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A Florida board of commissioners voted in favor of renaming a street outside of a Miami high school after the late Trayvon Martin.

The Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to rename a portion of Northeast 16th Avenue on Tuesday, Oct. 13, according to The Miami Herald. The road passes Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High, where Martin attended school at the time of his death.

Although Trayvon Martins life was tragically cut short, his death elicited national conversations about race relations, racial profiling, gun rights, and stand your ground laws and was a catalyst that set nationwide demands for social justice reforms in motion, the board wrote in the resolution.

Martin died in 2012 at 17 after he was gunned down by neighborhood watch vigilante George Zimmerman following an altercation. Martins death helped inspire the Black Lives Matter movement and prompted his parents to engage in community work. Sybrina Fulton, Martins mother, and his father, Tracey Martin, joined forces to create the Trayvon Martin Foundation.

The resolution stated the board appreciates the social justice reforms spurred by his death.

The document also shared little-known aspects of the teens life and personality.

He was beloved by his family, friends, and other members of his community and has been described as a peaceful, respectful, laid back, and positive person, the resolution read. The document added he wanted to enter the aviation industry after he graduated from college. Martin wanted to attend the University of Miami or Florida A&M University, the resolution pointed out.

In some ways, Trayvon Martin was a typical teenager who enjoyed playing video games, listening to music, watching movies, and talking and texting on the phone, the resolution also noted.

The name change is expected to be official this week and signs bearing Martins name will be erected in a few weeks, according to CNN.

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Miami Road In Front of Trayvon Martin's High School Will be Renamed to Honor the Slain Teen - Atlanta Black Star

In this file photo from Oct. 16, 1995, the view from the Washington Monument toward the Capitol shows the participants in the Million Man March in Washington.Steve Helber, AP

After the long ride from Jackson, Mississippi, Kenneth Stokes stepped off the bus wearing his favorite brown cowboy boots and a two-piece suit,much like the civil rights activists of the 1960s dressedin their Sunday best.

Kenneth StokesJOE ELLIS/THE CLARION-LEDGER

He shivered in the chilly autumn morning, wishing hed brought a coat as he joined thousands of men heading down the streets of Washington, D.C.This trek turned out to behismarchtwo miles through low-income housing and million-dollar row houses until, up ahead, a majestic view: theU.S.Capitol,seat of American power, largely built by slaveswhen the nation was a few decades old.

Stokes looked out over the National Mall, amazed at this ocean ofBlack men. Most were elbow to elbow.Some perched on monuments or in trees. Kids sat on dadsshoulders. All there for an event called the Million Man March.

It was packed, packed,packed, Stokes recalls. There were people everywherefrom everywhere.

Charles HicksDEBORAH BERRY, USA TODAY

Charles Hicks reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a folded paper scrawled with his handwriting. A union leader in Washington nicknamed the Chocolate Citybecause it was mostly African American Hicks studied the speech hed written the night before.

From his vantage on stage at the west front of the Capitol, Hicks took in the audience he was about to address, Black faces stretching a mile to the Washington Monument. This was the heart of America, home of the brave, land of the free. And they were repeating his chant: We are here!

Hicks watched as moreand moremen pouredonto the Mall.He told themnot to believe the myth thatAfricanAmericanmen are lazy.All my life I have seen Black men work and take care of their family,Hicks declared.All my life I have seen men in unions fighting for better jobs.

Anthony RuffProvided by Anthony Ruff

Anthony Ruff, then anArmy reservist in New York City, remembers speeches that day about Black families and kids without dads.

The message resonated with the 34-year-old, who was raised in a home with foster siblings. Especially when Maya Angelou stood up and read her Million Man March Poem, witha verse that says, I look through the posture and past your disguise and see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

Back in the crowd, Ruff vowed to one day adopt a child.

Virgil KillebrewKERRI PANG FOR USA TODAY

Virgil Killebrew, a street poet from Chicago, arrived early enough to stand directly in front of the stage. But the amplifiers were so loud, and the crowd so suffocating, he retreated to the fringes.

There were signs and flags. Music blared between speeches.Black hands clenched together in prayer against a blue sky, clouds scudding overhead.

