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Supreme Court 2025 Analysis & Luigi Mangione Wants Evidence Thrown Out · Bloomberg Law

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: The Supreme Court handed down sixty six opinions on its
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Speaker 2: regular docket in twenty twenty five, with significant decisions concerning religion,
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Speaker 2: free speech, reverse discrimination, LGBTQ rights, gun regulation, parental rights,
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Speaker 2: nationwide injunctions, and agency authority. Six cases were decided by
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Speaker 2: a court split ideologically six to three, with the conservative
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Speaker 2: justices in the majority and the liberal justices in descent.
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Speaker 2: Those were cases over hot button social issues like a
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Speaker 2: ban on gender affirming care for miners and religious accommodations
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Speaker 2: and education. Joining me to analyze the decisions is constitutional
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Speaker 2: law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law. David,
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Speaker 2: let's start with the case over religious charter schools that
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Speaker 2: you have lifted the long standing constitutional limits on government
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Speaker 2: support for religion. And you can see the divide between
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Speaker 2: the conservative and liberal justices in many of the cases
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Speaker 2: dealing with religion.
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Speaker 3: And you say, oh, we're a religious school, it's like, Oh, no,
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Speaker 3: can't do that. That's too much, that's scary, We're not
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Speaker 3: going to do that. And our cases have made very
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Speaker 3: clear and I think those are some of the most
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Speaker 3: important cases we've had of saying you can't treat religious
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Speaker 3: people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class
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Speaker 3: in the United States.
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Speaker 4: Because the essence of the Establishment Clause was we're not
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Speaker 4: going to pay religious leaders to teach their religion. That
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Speaker 4: was is and has always been the essence. And here
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Speaker 4: we're paying Catholic leaders Catholic teachers.
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Speaker 2: This was an unusual lass for religious plays at the Court,
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Speaker 2: but there were unusual circumstances, So tell us what happened.
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Speaker 5: Ultimately, nothing happened. There was an effort to create a
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Speaker 5: religious charter school in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Supreme Court, reading
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Speaker 5: the Supreme Court's precedence on this, felt that that was
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Speaker 5: accessive entanglement of church and state, that it was violating
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Speaker 5: the Establishment Clause by using public resources to promote religion.
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Speaker 5: It gets to the Supreme Court and the Court splits
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Speaker 5: four to four, which means that the Oklahoma Supreme Court
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Speaker 5: decision is affirmed and the charter school is shut down. However,
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Speaker 5: the reason the Court had only eight justices participating is
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Speaker 5: because Justice Barrett accused herself, presumably because she's a former
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Speaker 5: faculty member at Notre Dame and a Notre Dame Clinic
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Speaker 5: was involved in much of this work. Apparently some of
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Speaker 5: her friends were. If a similar case returns of the
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Speaker 5: Court where all nine justices were able to participate, based
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Speaker 5: on her past writings, anticipate Justice Barrett would vote in
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Speaker 5: favor of the charter school and they would win the
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Speaker 5: war even though they lost this battle.
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Speaker 2: You anticipated my question because the supporters of charter schools
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Speaker 2: here say the fight isn't over, so they're likely to
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Speaker 2: bring another case to the court.
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Speaker 5: Oh. Yes, the efforts to expand state subsities or religion
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Speaker 5: are quite well funded and quite energetic, and in many respects,
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Speaker 5: it was a strategic blunder to bring it from a
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Speaker 5: state where one of the justices had connections. But there
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Speaker 5: are plenty of other states that they can do this with,
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Speaker 5: and the longer she's on the court, the fewer of
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Speaker 5: these pre court connections will entangle her.
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Speaker 2: Now, let's turn to Catholic Charities Bureau versus Wisconsin Labor
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Speaker 2: and Industry Review Commission, And this is about tax exempt
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Speaker 2: religious organizations.
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Speaker 5: Yes, this is kind of an odd case where Wisconsin
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Speaker 5: had an exception from required contributions for certain kinds of
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Speaker 5: religious organizations, but concluded that Catholic charities didn't qualify because
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Speaker 5: they provided services of a secular kind. And the Supreme
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Speaker 5: Court looked at this and said, we do not want
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Speaker 5: states to be making fine tuned decisions about how religious
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Speaker 5: organizations carry things out, distinguishing between those with a lot
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Speaker 5: of proselytizing, a little proselytizing, and no proselytizing. This is
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Speaker 5: too much intrusion of the state into religion. This has
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Speaker 5: all sorts of potential for favoring one religious group for another.
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Speaker 5: There are some religions that are absolutely opposed to proselytizing,
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Speaker 5: where it's the central act of religious devotion, and there's
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Speaker 5: a bunch in between, and the Court does not want
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Speaker 5: distinctions drawn on that basis.
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Speaker 2: I was surprised that it was a unanimous decision. I mean,
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Speaker 2: do you find that surprising?
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Speaker 5: I really didn't. I understand and respect the intentions of
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Speaker 5: what Wisconsin was trying to do, but it was so
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Speaker 5: complicated and so intrusive, and the lines they were drawing
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Speaker 5: were so subjective that I think, whether you are generally
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Speaker 5: sympathetic with supporting religious groups or supportive of a strong
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Speaker 5: line between church and state, that this is not a
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Speaker 5: road you'd want to go down.
