Latest Case: Vega v. Semple (Civil Rights)

Stay the Course: The Supreme Court Respects Abortion Rights Precedent

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June Medical Services v. Russo, in which a 5-4 majority of the Court struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion providers. Grossman describes the history of abortion decisions that got us to this place today and explains why the core right to seek a previability abortion without undue burden from the government remains intact.

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What Chief Justice Roberts’s June Medical Concurrence Tells Us About the Future of Abortion

JAREB GLECKEL

Jareb Gleckel assesses what Chief Justice John Roberts’s concurrence in the June Medical decision might tell us about the future of abortion in the United States. Gleckel suggests that the concurrence suggests that the Chief Justice will not vote to overrule Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey but cautions that the test the Chief Justice embraces could provide a roadmap for anti-abortion states going forward.

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Vega v. Semple

Docket: 18-3176

Opinion Date: June 29, 2020

Judge: Jose A. Cabranes

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

Plaintiffs, current and former inmates of the DOC incarcerated within Garner Correctional Institution, filed a putative class action alleging that they were exposed involuntarily to indoor radon gas, a recognized human carcinogen, far in excess of any published safe level while incarcerated at Garner. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment to the extent that it determined that defendants violated clearly established law as of the date of the Supreme Court's decision in Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 29 (1993). In Helling, the Supreme Court held that an inmate can state a claim under the Eighth Amendment by alleging that prison officials have, with deliberate indifference, exposed him to levels of environmental tobacco smoke that pose an unreasonable risk of serious damage to his future health. Therefore, as of the date of the Supreme Court's decision in Helling, the court held that reasonable officials would recognize that a failure to take any reasonable steps to abate the risk of excessive radon exposure, of which risk they were actually aware, would constitute deliberate indifference to a serious medical need that violated inmates' clearly established Eighth Amendment rights. The court affirmed in part to the extent that the judgment denied defendants' motions to dismiss plaintiffs' federal claims for injunctive and declaratory relief; reversed in part to the extent that the judgment denied defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiffs' state-law claims for prospective relief against the official-capacity defendants; and remanded for further proceedings.