I lost my mind, recalls Killebrew, now71. It wasnt the speeches. It was the excitement. ...You felt the truth of all these people saying,Black Power.

Herealized,This is bigger than us.

KokayiNosakherePHOTO PROVIDED BY KOKAYI NOSAKHERE

A chantarose with theintroductionof Rosa Parks,a diminutiveBlack woman who in1955refusedto sit atthe back of an Alabamabus.

Rosa!Rosa!echoed froma corner of thesprawlingcrowd.Asshestepped tothemicrophone,hundreds of thousands more voiceschimed in. Rosa! Rosa! Rosa!

ForKokayiNosakhere, then a 21-year-old college student from Anchorage, it wasthe apexofa sublime experience.He and 15other Alaskans had traveledmore than4,000 milesto join the Million Man March, which occurred 25 years ago Friday.

I didnt hear a word of her speech,Nosakhere says. We were doing the wave. ... Rosa! Rosa!I had to come back home and watch C-SPAN to get the outside perspective.

Now a community organizer for social justice, Nosakhere's online bio sayshis attendance at the Million Man Marchset the course of his life.

An activist. Asoldier.A union leader.A city councilman. Apoet.

That day in October 1995 has stayed with these fivemen, though not necessarily as an inflectionpoint. Life is more complicated than that.

To celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. this year, Nosakhere cut up a cardboard box and used markers to createa message he hoped would resonate with people no matter their skin color: If justice means revenge, there will never be peace.

He started walking through downtown Medford, Oregon, waving the sign a one-man parade in a city that is 89 percent white. There were no haters, he says, just lots of positive honks.

The Million Man March was Nosakheresfirst political demonstration. Twenty-five years later, hes still at it.

KokayiNosakhere holds a sign he made for the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. He said he hoped his message would resonate with people no matter their skin color.Photo courtesy of KokayiNosakhere

After returning to Alaska, he became a community worker for the NAACP, staged a hunger strike for school nutrition funding and played politics to achieve social justice.

A few years ago, he started a campaign to put anonymous love letters on car windshields handwritten messages meantto encourage positive feelings.

After George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the slaying of Black teenager Trayvon Martin, Nosakhere helped organize a demonstration. When Black Lives Matter marched through Eugene, Oregon, this summer to protest police brutality, he was there.

Those who think the Million Man March was supposed to change America got it wrong, Nosakhere says: The goal was to change us. I raised my hand on Oct. 16, 1995, and I have not taken it down. Ive fulfilled my oath to go back to my community and make it a better place.

Im still here,he says. I dont back down from white supremacy.

In overhead photos, they were five pixels in a panoply of AfricanAmerican men. Fivevantage points on a single day, andonthe quarter-century since.

There were 837,000 in all, or 400,000,or 1.9 million.Even the number of attendeesremains in dispute, like so many things about one of the largest demonstrations ever to hit Americas capital.

They chanted,laughed, danced,listened tospeeches, sang, cried and made vows. Despitestereotypes and predictions, there wasnoviolence, looting or arrests.Just an outpouring ofheartand an intaking of hope.

The crowd at the Million Man March has been portrayedas a singular organism. By all accounts, there was anaura ofunity, an abiding bond of pigmentation and gender.

But the event, as recorded by history andpetrifiedin the minds of those whoattended,always held distinct and subjective meanings.

The goals and leadership were controversial and divisivenot just to white Americans, but to AfricanAmericans watchingontelevision andeven there.

Some did not want to be affiliated with theNation of Islamor itsleader, Louis Farrakhan, whose preaching includes Black nationalism and anti-Semitism.

Some saw the stated purposeADayof Atonementas an acceptance of guilt by Black men for conditions that are a legacy of slavery, discrimination and white supremacy.

Some believed it was an affront, or politically shortsighted,not to invite women and non-Black sympathizers.

And yetthe idea ofuniting inadeclaration of African American pain, power andhumanitycaught fire, spreading from churches to Black businesses to union halls. After a year of planning and scraping together dollars, folks from sea to shining sea boarded trains, bought airline tickets, crowded into church vans and chartered buses to spend one day, together, making a statementforthemselves and to America.