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Speaker 2: The next case, Mamood versus Taylor, involves religious rights, parental rights,
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Speaker 2: and LGBTQ rights. Religious parents sued a school district that
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Speaker 2: wanted to incorporate LGBTQ friendly books in its career, and
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Speaker 2: the divide on the court was apparent when Justice is
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Speaker 2: Samuel Alito and Sonya Socha Mayor disagreed over the storyline
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Speaker 2: of one of the books, Uncle Bobby's Wedding.
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Speaker 1: Uncle Bobby gets married to his boyfriend Jamie, and everybody's happy,
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Speaker 1: and everything is you know, it portrays this. Everyone accepts this,
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Speaker 1: except for the little girl Chloe, who has reservations about it.
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Speaker 1: But her mother corrects her, Now, you shouldn't have any
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Speaker 1: reservations about this. As I said, it has a clear mora,
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Speaker 1: It has a clear moral message.
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Speaker 4: Is looking at the pictures? Is there any affidavit from
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Speaker 4: any parent that merely looking at people getting married holding hands?
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Speaker 4: None of them are even kissing at any of these books.
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Speaker 4: The most they're doing is holding hands. That mere exposure
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Speaker 4: to that is coercion.
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Speaker 2: This decision, in which bolstered religious rights, came out six
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Speaker 2: to three down ideological lines.
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Speaker 5: This was a case in which a school board added
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Speaker 5: some LGBTQ plus friendly books to its curriculum, and initially
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Speaker 5: it provided notice to parents of when these books would
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Speaker 5: be studied and allowed the parents to pull their kids
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Speaker 5: out of those classes. But after a while they concluded
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Speaker 5: that this was defeating the purpose of broadening the portrayal
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Speaker 5: of family life in their courses, so they no longer
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Speaker 5: allowed opt out. So the case came to the Supreme
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Speaker 5: Court as to whether it denied the parents' free exercise
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Speaker 5: of religion to not be able to pull their children
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Speaker 5: out of classes that were presenting LGBTQ plus people in
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Speaker 5: a positive light, and the Court ultimately concluded that the
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Speaker 5: parents rights required the school district to make an opt
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Speaker 5: out available. Justice Thomas then said, you'd better not try
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Speaker 5: to get around this decision by integrating these materials broadly
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Speaker 5: into your curriculum, because we'll shut that down too.
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Speaker 2: And the case is concerning I think on several levels,
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Speaker 2: there was no evidence that the children would be harmed
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Speaker 2: or influenced by the books, and the school district was
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Speaker 2: just trying to expose the children to a more inclusive worldview.
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Speaker 2: This is another in a line of cases where LGBTQ
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Speaker 2: rights lose, and I'm wondering when or if the conservative
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Speaker 2: justices will start protecting those rights.
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Speaker 5: Well, the Court has certainly stepped way way back from
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Speaker 5: where it was when it recognized same sex marriage and
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Speaker 5: or virtufel, and even back from where it was when
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Speaker 5: it recognized employment discrimination against LGBTQ people as violation and
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Speaker 5: Title seven in the Bostock case. I take this case,
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Speaker 5: as you do, as being primarily about the Court's disdain
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Speaker 5: for LGBTQ rights rather than about paranal rights. There are
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Speaker 5: plenty of states around the country that are putting a
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Speaker 5: strong skew in their curriculum, prohibiting teaching things about the
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Speaker 5: history of African Americans about certain episodes in the country's history,
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Speaker 5: presenting the Civil War in a remarkably skewed in ahistorical event,
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Speaker 5: and I would be very surprised to see the Supreme
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Speaker 5: Court willing to give opt out or similar rights to
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Speaker 5: parents from those curricula. I think, unfortunately, this is part
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Speaker 5: of the Court's retrenchment on gay rights.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and on the emergency docket, they allowed the Trump
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Speaker 2: administration to kick trends gender troops out of the military
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Speaker 2: and allow this new policy requiring passports to reflect the
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Speaker 2: sex on the holder's birth certificates, so they do appear
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Speaker 2: to be going in that direction, which brings us to
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Speaker 2: Us versus Scurmetti again, a sixty three decision on Tennessee's
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Speaker 2: ban on gender a firm and care for minors.
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Speaker 5: This is a case that should have been very difficult
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Speaker 5: for the court because the Court had already in Bostock
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Speaker 5: said that discrimination against people because they are gay or
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Speaker 5: because they're transgender is a violation of the statutory ban
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Speaker 5: on discrimination on the base of sex. Some were afraid
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Speaker 5: the court would overturn boss Stock. They didn't all though
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Speaker 5: some justices made clear they would love to. The majority
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Speaker 5: didn't overturn Bostock, but it turned it into a sort
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Speaker 5: of word play game where there's not perhaps that much
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Speaker 5: vitality left. They said, well, this isn't discriminating on the
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Speaker 5: basis of sex, because child designated at birth as male
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Speaker 5: who wants these treatments will be denied them on the
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Speaker 5: base of this policy. And a child designated at birth
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Speaker 5: as female who wants these treatments will be denied them
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Speaker 5: because they don't need these treatments. They're already female. And
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Speaker 5: if that's true, then you can play a word game
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Speaker 5: with just ave at anything. So the cord here is
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Speaker 5: a very minimum sterilizing BOSSTOC, limiting it to its specific holding.
