Criminal Justice at the Supreme Court

Today is a big day for criminal justice and the rights of defendants at the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices will hear oral arguments in three criminal justice cases. Here are summaries from the SCOTUS blog:

• Chambers v. United States (06-11206), on whether failure to report to prison is a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminals Act.
• United States v. Hayes (07-608), on whether federal gun laws require a domestic relationship between an attacker and victim to qualify as a misdemeanor crime of “domestic violence.”
• Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (07-591), on whether the Confrontation Clause gives criminal defendants a right to cross-examine forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports for use in their prosecution.

Doug Berman at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog points to Hayes as one of the term's biggest sleepers. While the case seems to be a minor statutory clarification, Berman writes that it raises some tricky 2nd Amendment questions. Now that the Court has ruled in Heller that individuals have a right to possess a gun, does this mean other laws restricting gun ownership are unconstitutional as well, including the domestic violence law in Hayes case?

I have had my eye on Hayes as a potentially important Second Amendment case even since cert was granted back in March.  Of course, the subsequent Heller ruling finding an individual right to firearms in the home for self-protection added to the potential importance of Hayes.

And Melendez-Diaz is on the radar of the Innocence Project (my employer when I'm not blogging here) and other groups concerned with forensic science in the courtroom. The Innocence Network (which includes the Innocence Project and more than 30 affiliated organizations) filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that the right to challenge forensic evidence is critical to preventing wrongful convictions.