By November, the Court accepted yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act—the signature legislative achievement of the Obama administration. In a matter of weeks, the justices heard arguments concerning pregnancy discrimination in the workplace and the First Amendment implications of threats made on Facebook.
In January, they decided to take up a challenge to gay marriage, and for good measure, also agreed to hear a case regarding Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol.
“The term went from being one of the more uneventful terms in recent years to potentially one of the biggest ones in a generation” says Supreme Court expert Amy Howe who is the Editor of Scotusblog.com.
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Gay marriage: Sometime in late April, the Court will take up whether states can ban gay marriage. Attorney General Eric Holder has vowed to file a brief and urge the justices “to make marriage equality a reality for all Americans.” The justices will be reviewing the only recent appellate court decision that upheld state bans. The lower court said in part that the decision should be left to the democratic process. “The people don’t get to decide what the Constitution safeguards,” says Jon W. Davidson Legal Director of Lambda Legal, “They don’t get to vote to violate the Constitution.”
Lethal injection: Three inmates are challenging Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol, after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett last April. At issue is the first drug—midazolam– used in the three drug protocol that critics say violates the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers for the inmates say the drug fails to maintain unconsciousness. In 2008, the Supreme Court found that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol was constitutional, but since then states have struggled to obtain drugs and frequently changed their protocols.