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Speaker 5: But more generally, it seems to be willing to engage
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Speaker 5: in some quite dishonest wordplay to avoid the implications of
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Speaker 5: civil rights laws. We've certainly seen that in other civil
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Speaker 5: rights laws, but it's disturbing to see it quite this active.
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Speaker 2: We'll see if they follow suit in the decision over
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Speaker 2: Colorado ban on conversion therapy coming up next year. Let's
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Speaker 2: turn now to a case about reverse discrimination Ames versus
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Speaker 2: Ohio Department of Youth Services.
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Speaker 5: Well, this was a straight white woman who believed that
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Speaker 5: she was being discriminated against in various employment decisions, promotion
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Speaker 5: and emotion decisions, and her job, and sued for employment discrimination.
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Speaker 5: The Sixth Circuit, which covers Ohio, have a doctrine that said,
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Speaker 5: if you are suing for discrimination as a member of
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Speaker 5: the majority group, you need to present some evidence that
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Speaker 5: makes it likely for people to think that you were
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Speaker 5: discriminated against. The idea that the Sixth Circuit has is
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Speaker 5: someone who has the deck stacked in their favor needs
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Speaker 5: to show why this is not the case in a
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Speaker 5: particular setting, and she didn't do that, so she lost.
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Speaker 5: And the Supreme Court reversed and said that the standard
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Speaker 5: for discrimination cases bought by members that majority groups from
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Speaker 5: minority groups are the same. And the Court, i think
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Speaker 5: concluded that the standard that the Sixth Circuit had established
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Speaker 5: was just impossible to sustain in light of their holdings
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Speaker 5: in particularly the school affirmative action cases. So the Court
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Speaker 5: ended up being unanimous on this, Justice Jackson wrote for
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Speaker 5: the majority.
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Speaker 2: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
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Speaker 2: this conversation with Georgetown law professor David Super. We'll look
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Speaker 2: at Supreme Court decisions involving nationwide injunctions, free speech, and
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Speaker 2: gun regulations. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: One of the most high profile Supreme Court decisions of
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Speaker 2: the year was the case limiting the power of judges
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Speaker 2: to block government policies across the country, so called nationwide injunction.
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Speaker 2: The Court's conservatives and liberals split six to three in
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Speaker 2: Trump versus Kasa, a decision that President Trump praised.
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Speaker 6: Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to
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Speaker 6: proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on
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Speaker 6: a nationwide basis, and some of the cases we're talking
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Speaker 6: about would be ending birthright citizenship.
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Speaker 2: But that didn't happen, at least not yet. I've been
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Speaker 2: talking to Georgetown law professor David super about the Court's
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Speaker 2: opinions in twenty twenty five. David, this case was about
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Speaker 2: Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, but the decision was
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Speaker 2: about nationwide injunctions and limiting the power of judges to
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Speaker 2: issue them.
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Speaker 5: This is a case that got a lot of attention
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Speaker 5: that I frankly don't think it deserved. The practice of
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Speaker 5: some lower courts has been to enjoin the administration nationwide
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Speaker 5: from carry out a policy that the lower court's find
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Speaker 5: is illegal or unconstitutional. The Supreme Court says, you can't
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Speaker 5: just order a nationwide change on your own, but if
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Speaker 5: the case is file is a class action, then you
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Speaker 5: can order nationwide relief for a nationwide class So it's
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Speaker 5: going to require plaintiffs to file cases as class actions.
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Speaker 5: That's a little extra work in a few situations that
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Speaker 5: may not be easy to do, but most of the
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Speaker 5: time you can. And it's opened several other doors forgetting
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Speaker 5: national relief against what agencies are doing. So it's a
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Speaker 5: fairly technical case. It's a case in which the court
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Speaker 5: claims to be reaffirming its originalist credentials. I think they
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Speaker 5: also get the history wrong, but at least that's what
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Speaker 5: they say they're doing, and it won't change the outcome
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Speaker 5: in the cases about birthright citizenship. The lower courts we're
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Speaker 5: all able to reinstate their orders after playing this file
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Speaker 5: of the class action, so I don't think this is
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Speaker 5: going to affect there. In many cases, it certainly is
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Speaker 5: octom to affect birthright citizenship, which is back up to
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Speaker 5: the Secret Court off the merit SAT.
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Speaker 2: Let's turn to another case that divided the justices down
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Speaker 2: ideological lines six to three. Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton
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Speaker 2: was a challenge to a Texas law that required visitors
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Speaker 2: to pourn websites to verify their age, and several of
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Speaker 2: the justices expressed concerns about how easily teenagers can get
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Speaker 2: access to porn. Today. Here's Justice Amy Cony Barrett.
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Speaker 7: I mean kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers.
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Speaker 7: Let me just say that content filtering for all those
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Speaker 7: different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult
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Speaker 7: to keep up.
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Speaker 2: With tell us about this free speech challenge.
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Speaker 5: This deals with a question priorities. Porn can be denied
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Speaker 5: to minors. There's lots of psychological evidence it can be
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Speaker 5: quite destructive of miners. The Court is upheld shielding miners
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Speaker 5: from it. But there are many things that are not
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Speaker 5: acceptable for miners that are protected for adults by the
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Speaker 5: First Amendment. And the question here is which of those
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Speaker 5: do you prioritize protecting the miners or providing access for
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Speaker 5: the adults? And taxes enacted this law requiring age verification
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Speaker 5: by porn sites that the Supreme Court majority upheld as
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Speaker 5: consistent with protecting miners. The Ascent said it's got too
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Speaker 5: much of an impact on adults and is therefore a
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Speaker 5: denial of free speech.
