Favorable Court Rulings From Privacy Of Cell Phone Data To Marriage Equality

It has been a good week in terms of judicial opinions. Following the decision I reported on yesterday that the current no-fly list procedure is unconstitutional, there was an even bigger decision regarding civil liberties as well as two decisions regarding same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police cannot search the contents of cellphones without a warrant:

In a sweeping victory for privacy rights in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that the police need warrants to search the cellphones of people they arrest.

While the decision will offer protection to the 12 million people arrested every year, many for minor crimes, its impact will most likely be much broader. The ruling almost certainly also applies to searches of tablet and laptop computers, and its reasoning may apply to searches of homes and businesses and of information held by third parties like phone companies.

“This is a bold opinion,” said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University. “It is the first computer-search case, and it says we are in a new digital age. You can’t apply the old rules anymore.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was keenly alert to the central role that cellphones play in contemporary life. They are, he said, “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.”

But he added that old principles required that their contents be protected from routine searches. One of the driving forces behind the American Revolution, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, was revulsion against “general warrants,” which “allowed British officers to rummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity.”

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand,” the chief justice also wrote, “does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the founders fought.”

A federal judge in Indiana ruled that Indiana’s ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Indiana’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, immediately allowing same-sex couples across the state to receive marriage licenses.

U.S. District Judge Richard Young did not issue a stay on his ruling. However, the office of Attorney General Greg Zoeller, which represented the state, filed an emergency motion for stay pending appeal with the U.S. District Court this afternoon…

Young’s decision in the Indiana case mirrors “what we’re seeing in all the districts courts” that have taken up challenges, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond School of Law professor who has been closely monitoring court cases across the U.S. involving the same-sex marriage issue.

The order says: “It is clear that the fundamental right to marry shall not be deprived to some individuals based solely on the person they choose to love.”

Judges in more than a dozen other federal district courts have ruled along the same lines as Young, he said. Since the first ruling in a Utah case in December, he said, every challenge to a state ban has been successful.

The rulings by these federal district courts are being appealed and ultimately the decision will probably be made by the Supreme Court. While it will take at least until next year to see how that plays out, the 10th Circuit Court has upheld the decision of a Utah judge:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that states outlawing same-sex marriage are in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

By upholding a Utah judge’s decision, a three-member panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver became the first appeals court in the nation to rule on the issue, setting a historic precedent that voter-approved bans on same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment rights of same-sex couples to equal protection and due process…

University of Utah law professor Clifford Rosky called Wednesday’s ruling, “the most important victory of the entire gay rights movement.”

It is the first time a federal appeals court has recognized that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as all Americans, said Rosky, chairman of Equality Utah’s board of directors.

“Very few courts have embraced the fundamental rights argument and this court seems to have completely embraced it and applied ‘strict scrutiny,’ the highest standard recognized under constitutional law,” Rosky said…

The ruling affects all states in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.

The court’s majority opinion focused on the 14th Amendment, which gives equal protection to American citizens. The court said its reading of the Constitution shows that the legal rights of married couples has nothing to do with the gender of those in the union.

“We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws. A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage.