Docket chockfull for new Supreme Court term

By Karyn Chenoweth Oct 1, 2007, 11:38 GMT

The U.S. Supreme Court REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The new term begins Monday for the U.S. Supreme court justices, who will consider the fundamental issue of who is allowed to vote just in time for 2008's presidential elections.

Their docket also includes a question over the constitutionality of lethal injections and a test of a strict gun law, which could lead to a clarification of the Second Amendment.

The Justices will hear a challenge to an Indiana law imposed two years ago that requires voters to show photo IDs at the polls.

Steve Carter, the state's attorney general, said the law is important to prevent cheating.

"Voter fraud is a problem of disturbing prevalence around the country," he said.
William Groth, a lawyer for the Indiana Democrats, counters that there has never been a reported case of voting fraud in the state.

Critics have claimed the hidden purpose of the law is to suppress voting by minorities, the poor and the elderly.

Only half of the states in the USA require voters to produce some form of identification.

The Supreme Court docket contains a challenge to the continued incarceration of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.  They seek the chance to oppose their detentions in federal court.

Washington, D.C. officials have urged that the justices uphold the city's ban on handguns.  City officials said the restriction is essential to fighting crime.

"What we ban is a weapon that is uniquely dangerous, that is easily concealed and that is disproportionately used in crime," said Linda Singer, Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

A federal appeals court earlier this year declared the ban a violation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The law was challenged by a Washington, D.C., resident who claimed the Constitution gives him a right to own a handgun for self-defense.

"I had a house broken into once, and things happen," said Rich Heller, the man who filed the lawsuit. "You want to protect yourself if you need to."

The Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on if the amendment protects an individual's right to own a gun or if it only protects a right of state militias to resist being disarmed by the national government.

The Supreme Court has also agreed to review a specific method for carrying out the death penalty.

Two inmates on Kentucky's death row challenged the system for lethal injections, with the administered sequence of three injections, first a pain killer, then a paralyzing agent, and finally a drug to stop the heart. The same system is used in all but one of the nation's 38 death-penalty states.

Opponents have said the system is rife with botched attempts that were deemed cruel.

"This is a procedure that we don't use to put our pets to sleep in this country because of the high risk of excruciating pain," said Steve Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Reportedly 3,000 inmates on death row are challenging lethal injections, the court's decision to accept the case for review may end up halting nearly all executions nationwide until the case is decided.

The Supreme Court will also decide and determine if investors can sue companies that play a minor role in a fraudulent scheme.

"This is securities law's Roe v. Wade," said David Langevoort, a professor at Georgetown University's law school.

Federal law allows an investor to sue firms that provide misleading information about their financial condition. This case should clarify if that liability extends to other companies that become involved in fraudulent activity but do not provide misleading information to investors.