Morning amici,

Welcome to everyone who has joined r/SupremeCourt! We've recently crossed the 30K subscriber mark, a long way from the ~5K noted by u/HatsOnTheBeach a few years ago in the first of these threads.

Whether you're new here or a seasoned court watcher, thanks for building and maintaining a community that strives to be an oasis for those looking to discuss the law in a civil and substantive way.

On the docket today is a refresher on the subreddit quality standards and a clarification on some common misconceptions. Without further to do...

What are the subreddit quality standards?

In short, our quality standards require that all comments:

are legally substantiated, i.e. discuss the law
are on-topic, i.e. engage with the substance of the post at hand
avoid polarized rhetoric, i.e. emotional appeals using hyperbolic, divisive language or blanket negative generalizations based on identity or belief

Why do these these quality standards exist?

Part of what sets r/SupremeCourt apart is that our rules encourage engaging with the legal merits of court opinions to an extent that is hard to find elsewhere.

Across most of Reddit, analysis of SCOTUS opinions begins and ends with "They ruled this way for political reasons." Discussion in every thread is nearly identical, there is little engagement with what is written in the opinions (as why bother if the belief is that it's written in bad faith to cover up their true reasoning?), and the quality and variety of discussion suffers as a result.

Our quality standards limit things that would otherwise dominate the conversation in furtherance of high-quality legal discussion.

Are you saying that there isn't a political component to the rulings?

No. It's undeniable that a larger political context exists. Naturally, a subreddit limited to discussion of the legal merits is only going to offer one piece of the larger picture. While the quality standards limit purely political comments, those aspects can still be discussed within a legally substantiated comment.

Furthermore, we allow politically-adjacent posts if they follow the text post submission criteria. Unlike case posts (which directly link to a court ruling or focus on analysis of the legal merits of a court ruling), a politically-adjacent post is directly relevant to SCOTUS but calls for discussion that is inherently political or not legally substantiated. Examples include news about the Court, a public quote from a Justice about the state of affairs, an announcement of Congressional action to reform the Court, etc.

Are you allowed to criticize SCOTUS/a Justice/a jurisprudence/etc.?

Yes. The subreddit quality standards weren't created to suppress criticism and they don't preclude criticism. Our quality standards, however, apply to all comments (critical or not).

To illustrate our quality standards as applied to critical comments, below are two hypothetical comments in response to the decision in Miranda v. Arizona (1966):

>[Rule-breaking] "I'll say it again for those who don't get it yet: Impeach. Earl. Warren. Warren and his activist buddies are once again doing everything they can to make crime legal in this country. They clearly care more about murderers and rapists than actual victims. Good luck keeping your family safe when this court is constantly releasing criminals and attacking police officers just trying to do their job. He might as well just let the ACLU write his opinions for him."

The above comment would be removed. It begins with a call to political action, contains multiple instances of inflammatory language, and merely focuses on the policy effects without engaging with the legal merits of the decision.

>[Not Rule-breaking] "I'm honestly disgusted by Warren's logic here. He's twisting the 5th Amendment into something completely unrecognizable. Since when does 'compelled' mean simply feeling stressed out in a police station? At the founding, compulsion actually meant physical force or the threat of legal risk, not "sitting in an air conditioned room answering questions". Warren is treating adult suspects like helpless infants, tossing aside centuries of settled law just to force his own preferred rules on the states. Trial courts are going to have an absolute nightmare trying to apply this nonsense without throwing out perfectly good confessions"

The above comment would not be removed. While sharply critical and suggesting partisanship, the comment engages with the legal merits of the opinion to substantiate those remarks.

Common types of comments that don't meet the quality standards:

quippy/snarky one-liners that don't substantively contribute to the conversation or dissuade discussion of the law
comments that merely discuss political motivations/ramifications without further legal substance
comments that don't engage with the substance of the post but rather could be 'copy pasted' in any given thread
comments that use inflammatory rhetoric and/or make blanket negative generalizations about one 'side'

As the Court's summer recess approaches...

According to SCOTUSblog, there are still 33 pending decisions that are expected to be announced sometime between now and ~ late June. Often, the Court saves the most high-profile for last. Along with the upcoming midterms, now is a great time for a reminder about what r/SupremeCourt is NOT:

This is not a battleground to fight about the "culture war".
This is not a place to aggressively argue or debate with the intent to "win".
This is not a place to bicker about policy merits.

If you see a rule-breaking comment, please report it. If you have concerns about a trend of problematic behavior from a commenter, please message the mods privately via modmail. We frequently hand out bans and your reports/modmail messages help us curate a community that values civil, high-quality discussion of the law.

