美国国家公共电台 NPR Supreme Court To Open A Whirlwind Term

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The U.S. Supreme 1 Court starts a new term today with some major cases on a raft of controversial issues - partisan 2 gerrymandering, privacy in the age of technology, sports wagering 3, gay rights and many more cases. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg has this preview.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE 4: If last year was a term so dry of interesting cases that it looked like a desert, this term already looks like a tropical rainforest. And the justices are only half way to filling up their docket. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it in a speech at Georgetown University, there's only one safe prediction about the coming term.

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RUTH BADER GINSBURG: It will be momentous 5.

TOTENBERG: It will be the first full term with the court's newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, on the bench. It will also be a term undoubtedly 6 marked by increasing speculation 7 about Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement 8 plans. In many of the most hotly contested cases that reach the court these days, Kennedy's vote determines the outcome because the court is so closely and ideologically 9 divided. Were the 81-year-old justice to retire, giving President Trump 10 the chance to appoint a second hardcore conservative, the court would swing dramatically to the right.

For now, though, let's focus on the biggest cases on the docket so far. The Trump travel ban had been scheduled for arguments October 10. But the justices canceled those arguments after a new Trump travel ban was issued just a week ago. And the court is widely expected to declare the issues presented in the previous ban moot 11, at least for now. Perhaps the highest visibility case before the court involves the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo. In 2012, a same-sex couple went to the bakery to order a wedding cake for their upcoming reception. The owner of the shop, Jack 12 Phillips, told them that he was perfectly 13 willing to sell them a cake off the shelf. But he would not create a cake for their wedding.

He said he had a general policy based on his religious conviction against same-sex marriage. The bridegroom's filed a discrimination claim with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, charging that Phillips had violated the state public accommodations law, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation 14. The commission ruled in their favor, as did the state Supreme Court. And Phillips appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the case later this fall. Phillips's main argument is that, as a cake creator, he has a First Amendment 15 right of artistic 16 expression to refuse to use his talents in support of gay marriage.

On the other side, the couple says that Phillips's arguments are a pretext 17 for discrimination. They point to cases back to the 1960s involving similar small vendors 18, like a chain of barbecue places in South Carolina which refused to serve African-Americans based on the owner's stated religious opposition 19 to mixing races. In that case, too, the owner claimed a sort of artistic bent 20 through his special barbecue recipe. Former Solicitor 21 General Gregory Garre says he thinks that Phillips and his lawyers have done an effective job of converting a gay marriage case into a test of free speech.

GREGORY GARRE: But on the other side is a very exceptionally compelling narrative 22 of, you know, our history as a society, the public accommodations law - I mean, sort of the crown jewels of the Supreme Court's civil rights decisions.

TOTENBERG: The big political case of the term so far is a case testing whether extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional and whether, regardless of how partisan a gerrymander may be, the court should get into the issue at all. That case from Wisconsin is being argued tomorrow. Later this fall, the justices will hear the privacy versus 23 technology case. It tests whether law enforcement authorities have to get a search warrant in order to obtain information gathered by cellphone towers like the general location information in this case, which led to the apprehension 24 and conviction of a large burglary ring. The police in the case obtained the information using cell tower siting information from cellphone service providers. George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen notes that this case, for the first time, forces the court to confront whether law enforcement can track someone's movements in public for months on end.

JEFFREY ROSEN: And the answer to that question will determine whether tiny drones can fly in the air and follow us from door to door and reconstruct our movements for a month, whether other forms of ubiquitous surveillance are permissible 25.

TOTENBERG: On the other hand, as University of Chicago professor Aziz Huq observes...

AZIZ HUQ: It is extremely unappetizing from the court's perspective to imagine a world in which the government needs probable cause every time it obtains any kind of data about a person from a third party.

TOTENBERG: And, finally, there's a case that tests whether the federal law that bans sports betting commandeers state resources unconstitutionally to enforce a federal mandate 26. The case is from New Jersey 27, which wants to repeal 28 its ban on sports betting but can't under the federal law. On one side is Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey - and on the other, every major sports league in existence. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

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