment Act cases must prove that age was the "but for" cause of the employer's action. The Court also said that its precedents in Title VII cases don't automatically inform its rulings on similar issues raised under the ADEA. In both cases, the majority included Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito Jr., along  with Kennedy.

Those were not the only rulings on a busy late-term decision day. In Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Bailey, the Court ruled 7-2 that a 2004 settlement resolving asbestos-related claims against insurers of the Johns-Manville Corporation precludes further actions against those insurance companies. And in an Enron-related appeal Yeager v. United States, the Court ruled 6-3 that the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a second prosecution of a defendant on charges on which a previous jury had deadlocked, when that jury also acquitted the defendant on related charges. 

Cherk back here later for more on today's Supreme Court action.

Comments

[John V. Siskopoulos, Esq.]

In the DNA case the defendant should have brought this forth as a habeas proceeding-perhaps the result would have been different here. The funniest thing about this opinion is Justice Alito goes very much out of his way to discount DNA evidence. For every man that has been a subject of a paternity proceeding, I suggest you call Justice Alito as a witness on your behalf.

[Mel Ellington]

Re the age discrimination case, I agree with majority that it should be the employee’s burden of proving that “but for” the age discrimination he would have not been reassigned. As a 59 year old (non-lawyer/layman) unemployed person who is seeking employment, that might put me at a disadvantage in securing employment, but I think it’s fair and reasonable.
Re the DNA case, in my opinion it is essentially a matter of substantive due process. The SCT seems to be saying that the government’s procedural due process trumps the individual’s substantive due process. However, the government doesn’t stand to lose much here, whereas the individual stands to lose a great deal, and in some cases the life of the individual could be lost if denied a DNA test. Justice must be the touchstone in such serious life and death cases, and the SCT failed to do that.

[Kobwan]

Now that the supreme court conservative justices have denied convicts the right to DNA, it will only take having conservative majorities in state legislatures to repeal state laws that allow such testing. Why? Because it costs the states money to compensate the wrongly convicted. This supreme ruling is a big step backward for justice. The supreme court justices talked about fairly tried and convicted. Ronald Cotton was "fairly" tried and convicted. If there had been no posted conviction test, he would never have got out of jail. Many of those who have been exonerated by DNA in the past were apparently "fairly" tried and convicted even though they were innocent of the crimes.