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Speaker 2: Half the states now have these age verification laws. Do
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Speaker 2: you think that a few of the cases this year
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Speaker 2: can be looked at in terms of reaffirming states rights.
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Speaker 5: You could say that, but I think the Court is
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Speaker 5: not a serious federalist court. They are strongly in favor
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Speaker 5: of states doing what they like the states to do,
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Speaker 5: and they are absolutely appalled when the states do something
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Speaker 5: they don't like. So it's very hard to see a
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Speaker 5: meaningful States rights theme in what the Court is doing.
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Speaker 5: You certainly could ten to fifteen years ago, but I
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Speaker 5: don't think you can now.
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Speaker 2: Let's look at a case that was applauded by gun
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Speaker 2: safety advocates, Bondi versus Van der Stock. It was a
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Speaker 2: seventy two decision about ghost gun kits with Clarence Thomas
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Speaker 2: and Samuel Alito in descent. No surprise there. It seemed
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Speaker 2: like a pretty easy case.
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Speaker 5: It really was a pretty easy case. It was a
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Speaker 5: gun case, but not a Second Amendment case, or not
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Speaker 5: meaningfully a Second Amendment case. The Gun Control Act that
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Speaker 5: was passed right after doctor King and R. F. Kennedy
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Speaker 5: Senior were assassinated gave the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms
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Speaker 5: the authority to regulate certain weapons. And the advent of
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Speaker 5: ghost guns of gun kits that could be rapidly assembled
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Speaker 5: without serial numbers so the guns would be untraceable, prompted
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Speaker 5: the government to put out regulations restricting them in some
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Speaker 5: of the same ways that other guns are restricted. And
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Speaker 5: the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers said, oh, you
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Speaker 5: have no authority to do this under the statute. So
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Speaker 5: as an administrative law you must stop. Not a Second
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Speaker 5: Amendment case, just an argument the agency exceeded its lawful authority,
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Speaker 5: and the Supreme Court majority said no, this is actually
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Speaker 5: squarely within the Act. All we require is that there
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Speaker 5: be a weapon and that it be capable of ejecting
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Speaker 5: a projectile with some modification. Starter pistols have been regulated
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Speaker 5: since time immemorial, and this is really no different than
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Speaker 5: that this is a gun minus a little bit of work,
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Speaker 5: which is certainly something they could regulate.
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Speaker 2: In June, the Court declined to consider a new expansion
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Speaker 2: of constitutional gun rights, turning away challenges to a Maryland
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Speaker 2: ban on assault weapons and a Rhode Island prohibition on
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Speaker 2: high capacity magazines. Can we read anything into that declination
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Speaker 2: plus what we saw on the Ghostguns case.
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Speaker 5: The Ghost Guns case is basically an administrative law case.
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Speaker 5: The claim that was brought by the gun industry was laughable,
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Speaker 5: and I think they were hoping that because they're the
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Speaker 5: gun industry and they're supposed to win everything, that they
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Speaker 5: could win even with a case that no one else could.
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Speaker 5: And the Supreme Court, I think maybe was a bit
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Speaker 5: insulted at such a brazen presentation of an awful case.
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Speaker 5: Denials are very hard to read. There's often a lot
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Speaker 5: of strategy going into them. The Supreme Court's in a
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Speaker 5: bind here, though, because it's talk more and more and
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Speaker 5: more about originalism, and yet its interpretation of the Second
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Speaker 5: Amendment is completely anti originalists. So every time it takes
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Speaker 5: a Second Amendment case, it has to choose between embarrassing
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Speaker 5: its originalists ideals and philosophy and offending the gun lobby.
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Speaker 5: And not taking cases is a way of avoiding putting
21:23
Speaker 5: itself to that kind of decision. The simplest approach would
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Speaker 5: be to reverse Brown and Heller and go back to
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Speaker 5: an originalist view of the Second Amendment, but apparently that's
21:33
Speaker 5: a bridge too far.
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Speaker 2: Let's turn to a unanimous decision next, where the Court
21:38
Speaker 2: signed with the FDA's rejection of applications for vaping products
21:43
Speaker 2: formulated to taste like fruit or candy and likely to
21:47
Speaker 2: be used by kids as just as Elena Kagan explained.
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Speaker 8: Flavors you give people blueberry vapes. The difficulty with that,
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Speaker 8: and FDA I think has tried to document this, is
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Speaker 8: that blueberry vapes are very appealing to sixteen year olds,
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Speaker 8: not to forty year olds.
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Speaker 5: We were talking about the gun industry earlier, and now
22:09
Speaker 5: we come to the tobacco industry. There equal in consumer abuse,
22:14
Speaker 5: and the tobacco industry is selling vaping products nominally to
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Speaker 5: get existing smokers off of cigarettes, but in fact to
22:26
Speaker 5: attract a whole new set of young people to endasure
22:30
Speaker 5: their health. And the FDA rejected marketing approval for a
22:36
Speaker 5: number of these items, and the tobacco company said, well,
22:40
Speaker 5: the ground sited in the denial don't quite match up
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Speaker 5: with some of the things that the FDA said earlier,
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Speaker 5: so that's a violation of administrative law. And the Supreme
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Speaker 5: Court gave us a long winded version of oh, come on,
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Speaker 5: and they said that it was very clear that the
23:01
Speaker 5: FDA had acted in just the way that it had
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Speaker 5: said before, that there's no reason the cigarette companies should
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Speaker 5: have thought that it was going to come out any differently.
