Word: souter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...decision that brought home the importance of substituting Justice David Souter for the liberal William Brennan, the court ruled that the introduction of a coerced confession at trial may be considered a "harmless error." That undoes part of a 1967 decision in which the Justices ruled that when such confessions are introduced as evidence, any guilty verdict that follows must be reversed automatically on appeal. As a result of last week's decision, what was once taboo will henceforth be merely a technicality...
...ruling was as unsettling as its substance. It came when the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles cops has focused national attention on police brutality. But the decision had a deeper importance for the larger direction of the court. It was the clearest signal yet that Souter has given court conservatives a reliable majority in cases involving the rights of criminal defendants. Says University of Chicago law professor Philip Kurland: "They've finally got enough votes...
Even so, not all the court's conservative members could agree on every aspect of the case. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for a majority that included Souter, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, argued that introducing an involuntary confession at trial was merely a procedural error. He distinguished such "harmless errors" from "structural defects" such as a biased judge or a denial of the defendant's right to an attorney. Unfair practices of that magnitude, he said, would still trigger an automatic reversal on appeal...
...criminal cases. Among them: Florida v. Bostick, in which the Justices will rule on whether narcotics agents can board a bus and randomly search and question passengers. It is the kind of case that probably would have spurred Brennan's customary defense against unreasonable searches. But Brennan is retired; Souter is in his place; and the long-predicted new era on the court has plainly begun...
...bias in Johnson Controls' policy is obvious," he wrote. "Fertile men, but not fertile women, are given a choice as to whether they wish to risk their reproductive health for a particular job." Blackmun was supported by Justices Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens and David Souter, who as the newest member of the court was weighing in with his first significant vote on a women's rights issue...