The US Supreme Court begins its next term today, and as noted in the San Francisco Chronicle, will consider some contraversial issues this term.

The most contraversial will probably be a review of an appeal against the Federal Partial Birth Ban Abortion Act of 2003. This is similar to a similar Nebraska State law that was previously ruled unconstitutional. However, as pointed out by a number of commentators, this occurred before last year's changes to the court membership, and accepting the appeal quite possibly indicates that the justices are ready to roll it back.

As I have stated previously, I oppose the original Roe vs. Wade decision, not because it made abortion legal, but simply because the justices went way too far and legislated. The decision whether to legalise abortion rightly belongs with the legislature, not the courts.

A case that could affect thousands of prison sentences in California has a convicted child molestor challenging the state's sentencing laws that allow the judge to pick the stiffest of three possible sentences based on facts that were never presented to a jury. I suspect that there is a reasonable chance that this could be overturned, as the Court has previously found in Apprendi vs. New Jersey, Ring vs. Arizona and Blakley vs. Washington, all decided within the last 6 years, that the Sixth Ammendment prohibits a judge extending criminal sentences based on facts other than those found by a jury beyond reasonable doubt. It seems very likely that exactly the same principle applies here, and so I suspect that the relevant section of California's sentencing laws will be overturned.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 6:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)