Therewere manydeclarationsthat day,and perhaps a million takeaways.And then, after a long speechby Farrakhan, it was over.

Themall emptied.Menwent home, full of energy and ideas.

In the 25 years since, America haselectedan AfricanAmerican president, seendiversity become a workplace buzzword andwatchedNBA players wear jerseys emblazoned with Black Lives Matter.

Wevealsowitnessedvideos ofpolice killing unarmedBlack men, demonstrationsveering into riotingand a president whourgedwhite supremacists to standbackand stand by.

Hicks,75,whohas fought injusticemost of hislife,saysnationwideprotests againstpolice abusesare a new birth of the spirit of the Million Man March and the civil rights movement.

If I was 30 years younger, Id be out there, hesays.Im not young enough to run and to dodge tear gas.

Killebrewstarted writing poetry long after thedrugs, lost jobs andprison terms.He wasin Chicago,asking for a bed in a Salvation Army shelter. The gatekeeperwanted him to fill out a form explaininghis circumstances.

Killebrew couldhave written about his dad, whodividedtime between a wife and kids in Illinois and a second family in Tennessee.

Hecouldhave mentionedgoing to a nearly all-whitehigh school where fighting the Black kids was a way to prove something. Fights every day,he says. I began to feel myBlackage.

Street poet Virgil Killebrew looks back on the Million Man March 25 years later

Street poet Virgil Killebrew talks about his poetry and experience at the Million Man March on it's 25th anniversary.

USA TODAY

Hecouldhavedescribedplaying hoops at a neighborhood school when somebody broke into it.I didnt know you were supposed to run when the police came, Killebrew recalls. Helandedin juvenile hall, so embittered bytheinjustice that hewent backtwice for real crimes.

He couldhavetold aboutthe time hegotfired from a good job after a fightwith a whitedudeoverwhetherthe radioshould be tuned tocountry or blues.

Instead, when Killebrew filled out the Salvation Army form,he impulsivelywrotea poemthe first of his life.He titled it,Powerlessand Insane,the wayhefelt after a woman introduced him to heroin.

The shelter folks likedhisrhymessomuch they made copiesfor their guests. Killebrewbelieved they had no right to do that it washispoem so he raised a stink and lost his bed because of it.

But he foundavocation.He wrote moreverses,made copiesat Kinkos,and started selling them on the street for whatever peoplewanted to pay.One poem, Shopping Spree, urged African Americans to buy from Black businesses: If youre shopping with others who are not Sistahs or Brothas, Black people will never be free.

Killebrew was living in atransient hotelin 1995whenalocal radio host heard about hispoetryand invited him on the show.LuPalmer, considered the godfather of Black activismin Chicago, askedtheguestto recitea poem titled,True Black Man.

Call-in lines wereringingand lights were blinking, Killebrew recalls. Palmer acted like his guest had won a prize, declaring, Youre going to the Million Man March! Killebrew chuckles at the memory: I said, I dont have any money....My head was spinning like someone who has drank a pint of Richards (Wild Irish Rose).

When Ruff learned about the march, he started calling homeboys in Long Island,guys hed known since he was 13. Farrakhans role wasnt a spoiler; their agenda was more personal than political. This day was about them and people who looked like them, restoring dignity and pride.

The fact that it was on a weekday, when they had to take off work and maybe lose pay or get in trouble with the boss, made it even more valuable. People were willing to sacrifice something of themselves, Ruff recalls. We really felt it would be a historic event.

Nosakheresdad, an NAACP leader in Alaska, presided overKwanzaa and Juneteenth celebrations and had brought Farrakhanto Anchorage.So the young manwas steeped inBlackpoliticsandculture.

I grew upBlackety-Black-Black,Nosakheresays.

Still,it is one thing for a boy to inherit views, another toadoptthem.During hissenior yearinhigh school,Nosakherespent $5.99 at Waldenbooksfor a copy ofTheAutobiography of Malcolm X.

Herewas a civil rights leadertelling Blackstofight back against white supremacy.Thinking of the message,Nosakhere paraphrasesapassage that hit home:You have a right to kill a four-legged dog,or a two-legged dog who is threatening you.