Let's hear from you:

If you have suggestions, comments, or questions about any of the rules or how the subreddit operates, feel free to let us know below. We expect to be hands-off in this thread, but our civility rules apply as normal.

#United States v. Evans - CA8

###BACKGROUND:

Evans (Defendant) was indicted on six drug-related counts, two of which can carry an enhanced mandatory minimum sentence if the defendant had been previously convicted of a "serious drug felony" § 841(a)(1). Evans was previously convicted of possession with intent to deliver cocaine in Iowa and the government gave notice that it would seek the enhancement.

Evans objected to the application of the enhanced mandatory minimum. By statute (§ 851), this objection must be resolved at a hearing "before the court without a jury". If the court finds that the enhanced minimum applies, the court shall proceed to impose the sentence upon him.

Before his sentencing, SCOTUS decided Erlinger v. United States (2024), making clear that a jury rather than a judge must find the predicate facts to support a prior serious drug conviction. The posture of the case thus presented a catch-22 for the trial court:

A) Apply the enhanced mandatory minimum to Evans without a jury having found the predicate facts = violation of 6A, as a jury must do this fact-finding
B) Empanel a jury to resolve these facts = violation of § 851, as the statute requires the court to resolve Evans' objection "without a jury".

In light of this, the district court rescheduled the case for sentencing without the enhancement.

|------------------------------|

#Circuit Judge GRASZ, with whom Judge BENTON joins:

###Does 6A require a jury to find the incarceration-related facts before the enhanced mandatory minimum can be applied?

Yes. In Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), SCOTUS held that other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the increases a penalty beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury.

There was some confusion about "other than the fact of a prior conviction", but SCOTUS clarified in Erlinger v. United States (2024) that a judge may determine what crime and what elements the defendant was convicted of, but a jury must find facts related to the past offense.

###Can a jury find the incarceration-related facts at this stage?

No. Evans had objected to the government's information and the statute mandates that the court resolve Evans' objection "without a jury". The district court rightly decided that applying the enhanced mandatory minimum would either violate his 6A rights or § 851.

###Does the court have "inherent power" to empanel a jury so it's not deprived of thte ability to prove the charged greater offense?

No. The Constitution promises the government neither sentencing enhancements nor a forum to try them. Congress is free to frame its sentencing enhancements (Lockerty v. Phillips) and is free to establish inferior courts as it thinks appropriate (Article III). When Congress creates an enhancement, it gets to choose when and how the enhancement can be applied. While the federal courts possess inherent powers to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the "orderly and expeditious disposition of cases", these do not include the power to do the opposite of what Congress mandates.

###Should § 851 be seen as conflicting with 6A and thus void?

Not here. Despite what the dissent claims, this only applies to facially unconstitutional statutes. The Constitution does not void a statute if it may be applied constitutionally in some situations, and § 851 can be applied in several situations without defying 6A.

For example, if a jury had found the predicate facts before Evans lodged an objection, the district court could have relied on the jury's findings to resolve the objection without violating either 6A or § 851. Furthermore, if Evans objected to the fact that he had been previously convicted, or objected that elements of his prior conviction did not meet the requirements for the enhancement, a district court could resolve this as well.

Even if the statute was unconstitutional as-applied here, we would not reverse the district court because the government never made this argument below nor at the appellate stage. SCOTUS warned the lower courts to “think hard, and then think hard again, before turning small cases into large ones” by unnecessarily addressing constitutional issues, and this is especially true here because "woefully inadequate" briefing on this issue creates a risk of bad decisionmaking.

###IN SUM:

The district court's decision to set the case for sentencing without applying the enhanced mandatory minimum is AFFIRMED.

|------------------------------|

###Circuit Judge STRAS, dissenting:

The Constitution declares that "[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury." Congress has some control over where a trial takes place, but not who gets to decide guilt. Congress cannot narrow the scope of the jury trial clauses by statutory enactment. Federal courts have a duty to ensure that a jury is available, regardless of what a criminal statute says.

The majority, rather than allowing the Constitution to automatically displace the unconstitutional requirement of holding a hearing without a jury, flips the script by allowing the statute to eliminate part of the judicial power. Even if there are constitutional applications of the statute, the Constitution does not give defendants the right to a trial by jury "only when a statute is facially unconstitutional."

Where the majority sees a catch-22 in the requirement of a jury trial, I see the judicial power to summon one.

u/SeaSerious

r/SupremeCourt Rules Roundtable: Those Pesky Quality Standards (Redux)