Justices reject bid by detained asylum seekers
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from detained immigrant mothers and their children who claim they will be persecuted if they are returned to their Latin American homelands.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that said the families did not have a right to contest their deportation in federal court.
The 28 mothers and their 33 children were arrested in Texas soon after crossing the border illegally, and immigration officials rejected their asylum claims. The immigrants came from Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador.
They argued they were entitled to a hearing before an independent federal judge.
Floating home appeal denied
By Curt Anderson
AP Legal Affairs Writer
MIAMI (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Florida man's latest appeal in a landmark case involving the seizure and destruction of his floating home.
The justices denied without comment Fane Lozman's petition asking them to enforce their 2013 ruling by ordering the city of Riviera Beach to pay him about $365,000 for the home's value and legal fees. Lower courts also ruled against Lozman, and this was his last appeal.
"I am disappointed that the lower courts were allowed to ignore the clear ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in my case without any corrective action being imposed," Lozman said in an email. "Equal justice under law, engraved above the entrance to the Supreme Court, unfortunately, did not happen this time around."
The 2013 ruling set a new standard for floating homes and other structures. It meant strict federal maritime law could no longer be applied to disputes involving floating structures that have no traditional characteristics of a vessel, such as an engine, rudder or sails. The decision affected thousands of floating homes and business owners across the U.S., including floating gambling casinos docked on rivers.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the court's 7-2 majority, said the decision comes down to a simple proposition: "Not every floating structure is a vessel."
"To state the obvious, a wooden washtub, a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, a large fishing net, a door taken off its hinges, or Pinocchio (when inside the whale) are not 'vessels,'" Breyer wrote.
The dispute began after Lozman took up residence at a Riviera Beach marina in 2006. He became involved in a public battle with the city over its plans to turn the marina over to a developer, eventually leading to the seizure and destruction in 2010 of his floating home under maritime law.
Riviera Beach argued that it shouldn't be forced to pay Lozman because it was acting in good faith under the applicable law at the time, before the Supreme Court decision.
Now Lozman will focus on building a floating stilt home community on 25 acres (10 hectares) of mostly submerged land he purchased along the Intracoastal Waterway north of West Palm Beach - and not far from President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
"My noble fight to continue to fight political corruption in Palm Beach County will continue," Lozman said in the email.
Court spares Arkansas inmate from execution
By Andrew DeMillo and Sean Murphy
Associated Press
VARNER, Ark. (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court spared the life of an Arkansas inmate minutes before his death warrant was set to expire Monday, scuttling efforts to resume capital punishment after nearly 12 years in a state with an aggressive plan to carry out four double executions before its supply of a lethal injection drug expires.
The court's decision was the second time Don Davis had been granted a reprieve shortly before execution - he was within hours of death in 2010. It capped a chaotic day of legal wrangling in state and federal courts to clear the primary obstacles Arkansas faced to carrying out its first executions since 2005.
Davis had been served a last meal of fried chicken, rolls, beans, mashed potatoes and strawberry cake hours earlier, and witnesses were being moved toward the execution chamber when the Supreme Court ruled. The state was rushing to win approval to execute Davis before his death warrant expired at midnight.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who had set the schedule of multiple executions, said the state would continue to push for the other lethal injections to be carried out. Two inmates are set to be put to death on Thursday.
"While this has been an exhausting day for all involved, tomorrow we will continue to fight back on last minute appeals and efforts to block justice for the victims' families," Hutchinson said in a statement.
Davis was sentenced to death for the 1990 death of Jane Daniel in Rogers, Arkansas. The woman was killed in her home after Davis broke in and shot her with a .44-caliber revolver he found there.
"It is heartbreaking that the family of Jane Daniel has once again seen justice delayed," Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement. "Davis was convicted of his crimes in 1992."
The high court's order offered no explanation, but none of the justices voted in favor of lifting the stay. Monday marked the first day that the U.S. Supreme Court was in session with new Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench.
The legal fighting had centered on a series of planned lethal injections that, if carried out, would mark the most inmates put to death by a state in such a short period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state scheduled the executions to take place before its supply of midazolam, a lethal injection drug, expires at the end of April. State and federal court rulings have stayed executions for two other inmates, and the state has yet to appeal those decisions.
Davis and Bruce Ward were originally set to be executed Monday night and had been granted stays by the state Supreme Court earlier that day. The state appealed the stay for Davis but decided not to challenge the stay for Ward. Attorneys had asked for the stay while the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a separate case concerning inmates' access to independent mental health experts.
"The Arkansas Supreme Court recognized that executing either man, before the Court answers this question...would be profoundly arbitrary and unjust," Scott Braden, an assistant federal public defender for the inmates, said earlier Monday
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling came hours after the state had cleared two of the main obstacles to resuming executions. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge's ruling blocking the executions over the use of midazolam, a sedative used in flawed executions in other states. The state Supreme Court also lifted a lower court ruling preventing the state from using another lethal injection drug that a supplier said was sold to be used for medical purposes, not executions.
Davis' execution would have come two years after Arkansas enacted a measure making secret the source of its lethal injection drugs, a move officials said was necessary to find new supplies. Despite the secrecy measure, prison officials have said it will be very difficult to find a supplier willing to sell Arkansas midazolam after its current stock expires.
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DeMillo reported from Little Rock. Associated Press writers Jill Bleed in Little Rock and Kelly P. Kissel in Varner contributed to this report.
Published: Wed, Apr 19, 2017