Nosakherefoundsimilarmessagesin theRastafarian-inspiredmusicof Bob Marley. Thehit,I Shot the Sheriff, was about standing up to police brutality.Another song, No Woman, No Cry,gave himthepsychological armor nottofear white supremacy.

Nosakhereabandoned his birthnameand adoptedaSwahilimonikerthat he says means,Summon the people,old messenger, becauseGod is on his way. Whenhelearned aboutFarrakhans call forBlack males to convergeon the nations capital, he was all in.

Stokes, now 65, wason the JacksonCity Councilthen, asnow,and felt a duty to join the march. He and Charles Tisdale, publisher of theJackson Advocate, aBlack newspaper, started scroungingfor money to charter buses.

They went to funeral homes and other Black businesses.Wegot out there and started begging, he recalls. We had to represent.

Hicks, the union leader in Washington,had a legacy to considerwhen hewas asked to join a news conferenceaboutthe march.He hailed from Bogalusa, Louisiana, wherehisfather, Robert,foundedachapter of Deacons for Defense and Justice,an armed group of Black men who defended themselves and civil rights workers against attacks by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s.

Charles Hicks (third from left) and his late father, Robert Hicks (third from right), gather with fellow union members during the Million Man March in 1995. Charles Hicks spoke at the march.Photo courtesy of Charles Hicks

Hicks remembersone night in 1965, when friendsshowed up to protect his family after the sheriff warned that alynch mobplanned to burn down their home.Police wouldnthelp,Hicksrecalls.If we didnt protect ourselves, we were sitting ducks.

Ben Chavis, one of the march organizers, attended that news conference. ChavisaskedHickswho his father was and, inanod to the legendary civil rights activist, invited Hicks to speak on the big day.

Monthsbefore themarch,Killebrewstartedgoing toMonday night meetings in Chicago churches.

At first they were small meetings, not exciting. Folks talked about fundraising, the speakers list anda manifesto.

As the date neared,themeetings got bigger and livelier. Killebrew attended one at a Chicago mosque with Farrakhan, Chavis and Jesse Jackson. Itturned into apeprally, and Killebrewcaughtthe spirit.There was asense of history in the making, he recalls.

Days later,buses outside a church were loaded in the pre-dawn darkness.The Rev. Al Sampson,a march organizer,boarded with Killebrew and used the 20-hour ride toreviewa speech he would deliver titled, A Declaration of Purpose.

The buses formed a convoy and, with horns honking, paraded through the sleepingSouthSide of Chicago.

Most passengers brought pillows, blankets, food and drink. Not Killebrew. His stomach started grumbling as the bus filled with smells of homemade meals. He accepted some food from his seatmate,E-Rod, who spent much of the tripdistractinga 12-year-old boy whodidnt seem to get along with his dad.

Stokes saysfear was palpable as they boarded the bus inJackson. There was talk of possible violence.You didnt know if youd make it back home,he says. Thats one reason people didnt bring their wives.

They prayedwhen the bus took off,when it stoppedin Atlanta, andatevery otherstop along thenearly 1,000-mile ride.The only way these trips are going to be successful,Stokes says, is youve got to put God first.

Nosakheresflight from Anchorage landed in Boston, where he spent a few days at the home of a family friend,Brother Ray, before driving to Washington.

Church vans and buses were literally rocking down the interstate, Nosakhere recalls, full of brotherscharged with anticipation andwithfearofan attack by law enforcement orhaters.All of emwere singing, he says.We were fortifying ourselves. We thought we were going to die that day.

Farrakhans original idea was essentially religious.Black men of all faiths wouldgatherfor preaching, prayers and promises.Butamid the publicity of ayearlong run-up,politics elbowed itswayonto the agendaand the Million Man March morphed into different things for different people.

Even the title was a misnomer; there was nomarch, just agathering.And becauseofthename,counting heads provedcontroversial.

The Million Man March of 1995 carried a multitude of message and missions, some of them reflected in a handmade sign displayed by one of the participants.Photo courtesy of Rod Terry

Organizersput thecrowd sizebetween1.5 millionand1.9million.The National Park Service came up with 400,000, prompting the Nation of Islam to sue.That was the last time the Park Service estimated attendance at a demonstration in Washington.