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Speaker 5: In other cases, when the FDA provided a somewhat more
23:14
Speaker 5: thorough review, it came to the same result. And there's
23:17
Speaker 5: simply no reason to think that sending it back the
23:20
Speaker 5: FDA would get any different result. And it cited the
23:24
Speaker 5: administrative ziject, which specifically tells courts not to interfere in
23:29
Speaker 5: cases where the result clearly was correct.
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Speaker 2: David, does this case say anything more about the court
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Speaker 2: affirming the FDA's authority or is it confined to its facts?
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Speaker 5: This case is I think more interesting in general administrative
23:48
Speaker 5: law terms than it is in tobacco or FDA terms.
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Speaker 5: There's been a controversy going back at least to the
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Speaker 5: Reagan administration, arguably earlier, about what agencies have to do
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Speaker 5: when they change their positions, and we've got a lot
24:03
Speaker 5: of that going on right now because Trump appointees are
24:06
Speaker 5: pretty different than Biden appointees. And the Court here said
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Speaker 5: that agencies don't have to go through a lot of
24:14
Speaker 5: process when the change in their position is small and predictable.
24:20
Speaker 5: So if the Trump officials want to make minor changes
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Speaker 5: around the edges as to what by people were doing,
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Speaker 5: that there won't be a need for something fairly elaborate.
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Speaker 5: I am not aware of a lot of Trump administration
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Speaker 5: officials that are making only minor changes, but I'm sure
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Speaker 5: there's some out there somewhere. And so the court said
24:40
Speaker 5: that if the change is minor, you don't need an
24:43
Speaker 5: intricate procedure, and that will, I think be useful guidance
24:47
Speaker 5: as agencies rEFInd their policies of the future.
24:50
Speaker 2: Finally, Medina versus Planned Parenthood, it was about individual Medicaid patients'
24:55
Speaker 2: ability to sue. Is it having an effect.
24:58
Speaker 5: There's a provision in the Medicaid Statute assuring patients beneficiaries
25:05
Speaker 5: of the right to choose their providers. Most of us
25:09
Speaker 5: care a lot about who our healthcare provider is, and
25:13
Speaker 5: this was understood in Medicaid, which was trying to provide
25:16
Speaker 5: health insurance as similar to other health insurance as they
25:20
Speaker 5: feasibly could. And the question is when a state violates that,
25:26
Speaker 5: can beneficiaries sue? And the Supreme Court in a number
25:30
Speaker 5: of cases over the years, has cut back on when
25:36
Speaker 5: you can sue when the law is violated. It's a
25:39
Speaker 5: strange concept for non lawyers that someone has violated the
25:43
Speaker 5: law in a way that hurts you when you can't sue,
25:46
Speaker 5: But that's what the Supreme Court has said. And in
25:50
Speaker 5: this case of state are trying to throw planned parenthood
25:55
Speaker 5: out of Medicaid, and presumably because they think boasure to
26:00
Speaker 5: planned parenthood will cause some people to think about abortions
26:04
Speaker 5: or about birth control. And the Supreme Court held that
26:09
Speaker 5: people denied choice of provider by these laws do not
26:13
Speaker 5: have the right to go to court.
26:14
Speaker 2: It's striking to me that in cases involving culture war
26:18
Speaker 2: issues we almost always see the six to three ideological split,
26:24
Speaker 2: with the court's conservative super majority prevailing.
26:27
Speaker 5: Of course, well, I mean almost all the cases you
26:30
Speaker 5: asked me about our cases with important social concerns. One
26:35
Speaker 5: of these days we'll do a riveting podcast on securities
26:39
Speaker 5: law cases. So these are all significant cases. The unanimous ones,
26:44
Speaker 5: I think, are mostly ones where a lower court just
26:47
Speaker 5: got very lost and did something that was so unreasonable
26:51
Speaker 5: that either the liberal justices or the conservative justice were
26:55
Speaker 5: not willing to stand behind it. The one example that
26:58
Speaker 5: would seem to be an exception is the Oklahoma case
27:02
Speaker 5: that we talked about, where there was a conservative justice
27:05
Speaker 5: who voted with the liberal justice to get to the
27:08
Speaker 5: four to four impass. So it's not a completely ideological court.
27:14
Speaker 5: There were four conservatives that voted with the liberal justices
27:19
Speaker 5: on the ghost guns case, recognizing that the arguments there
27:24
Speaker 5: were quite foolish. But yes, the court is quite polarized
27:28
Speaker 5: on culture war cases and on executive power cases. So
27:34
Speaker 5: we don't have the kind of national mediating institution in
27:39
Speaker 5: the court that we did in earlier years when it
27:43
Speaker 5: all came down to Justice O'Connor or Justice Kennedy, or
27:47
Speaker 5: back in the nineteen seventies when you had two very
27:50
Speaker 5: liberal justices, two very conservative justice and five legitimately up
27:54
Speaker 5: for grabs swing justices. We don't have that kind of
27:57
Speaker 5: court anymore.
