Supreme Court decisions that shape federalism

Criminal Justice

Supreme Court Decisions That Shape Federalism

Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the United States Attorney General could not enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against doctors who prescribed drugs, in conformity with Oregon state law, for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill. In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's judgment, but used different ways of thinking. The majority opinion did not dispute the authority of the federal government to control drugs, but opposed that the statute in place authorized the U.S. Attorney General to override state laws shaping what comprised the suitable utilization of medications that were not themselves banned. The court found that it was unsuitable to apply Chevron respect toward the Attorney General's interpretive rule that controlled substances could not medically be utilized for the reason of physician-assisted suicide.

Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, argued that under the Supreme Court model regard was due to the Attorney General's understanding of the statute. Scalia said that if the expression legitimate medical purpose' had any meaning, it certainly excluded the prescription of drugs to generate death. Justice Thomas also filed a brief dissent in which he argued that the court's majority opinion was not in agreement with the reasoning in Gonzales v. Raich. Thomas argued for a more partial congressional power under the Commerce Clause in Raich, which centered on intrastate vs. inter-state commerce. In Oregon, by contrast, the case was as an alternative a matter of the soundness of an executive understanding of that statute. On the other hand, given that the majority in Raich was willing to take no notice of federalism concerns to successfully nullify a California law allowing intrastate ownership of medical marijuana, it was uncertain as to why those same federalism concerns ought to now be the foundation for upholding an Oregon assisted suicide statute.

Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States concerning Congress's enforcement powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs were disabled Tennesseans who could not access the upper floors in state courthouses. They sued in Federal Court, arguing that since Tennessee was disallowing them public services for the reason that their disabilities, it was infringing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Tennessee argued that the Eleventh Amendment banned the suit, and filed a motion to dismiss the case. It relied chiefly on Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett (2001), in which the Supreme Court held that Congress had, in endorsing certain provisions of the ADA, unconstitutionally repealed the supreme immunity of the States by letting people sue the States for discrimination on the foundation of disability. Garrett had held that Congress had not met the congruent-and-proportional test, in that it had not collected enough proof of discrimination on the basis of disability to give good reason for the repeal of sovereign immunity.