A Boston University researchereventually usedphotos and computers tocalculate there werebetween 655,000 and1.1million people there.

For the men who showed, those were just numbers.

Ata unionhall in downtown Washington,Hicks and others munched on doughnutsand sipped juice provided by wives and mothers. The men wore black and whiteunionball caps;the women,who stayed behind, wore gold ones.

As Hicks and his family members got within blocks of the National Mall, he didn't see a swelling crowd at first. Its okay,his fathersoothed.If itaintnobody there but me, Charles and Farrakhan,weregoing to be there.

Nosakheresawpoliceon horsebackwith nothing to do. We toldthem, You arent needed today, homey.There was not one fight, no weed being smoked, no liquor. … It was one of the few times in my lifeI actually felt safe.

There were foodtents,first-aid centers andvoter registrationbooths. Eight hours of speechifyingand preachingwithmusical interludes.

On stage, thecomedian-activist Dick Gregory kept shouting into the microphone, I love you!Justabout everyonesangLiftEvery Voice and Sing, known as theBlacknationalanthem.

Read more:
25 years ago, Black men united in their pain and power. This is what the Million Man March meant to participants. - USA TODAY

Supreme drama

To nobody's shock, the first day of Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court became an echo chamber for the national election races. Her path to approval looks clear in the Republican-controlled Senate as predetermined as President Donald Trump's impeachment acquittal proved to be eight months ago. Partisan theatrics on both sides Monday sounded just as scripted.

Trump, who nominated Barrett, did a bit of overwrought heckling from the sidelines, tweeting this gripe about the process that was broadly ignored by Republicans and Democrats: "The Republicans are giving the Democrats a great deal of time, which is not mandated, to make their self serving statements."

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, took part in the first of four Judiciary Committee hearings on Barrett by remote hookup from Capitol Hill. She echoed running mate Joe Biden's warning that quickly adding another Republican on the court could help kill the Affordable Care Act without any alternative. The constitutionality of Obamacare comes before the high court on Nov. 10, a week after Election Day.

Fifty-two percent of registered voters told a Washington Post-ABC poll they'd rather see the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filled by the winner of the presidential race, as handled in 2016. But that number is down from the 57% first reported last month before Barrett, a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who lives in Indiana, was nominated.

Naturally there was side drama involving COVID-19, from which nearly 215,000 in the U.S. have now died. Harris said, "This hearing has brought together more than 50 people to sit inside of a closed-door room for hours while our nation is facing a deadly airborne virus." She and other Democrats said the Senate's focus at the moment should be on approving a new coronavirus stimulus package.

Committee member Mike Lee (R-Utah) spoke without a mask at times in the Monday event, less than two weeks after testing positive for the virus. Panel Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) insisted the hearing was safe after reportedly declining to take a COVID-19 test or to require one beforehand. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who also attended the hearing, put on a sideshow of his own by refusing to address journalists after one of them insisted he keep his mask on in a hallway at the Capitol.

With Republicans looking to portray Democrats as hostile to Barrett's Catholic faith, Biden said Monday that religion should not be a factor in her consideration. Biden has dodged the question of whether he'd support expanding the Supreme Court so he could add judges to offset what's about to be a 6-3 conservative majority. Newsday's Tom Brune provides a broader picture of the hearing. Barrett's opening statement is available in video here and in a transcript here.

Get our inside look at the White House and goings on in the Donald Trump administration.

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Perhaps the biggest news about Biden's visit to Ohio on Monday was that he would sweep through at all with three weeks left in the campaign. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there four years ago by a whopping 52% to 44%. So Democrats might have been inclined earlier to write off the Buckeye State, but recent polls showed Trump with only a slight edge there.

"The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get," Biden told a horn-honking drive-in rally outside a United Auto Workers hall in Toledo. "Trump panicked. His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable."

In Cincinnati, which he called the "starting gate" to winning the state, Biden gave a 35-minute stump speech filled with populist talk, a critique of Trump's coronavirus response, and calls for a return to bipartisan cooperation on big issues. Vice President Mike Pence also campaigned in Ohio on Monday.