27:58
Speaker 2: No one can dispute that so much. David for helping
28:01
Speaker 2: us understand the implications of the decisions this year. That's
28:05
Speaker 2: Georgetown law professor David super Coming up next. Luigi Mangioni
28:09
Speaker 2: is trying to get crucial prosecution evidence thrown out. I'm
28:14
Speaker 2: June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg player.
28:17
Speaker 9: Number one, what is the address of your emergency? It's
28:21
Speaker 9: really an emergency. I'm a manager at SLINKERD McDonald's out
28:25
Speaker 9: here in the boulevard, Okay, and I have a customer
28:29
Speaker 9: here that some other customers were suspicious of that he
28:32
Speaker 9: looked like the CEO shooter from New York, Okay.
28:36
Speaker 2: That was a nine to one one call that led
28:39
Speaker 2: police to the McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Luigi Mangioni
28:44
Speaker 2: was eating breakfast last December. Mangioni is trying to get
28:48
Speaker 2: a judge to exclude crucial evidence from an eventual trial
28:52
Speaker 2: on charges that he murdered United Health Group executive Brian
28:56
Speaker 2: Thompson last year in New York. At an evidentiary hearing
29:00
Speaker 2: that span seven days of testimony from seventeen witnesses, prosecutors
29:04
Speaker 2: played body camera footage of his arrest at the McDonald's,
29:08
Speaker 2: starting with an officer approaching mangione and asking for id.
29:13
Speaker 5: Hens out off the car.
29:15
Speaker 9: Yes, sir, that's good Shire, Hi do okay?
29:20
Speaker 5: What's your name? What is it Mark? Mark? You said, Mark?
29:25
Speaker 9: What? Lluria?
29:27
Speaker 5: I'm sorry? Someone called either thought you were suspicious? Polson
29:31
Speaker 5: to driving on.
29:33
Speaker 4: Yes.
29:34
Speaker 2: It ended with Mangioni in handcuffs, but not before a
29:37
Speaker 2: police officer rifled through his backpack, finding a loaded gun
29:42
Speaker 2: magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear. Police searched the
29:45
Speaker 2: backpack more thoroughly at the police station and found evidence,
29:50
Speaker 2: including a nine millimeter handgun that prosecutors say matches the
29:54
Speaker 2: gun used to kill Thompson, a silencer, a passport, and
29:58
Speaker 2: a notebook they've disc described as a manifesto. But police
30:03
Speaker 2: didn't get a warrant until after both searches of the backpack,
30:07
Speaker 2: and the defense says that violates Mangioni's constitutional rights against
30:11
Speaker 2: illegal search and seizure, and all that evidence should be
30:15
Speaker 2: thrown out. Mangioni has pleaded not guilty to nine state counts,
30:20
Speaker 2: including second degree murder and various weapons charges. He's also
30:25
Speaker 2: pleaded not guilty to four federal charges in a separate case.
30:29
Speaker 2: My guest is former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz, a partner
30:33
Speaker 2: MC carter. In English, Bob, there are suppression hearings all
30:37
Speaker 2: the time in criminal cases, although probably not lasting as
30:41
Speaker 2: long with as many as seventeen witnesses.
30:44
Speaker 10: That's true, And what you have when you're a defense
30:46
Speaker 10: lawyer heading into a criminal trial are really very few
30:51
Speaker 10: weapons to try to knock out the government's case before
30:55
Speaker 10: you go to trial. Once there is an indictment, you
30:58
Speaker 10: really have the opportunity only to try to suppress certain evidence.
31:02
Speaker 10: In other words, argue to the court that the evidence
31:05
Speaker 10: obtained by prosecutors and that prosecutors intend to rely on
31:09
Speaker 10: to gain a conviction at trial, were somehow obtained illegally
31:13
Speaker 10: in violation of your client's constitutional rights, and therefore should
31:18
Speaker 10: not be used at the trial. So what we're seeing
31:20
Speaker 10: here is something that defense lawyers try to do all
31:23
Speaker 10: the time, but as you say, this has turned into
31:25
Speaker 10: a much more protracted hearing, going approximately three weeks. Still,
31:30
Speaker 10: at the end of the day, any suppression hearing in
31:33
Speaker 10: any criminal case is going to be an uphill battle
31:36
Speaker 10: for the defense because what the defense is really trying
31:39
Speaker 10: to do here is knock out critical evidence that could
31:42
Speaker 10: be used against their client and would have a very
31:45
Speaker 10: significant impact on the likely outcome of the trial. So
31:49
Speaker 10: judges are generally speaking reluctant to suppress key evidence before
31:54
Speaker 10: a trial. One interesting aspect of this lengthy suppression hearing
31:59
Speaker 10: is that even if the defense loses its motion to
32:02
Speaker 10: suppress its evidence, as it likely will, there's still a
32:06
Speaker 10: huge benefit for the defense because they've now heard testimony
32:09
Speaker 10: from a large number of police officers who will testify
32:13
Speaker 10: at the trial, and what it gives them is a
32:15
Speaker 10: preview of the state's case, and it also gives them
32:19
Speaker 10: a script by which they can cross examine those witnesses
32:23
Speaker 10: later at trial.
32:24
Speaker 11: So even if they lose this case, there's still.
32:27
Speaker 10: A benefit to the defense, and they can essentially lose
32:30
Speaker 10: the battle but potentially win the war down the road
32:33
Speaker 10: by using the testimony at the suppression hearing against those witnesses.
