They Are Still Teachers

LESLIE C. GRIFFIN

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin comments on the oral argument the U.S. Supreme Court heard on Monday in the combined cases of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel, which bring before the Court the question of the ministerial exception. Griffin explains that the ministerial exception is an affirmative defense that keeps the facts of a case from ever going to a judge or a jury and argues that a broad construction of the exception—as advocated by the religious employers in those cases—would be devastating to the careers of thousands of Americans teaching our children and caring for our sick in religious organizations across the country.

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When the Paranoid President Meets the Supreme Court

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on Tuesday’s oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Vance, which raises the question of whether the President should be able to shield his tax and financial records from a congressional subpoena. Sarat urges that the Court see through the grandiosity and paranoia of the President’s legal claims, arguing that the future of a government of limited powers and the rule of law hangs in the balance.

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Linking COVID-19 Relief for State Governments to Abandonment of “Sanctuary” Policies? The Uncharted Territory of Conditional Spending

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR, JASON MAZZONE

Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone assess President Trump’s suggestion that federal aid to state and local governments might be conditioned on their willingness to abandon their “sanctuary” policies and assist the federal government in immigration enforcement. Although Amar and Mazzone expect those federal spending conditions not to be realized, they use the President’s comment to list and describe some unanswered fundamental constitutional questions in the conditional spending arena.

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Freeman v. Wainwright

Docket: 18-3913

Opinion Date: May 12, 2020

Judge: Nalbandian

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Freeman pleaded guilty to felony murder in 2001. An Ohio trial court sentenced Freeman to 15 years to life imprisonment, followed by post-release control for the maximum period allowable. Freeman failed to appeal. After four unsuccessful motions to withdraw his guilty plea, Freeman collaterally moved in state court to vacate his conviction and sentence in 2015. He argued the sentencing court’s imposition of post-release control was “contrary to law” and that his felony murder conviction was improper because there was no evidence he committed an underlying violent felony. The state appeals court granted Freeman relief in part, agreeing that Ohio law does not provide for post-release control for felony murder and stating that “a sentencing entry that incorrectly imposes postrelease control does not render the entire sentence void. Only that portion of the judgment that improperly imposes postrelease control is void.” On remand, in 2017, the trial court “vacated and replaced, nunc pro tunc” the journal entry from Freeman’s original sentencing, leaving intact its original sentencing journal entry except for the single sentence discussing post-release control. Freeman then filed a 28 U.S.C 2254 petition, challenging his conviction. The district court dismissed Freeman’s petition as time-barred. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. A limited resentencing that results in a better-than-before sentence does not constitute a new “judgment” under 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1)(A), which imposes a one-year limitations period for habeas petitions.