The White House physician on Monday confirmed for the first time since the president's COVID-19 diagnosis that Trump has received consecutive negative tests, though Dr. Sean Conley didn't specify when. So Trump went off to a rally in Sanford, Florida, the first as he returns to the campaign trail. This week, he's also slated to appear in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin, all states where polls show him in danger of losing electoral votes he won four years ago.

Before the audience, Trump repeated falsehoods about what he said were Biden's positions on various issues, including that the Democrat would move to outlaw private health insurance and allow "open borders." Trump again claimed to be "immune" now from COVID-19.

"I feel so powerful," Trump told the shoulder-to-shoulder, mostly unmasked crowd. "Ill walk into that audience. Ill walk in there, Ill kiss everyone in that audience. Ill kiss the guys and the beautiful women ... everybody. Ill just give ya a big fat kiss." Thousands greeted Trump at the airport rally in Sanford, which is best known for the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by "neighborhood watch" captain George Zimmerman.

People waited for hours to cast ballots in Georgia on Monday as early in-person voting began. Eager voters endured waits of six hours or more in Cobb County, which once was solidly Republican but has voted for Democrats in recent elections, The Associated Press reported. Trump lost the county in 2016 but won in the state.

Cobb County Elections and Registration Director Janine Eveler told the AP that the county had prepared as much as much as it could, "but theres only so much space in the rooms and parking in the parking lot. Were maxing out both of those."

There also were big turnouts in Trump strongholds in the Peach State.

Californias Republican Party acknowledged owning unofficial ballot drop boxes that state election officials say are illegal. The officials received reports over the weekend about the boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Apparently steamed by the practice, the state's secretary of state issued a memo telling county registrars that ballots must be mailed or brought to official voting locations.

"In short, providing unauthorized, non-official vote-by-mail ballot drop boxes is prohibited by state law," the memo from Alex Padilla said. Padilla also sent a letter to state and county Republicans, ordering them to remove the unofficial drop boxes by Thursday.

Senate races in some reliably red states, including South Carolina and Kansas, are competitive. There are surges in Democratic fundraising that has put the Republican Party and Trumps campaign at a surprise financial disadvantage.

"Its not good for my side," veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres told the AP. "Pretty obviously, in many ways, down-ballot Republicans are in the boat with Donald Trump. Thats good for Republicans in deep-red states, but more problematic for those in swing states."

See a roundup of the latest regional pandemic developments from Long Island and beyond, reported by Newsday's staff and written by Bart Jones. For a full list of Newsday's coronavirus stories, click here.

Originally posted here:
Barrett confirmation hearing becomes national echo chamber - Newsday

In the oral argument of Torres v. Madrid on Wednesday, the justices tried out all the tools of constitutional interpretation as they worked through the meaning of the critical Fourth Amendment term, seizure. How they rule will answer one of the last remaining questions in this context: Is there a Fourth Amendment seizure when the police shoot a fleeing suspect who is injured by the bullets but does not stop?

Kelsi Brown Corkran, for Roxanne Torres, and Mark Standridge, for officers (Art Lien)

Kelsi Corkran argued on behalf of Roxanne Torres, a New Mexico woman who was shot twice by state police before driving away from the scene. She had support from Rebecca Taibleson, who appeared as a friend of the court on behalf of the United States. Mark Standridge argued for the police officers, Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson. Torres claims in a civil rights lawsuit that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment right by committing an unreasonable seizure when they shot her. The officers defense is that the shooting did not constitute a seizure at all.

As I mentioned in my case preview, the easiest resolution of the case would be for the court to simply follow its precedent. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan endorsed this approach, noting that, in the 1991 decision California v. Hodari D., the court crafted a definition of seizure that clearly captures the shooting in this case: a laying on of hands or application of physical force to restrain movement, even when it is ultimately unsuccessful. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch emphasized in their questioning, however, that this language was dicta, or not essential to the outcome of that case and thus nonbinding on future decisions.