32:37
Speaker 2: At trial, now, the defense is arguing that the police
32:41
Speaker 2: should have gotten a warrant before searching the backpack.
32:44
Speaker 10: Essentially, what the defense has argued with regard to the
32:47
Speaker 10: backpack is that the search was illegal and therefore all
32:51
Speaker 10: of the evidence obtained from that search the key evidence
32:54
Speaker 10: in that backpack that is absolutely critical to the state
32:57
Speaker 10: being able to prove its case at trial. It includes,
33:01
Speaker 10: among other things, the gun that the state alleged was
33:04
Speaker 10: used in the shooting.
33:06
Speaker 11: They argue that the search was illegal.
33:09
Speaker 10: Because it was not done pursuant to a warrant, And
33:12
Speaker 10: what the defense has said is that a warrant could
33:14
Speaker 10: have been obtained, and in fact was not until much later.
33:18
Speaker 10: During the hearing, there was evidence played from the bodycam
33:23
Speaker 10: footage of the police officers where you see officers debating
33:26
Speaker 10: among themselves whether they should get a warrant to search
33:29
Speaker 10: the backpack at the McDonald's.
33:32
Speaker 11: Or where they should wait and.
33:33
Speaker 10: Bring the backpack back to the police station and then
33:36
Speaker 10: get the warrant. Ultimately, they decide not to get the
33:39
Speaker 10: warrant at the McDonald's, to go back to the police
33:42
Speaker 10: station and to get the warrant only after the backpack
33:45
Speaker 10: has been searched back at the police station.
33:48
Speaker 2: Prosecutors argue the search was legal because it was an
33:52
Speaker 2: exception to the warrant requirement, and the police officers testified
33:57
Speaker 2: that they were looking in the backpack to see if
33:59
Speaker 2: they're any explosives or other dangerous items. But on cross examination,
34:05
Speaker 2: the defense attorney asked the officer why she continued to
34:09
Speaker 2: search through the bag without a warrant even after she
34:12
Speaker 2: determined that there were no explosives, and why police never
34:16
Speaker 2: cleared the restaurant of customers and employees if they thought
34:21
Speaker 2: there was an explosive.
34:22
Speaker 11: What the prosecution has argued here is that the search
34:26
Speaker 11: was legal because it was done pursuing to an exception,
34:30
Speaker 11: and that is called a search incident to arrests. So
34:34
Speaker 11: what prosecutors have said was, at the time that the police.
34:37
Speaker 10: Officers approached mister Mangioni at that McDonald's, they asked for
34:41
Speaker 10: his identification. He gave them a false identification and he
34:46
Speaker 10: identified himself as Mark Rosario, giving him a false name.
34:50
Speaker 10: Police officers ran that information. They quickly learned that the
34:53
Speaker 10: identification was false, and the prosecution that we argues that
34:57
Speaker 10: the search was done incident to the arrest, the crime
35:01
Speaker 10: being giving false information and a false ID to the
35:04
Speaker 10: Altoona Police officers, and so they're saying that the search
35:08
Speaker 10: is legal cause its incident to arrest, although typically a
35:13
Speaker 10: search incident to arrest is done for purposes of securing
35:17
Speaker 10: the safety of the officers and of the surrounding people.
35:21
Speaker 10: And that's why the defense focused a lot on trying
35:24
Speaker 10: to demonstrate that the search of the backpack went beyond
35:28
Speaker 10: merely determining that there was nothing in there that could
35:31
Speaker 10: be a threat to the officers or a threat to
35:33
Speaker 10: anybody else in the McDonald's, that they went beyond what
35:36
Speaker 10: we should have been permitted in a search incident to
35:39
Speaker 10: arrest to look for evidence rather than merely determining that
35:44
Speaker 10: there is nothing in the backpack that would pose a
35:46
Speaker 10: threat to the officers or to the public.
35:48
Speaker 2: So minutes after the police approached Mangoni in the McDonald's,
35:53
Speaker 2: he told an officer that he didn't want to talk,
35:55
Speaker 2: that's according to video and testimony, But police continued asking
35:59
Speaker 2: him questions and he continued answering, and nearly twenty minutes
36:03
Speaker 2: fast before they read him the miranda warnings, and so
36:06
Speaker 2: his lawyer is arguing that any of his statements should
36:10
Speaker 2: be excluded.
36:11
Speaker 10: So the body camera footage does show that an officer
36:15
Speaker 10: read mister Mangoni his Miranda rights, but it wasn't until
36:19
Speaker 10: twenty minutes after they first started asking questions, and mister
36:22
Speaker 10: Mangoni had said that he did not want to.
36:25
Speaker 5: Answer their questions.
36:26
Speaker 10: He did not ask for an attorney, otherwise officers would
36:30
Speaker 10: have had to have stopped asking those questions. But the
36:32
Speaker 10: question raised by the defense lawyers was should he have
36:36
Speaker 10: been apprized of his miranda rights sooner? Miranda rights are
36:40
Speaker 10: the all important advisement of a defendant's right to remain
36:44
Speaker 10: silent and the right to have an attorney before any
36:47
Speaker 10: questioning continues, and the defense has argued that not only
36:51
Speaker 10: the comments made by mister Mangoni on December ninth at
36:55
Speaker 10: the McDonald's.
36:56
Speaker 11: Should be suppressed, but also his.
36:58
Speaker 10: Comments through his tradition to New York ten days later
37:02
Speaker 10: should also be set aside.
