Supreme Court Roundup

JUSTICES WILL HEAR ARGUMENT ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS

WASHINGTON, June 28 - The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide
whether Congress has the authority to prohibit the medical use of
marijuana in states where the voters or the legislature have approved
the drug's use under a doctor's care.

The case, certain to be one of the most closely watched of the court's next
term, is an appeal by the Bush administration of a preliminary ruling
issued last December by the federal appeals court in San Francisco. That
court, finding that the federal Controlled Substances Act was "likely
unconstitutional" as applied to two California patients and their suppliers
of marijuana, issued an injunction that barred federal enforcement while
the case proceeded.

The case was one of eight new appeals the justices granted as they
began the last week of their 2003-2004 term. In addition to its
implications for social policy, the case raises important federalism
questions. One question is whether the power of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce extends to marijuana that is cultivated for
noncommercial use within the borders of a single state, never
traveling in interstate commerce.

California, which adopted its Compassionate Use Act in 1996, is one of
nine states that permit marijuana for medical use under some
circumstances. The other eight are Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Similar efforts are under way
in other states.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has strongly opposed the state laws.
The case the Supreme Court accepted began with a confrontation between
sheriff's deputies in Butte County, Calif., and federal drug agents,
who both showed up at the home of Diana Monson, a patient whose severe
back spasms are not helped by prescription drugs but are alleviated by
marijuana, which she uses under her doctor's care. The sheriff's
deputies concluded that the marijuana she was growing was legal, but
the federal agents seized and destroyed her plants after a three-hour
standoff with the deputies.

Ms. Monson and another patient who uses marijuana, Angel McClary
Raich, sued the federal government in Federal District Court, seeking
an order saying the Controlled Substances Act could not legally be
applied to their marijuana use. They lost in that court but won a
preliminary injunction in the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit, where a 2-to-1 majority found their marijuana
cultivation and use to be noncommercial in character and outside the
jurisdiction of Congress.

Appealing to the Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. Raich, No. 03-1454, Mr.
Ashcroft is arguing that the appeals court's ruling "seriously
undermines Congress's comprehensive scheme for the regulation of
dangerous drugs." The brief adds: "Marijuana is a commodity that is
readily purchased and sold in a well-defined market of drug
trafficking," regardless of whether a particular use takes place
within a state's borders.

These were among the other cases the justices added to their docket
for the next term, which begins Oct. 4:

Death Penalty

For the second time in two years, the court accepted an appeal from a
Texas death-row inmate, Thomas Miller-El, a black man who was tried
and convicted of murder in 1986 by a jury from which the prosecutor
had removed 10 of 11 black potential jurors by peremptory challenges.

Mr. Miller-El tried to challenge his conviction on the ground of
prosecutorial misconduct and jury bias through a petition for a writ
of habeas corpus, which the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit denied. In its ruling last year, the Supreme Court said
in an 8-to-1 decision that the Fifth Circuit had failed to take full
account of the evidence, and ordered it to reconsider the case. In the
reconsideration, the appeals court again refused to grant habeas
corpus, this time adopting the view of Justice Clarence Thomas, who
had written a solitary dissent.

In his new petition, Mr. Miller-El's lawyer, Seth P. Waxman, the
former solicitor general who also represented the inmate in the
earlier Supreme Court appeal, told the justices that the latest
decision "undermines this court's supervisory authority" and made it
"critically important" for the Supreme Court to review the case again.
The appeal is Miller-El v. Dretke, No. 03-9659.

Spy's Claim

Accepting an appeal by the Central Intelligence Agency, the court
agreed to decide whether federal courts can consider a claim that the
agency has wrongfully refused to keep a promise to provide a foreign
agent with lifetime financial support in return for espionage services.

The case, Tenet v. Doe, No. 03-1395, began as a lawsuit by the foreign
agent, a former high-ranking diplomat for a Communist country, and his
wife, now both United States citizens. Their names were not revealed
in the lawsuit, and the government has neither confirmed nor denied
their claims. They said they initially received about $20,000 a year
plus housing and health care. Eventually, both their services and the
payments stopped and the couple, out of work, brought suit.

The Federal District Court in Seattle, in a ruling affirmed by the
Ninth Circuit, has allowed the case to proceed to the pretrial
discovery phase. In its appeal, the agency told the justices that this
"unprecedented holding" was "manifestly wrong" and threatened to
damage national security. The couple's lawyers argue that there is no
danger because the appeals court invited the C.I.A. to invoke a "state
secrets privilege" as the case goes forward.