Illustrating the centrality of this issue, Kagan read a series of passages from Hodari D. and noted that the language appeared all over the opinion, cropping up six times [in] only a seven-page opinion. To Kagan, this was not the kind of stray statement that could be easily disregarded. Strengthening this point, Taibleson offered a ringing endorsement of stare decisis in this context, stating that the United States interest here is in establishing a clear and predictable rule that law enforcement can apply in the heat of the moment in the field, and we think the rule established in Hodari D. achieves those ends. While Taibleson acknowledged that the United States had taken a contrary position in 1991, she explained, we didnt feel comfortable simply, you know, running it back.

Whether or not he appreciated Taiblesons pitch-perfect basketball reference, Justice Stephen Breyer seemed similarly swayed by the need for a clear line, stating, We need a line thats somewhat bigger than the one [the officers] propose. For Breyer, the line the court drew in Hodari D. is as good a line as any.

For the conservative justices attracted to the officers narrow seizure definition, the existence of contrary precedent is only part of the problem. There is the added fact that Hodari D. is an originalist precedent written by Justice Antonin Scalia. In his opinion for the court, Scalia wrote that, under the common law at the time of the Framing, the mere grasping or application of physical force with lawful authority, whether or not it succeeded in subduing the arrestee, was sufficient to constitute a seizure. This prompted Justice Brett Kavanaugh to press Standridge to acknowledge that, youre arguing, as I understand it, that Justice Scalia and really all nine justices in that case were wrong about the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Kavanaugh similarly pushed Taibleson on this question, with Taibleson ultimately affirming that the United States official position was that Scalia got the history right. Sotomayor fanned the flames, wryly noting that Scalia was very much was an advocate of the common law and quite well informed about it generally.

With this array of originalist forces against him, Standridge contended that the court should reject historic relics that are not suited to the modern era in favor of rules that have evolved through the process of interpreting the Fourth Amendment in light of contemporary norms and contemporary conditions. Curiously, it was the courts conservatives who seemed most receptive to this argument. Gorsuch questioned the applicability of the Framing-era cases that, he said, primarily concerned Dickensian debt collection practices. Thomas suggested that the cases might be distinguishable because they arose outside the criminal context and involved direct applications of force. Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that none of the cases involved shootings. There seemed to be an irony here in light of the proceedings unfolding at that same moment across the (virtual) street. At the same time that Judge Amy Coney Barrett was extolling the clarity of originalism in her confirmation hearings in the Senate, the courts most prominent originalists seemed to be suggesting that Framing-era precedents offered little insight into the proper application of the Constitution in a modern context.

The justices returned to more familiar territory as they sparred over the plain meaning of the term seizure. The officers strongest textual argument is that the terms ordinary meaning does not apply to unsuccessful attempts to restrain someone. To illustrate the point, Gorsuch deployed the days most extreme hypothetical, conjuring up a driver who blast[s] through roadblocks at 100 miles an hour with police bazookas (!) firing all around, and yet suffers only a scrape. Alito picked up the thread, asking about a baseball pitcher [who] intentionally beans the batter. Thomas added a question about someone hit by a snowball. None of these instances, the justices suggested, fit the term seizure. The examples prompted Kavanaugh to challenge Corkran to explain why shouldnt we just follow the ordinary usage of the term seizure. In an apparent appeal to the justices aligning against her, Corkran responded that its the ordinary meaning at the time of the founding that controls.

The justices hypotheticals arguably underplayed an important fact about Torres claim. Torres was not only shot but felt the effects including (she alleges) temporary paralysis. That the bullets did their damage in the blink of an eye may be causing the justices to overlook their severe impact damage that would have been readily apparent if occasioned by traditional physical contact. This point surfaced when Sandridge responded to Justice Alitos question about an officer who grabs [a] persons shirt for a couple seconds, by acknowledging that this would be a (momentary) seizure. Sotomayor picked up on the exchange in regard to Torres claim, asking Standridge how grabbing a shirt for a few seconds is more of a seizure than putting a bullet in someone.

An undercurrent in the questioning concerned the societal significance of the case. A broad understanding of the term seizure would permit greater judicial scrutiny of excessive police force at a time when the country is increasingly concerned with police violence. Early in the argument, Sotomayor asked Corkran to explain why this case is so important. Corkran obliged, noting that the narrow definition of seizure sought by the officers would leave all sorts of abuses by the government outside of the constitutional framework. Breyer emphasized the point, stating that the officers argument left the right of the people to be secure in their persons without much protection a whole area [with] no protection at all.