37:04
Speaker 2: Bob, what will the judge consider as far as the
37:07
Speaker 2: delay in giving the miranda warnings.
37:09
Speaker 10: In terms of analyzing whether mister Mangoni should have been
37:13
Speaker 10: given his miranda rights sooner? Than twenty minutes after police
37:16
Speaker 10: officers first started questioning him. The judge is going to
37:20
Speaker 10: look at the critical question of whether or not he
37:23
Speaker 10: was in custody and whether he was actually being interrogated
37:26
Speaker 10: by law enforcement. That's the standard when an individual is
37:31
Speaker 10: considered in custody and being interrogated by law enforcement, that
37:35
Speaker 10: is the moment that triggers the requirement that they be
37:38
Speaker 10: given the Miranda warnings. So the question here is when
37:41
Speaker 10: they were standing in that McDonald's, can the defense convince
37:45
Speaker 10: the court that mister Mangioni was in custody and in
37:49
Speaker 10: fact was being interrogated by police officers at the time.
37:53
Speaker 10: The prosecution has argued that he was not in custody,
37:56
Speaker 10: that he was not prevented from leaving the McDonald and
38:00
Speaker 10: that he was not formally being interrogated until about twenty
38:03
Speaker 10: minutes into the questioning, and that is the point in
38:06
Speaker 10: which he was given as miranda rights.
38:09
Speaker 2: And Manngioni's defense attorney argued that he was effectively in
38:13
Speaker 2: custody because officers had formed a human wall around him
38:18
Speaker 2: at the McDonald's. You mentioned before that it's not likely
38:23
Speaker 2: that the judge will kick out this evidence. Will you
38:26
Speaker 2: explain in a little more detail why you feel that way.
38:30
Speaker 10: The issues that were raised during the suppression hearing are
38:33
Speaker 10: enormous from the standpoint of the prosecution. What's at stake
38:37
Speaker 10: here is the evidence that really goes to the heart
38:39
Speaker 10: of the prosecutor's case. Were the judges to decide to
38:43
Speaker 10: suppress the search, that would bar prosecutors from using the
38:48
Speaker 10: nine millimeter handgun allegedly found in the backpack that matches
38:52
Speaker 10: the firearm used in the killing. It would bar prosecutors
38:56
Speaker 10: for presenting a trial writings in the notebook that, according
38:59
Speaker 10: to prosecutors, laid out Mangioni's disdain for health insurers and
39:04
Speaker 10: ideas about killing a CEO at an investor conference. And
39:08
Speaker 10: it would also bar them from using evidence that ties
39:11
Speaker 10: the false name that he gave to police officers at
39:15
Speaker 10: the McDonald's with the name that was used by an
39:19
Speaker 10: individual checking into the New York hostel days.
39:22
Speaker 11: Before the shooting.
39:23
Speaker 10: So the stakes are enormously high, and generally speaking, judges
39:29
Speaker 10: will give the benefit of the doubt to police officers
39:32
Speaker 10: and to law enforcement if there's a credibility question between
39:37
Speaker 10: the defendant and law enforcement. I think what will be
39:40
Speaker 10: critical to the analysis here regarding the search is that
39:45
Speaker 10: there was a crime committed by giving the false information,
39:48
Speaker 10: and the question then is raised as to whether the
39:51
Speaker 10: search incident to that arrest was appropriate or not.
39:55
Speaker 2: In this day and age, where most people can probably
39:58
Speaker 2: recite the Miranda warran from watching them on TV or
40:02
Speaker 2: in the movies, why do police hesitate to give them.
40:06
Speaker 10: Police officers argued that they were trying to keep him
40:10
Speaker 10: calm and trying to determine if, in fact, he was
40:13
Speaker 10: the person who law enforcement was looking for while they
40:16
Speaker 10: questioned him. It's still a big deal. Even though, as
40:19
Speaker 10: you say, people can recite those warnings from watching Law
40:23
Speaker 10: and Order and many of the other television shows, that
40:25
Speaker 10: is something that still has to be given at the
40:28
Speaker 10: appropriate time, and the failure to do that can result
40:33
Speaker 10: in statements being suppressed and not being presented at trial.
40:36
Speaker 10: So it's a very big deal here, and the judge
40:38
Speaker 10: is going to have to look at the question of
40:40
Speaker 10: whether or not he was actually in custody. He was
40:43
Speaker 10: surrounded by police officers, but the prosecution will argue that
40:48
Speaker 10: at no time did he ask whether he could leave,
40:50
Speaker 10: did he make an attempt to leave, or did prosecutors
40:53
Speaker 10: tell him that he couldn't leave the McDonald's, and therefore
40:57
Speaker 10: he was not in custody at the time that they
40:59
Speaker 10: asked these questions, and was not being interrogated at the
41:02
Speaker 10: time that they asked him these questions, and therefore the
41:05
Speaker 10: decision to not mirandize him for twenty minutes was appropriate
41:09
Speaker 10: and should not result in a suppression of those statements.
41:12
Speaker 2: And we'll have to wait until May eighteenth to find
41:15
Speaker 2: out the judge is ruling. Thanks so much, Bob. That's
41:18
Speaker 2: Robert mince of maccarter and English, and that's it for
41:22
Speaker 2: this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
41:24
Speaker 2: always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast.
41:28
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41:36
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41:43
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