Supreme Court Notebook

Court sidesteps Connecticut student speech case WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court is refusing to disturb a court ruling that Connecticut school officials acted reasonably in disciplining a student for an Internet posting she wrote outside of school. The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Avery Doninger, who was a high school junior in Burlington, Conn., when she took to the Internet to criticize administrators for canceling a popular school activity. Doninger sued school officials after they punished her by preventing her from serving as class secretary as a senior. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York sided with the school officials. High court reinstates 'shaken baby' conviction WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has again reinstated the conviction of a California woman for shaking her 7-week-old grandson to death, a final ruling that ends a protracted dispute with the federal appeals court in San Francisco. The justices voted 6-3 Monday to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Shirley Ree Smith. The appeals court had three times set aside Smith's conviction, saying the case likely was "a miscarriage of justice." The appeals court said there was "no demonstrable support" for the prosecution's theory of the case. But the high court said that even though doubts about Smith's guilt are "understandable," the appeals court should have deferred to state courts that upheld Smith's conviction. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, said the court should have passed up the chance to "teach the 9th Circuit a lesson" in a tragic case. "What is now known about shaken baby syndrome casts grave doubt on the charge leveled against Smith; and uncontradicted evidence shows that she poses no danger whatever to her family or anyone else in society," Ginsburg said. Smith was convicted in December 1997 and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. After California appeals courts ruled against Smith, the federal appeals court first overturned the conviction in 2006. The judges rejected the prosecution's theory of the case, which included the assertion that Smith lost her temper when Etzel Dean Glass III began to cry and shook him to death. Monday's unsigned majority opinion chided the appeals court for persisting in its views despite two earlier Supreme Court orders to review the case. "It is not the job of this court, and was not that of the 9th Circuit, to decide whether the state's theory was correct. The jury decided that question, and its decision is supported by the record," the court said. High court avoids dispute over highway crosses WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal of a ruling that 12-foot-high crosses along Utah highways in honor of dead state troopers violate the Constitution. The justices voted 8-1 Monday to reject an appeal from Utah and a state troopers' group that wanted the court to throw out the ruling and take a more permissive view of religious symbols on public land. Since 1998, the private Utah Highway Patrol Association has paid for and erected more than a dozen memorial crosses, most of them on state land. Texas-based American Atheists Inc. and three of its Utah members sued the state in 2005. The federal appeals court in Denver said the crosses were an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity by the Utah state government. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a 19-page opinion dissenting from Monday's order. Thomas said the case offered the court the opportunity to clear up confusion over its approach to disputes over the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the prohibition against governmental endorsement of religion. "Today the court rejects an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles," Thomas said. Previous high court cases have made it difficult for lower courts to figure out what to do in this area and "rendered the constitutionality of displays of religious imagery on government property anyone's guess," he said. Thomas referred specifically to a pair of 2005 cases about the Ten Commandments. On the same day, the court upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol in Austin and declared unconstitutional a display in the McCreary County courthouse in Kentucky. High court rules against Mississippi NAACP WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court won't get involved in a fight over redistricting in Mississippi. The court affirmed on Monday a lower court ruling allowing state lawmakers to run in their current districts this year. The justices rejected an appeal from the Mississippi NAACP. The Mississippi legislature did not pass a redistricting plan this year. The 122 Mississippi House districts and 52 Senate districts are updated after every census to reflect population changes and to uphold the constitutional principle of one person, one vote. When redistricting failed, the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued. But a three-judge federal panel said the state either had to immediately redraw the lines or let lawmakers run in their current districts in 2011. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens defends Justice Thomas BOSTON -- Retired Justice John Paul Stevens defended his former Supreme Court colleague Justice Clarence Thomas, who is under fire from some members of Congress who want Thomas investigated on conflict-of-interest charges. Some lawmakers have called on Thomas to recuse himself from the health care constitutional challenge, and some have also asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Thomas violated ethics rules when he failed to disclose his wife's income from conservative and Tea Party- related organizations on his financial disclosures. But Stevens said he does not believe Thomas's wife's activities nor the financial disclosure omissions have any effect on the way Thomas deliberates. "I ... don't think there's a chance in the world that it will affect his vote," Stevens told USA Today's Joan Biskupic. "That is one vote that you really can predict." But Stevens also said of the Thomases: "You can't help but wish that they had a lower profile." Published: Tue, Nov 1, 2011