Gorsuch and Alito sounded a contrary note, asking both sides whether the suit could have been filed as a civil claim for battery in New Mexico state court. The consensus seemed to be that it could have been, but for the statute of limitations. Standridge drew on his local practice in New Mexico to push back on skepticism of the potential for state law remedies to excessive police force:

I believe I can represent, as an officer of this court and the state courts of New Mexico, that it is likely an assault or battery claim brought by a plaintiff such as this petitioner would[] survive summary judgment and would likely have to have been resolved at trial.

After argument, the case feels closer than expected. Things can always change as the justices dig into the record, but at the moment, I count three votes for Torres and three for the officers, with the outcome hinging on the two remaining justices Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts who did not tip their hands.

Posted in Torres v. Madrid, Featured, Merits Cases

Recommended Citation: Jeffrey Bellin, Argument analysis: Justices spar over stare decisis, originalism, text and what counts as a Fourth Amendment seizure, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 16, 2020, 3:08 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/argument-analysis-justices-spar-over-stare-decisis-originalism-text-and-what-counts-as-a-fourth-amendment-seizure/

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Argument analysis: Justices spar over stare decisis, originalism, text and what counts as a Fourth Amendment seizure - SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held oral argument in Torres v. Madrid, which debated whether police in Albuquerque had seized Roxanne Torres when they shot her in the back, even though she was able to drive away. If the Supreme Court declares that Torres wasnt seized, then her lawsuit under the Fourth Amendment would fail.

There is no doubt that when the bullets entered Ms. Torress back, she was seized within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment, noted attorney Kelsi Corkran, who argued on behalf of Torres.

A Constitution thats unconcerned with the police shooting someone without any provocation so long as the person doesnt immediately stop moving, its not just counterintuitive, Corkran added, it defies the sanctity of the person that forms the foundation of the Bill of Rights, the right to be secure in our bodies from unreasonable government intrusion.

UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 15: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. (Photo by ... [+] Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Justice Samuel Alito was skeptical that people using ordinary speech would refer to a sniper shooting someone or a baseball pitcher who intentionally beans the batter as seizures, claiming this was not consistent with the language of the Fourth Amendment. On behalf of the accused officers, attorney Mark Standridge made a similar argument.

No ordinary person as a matter of common sense, he claimed, could say that a person who is shot by the police but continues to drive well out of range, well out of their sight, and eludes them for a full day could be seized as a matter of the Fourth Amendment. As the officers did not seize [Torres], he asserted, they cannot be held liable to her for excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

But as Corkran pointed out, under Supreme Court precedent, its the ordinary meaning at the time of the founding that controls, especially if the modern understanding risks diminishing the constitutional right. (Emphasis added.) The Constitution must, at minimum, protect today what it protected at the time it was adopted, she added.

Back then, a seizure included both seizures of goods and arrests, which were considered the seizure of a person. As none other than Noah Webster once phrased it, We say to arrest a person, to seize goods.

Moreover, a seizure is still a seizure, even if its fleeting. Representing the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant to the Solicitor General Rebecca Taibleson stated that if a subject does not stop, the seizure lasts only a moment, the moment of physical impact. Under that test, Ms. Torres was seized, albeit briefly, so the Fourth Amendment applies, she added.

Though this debate may seem like splitting hairs, without the Fourth Amendment, no alternative avenue for redress exists in many excessive force cases, the Rutherford Institute and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers argued in an amicus brief. Victims of excessive force can also claim that their due-process rights were violated under the Fourteenth Amendment.

But as the amicus brief noted, those challenges have to overcome threshold question [of] whether the behavior of the governmental officer is so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience, a demanding standard that sets a nearly insurmountable burden for any plaintiff.

And while both Justices Alito and Neil Gorsuch claimed that Torres could have filed a battery claim against the officers under New Mexico law, that would be insufficient, the Rutherford-NACDL amicus countered, since state tort claims do not remedy or vindicate constitutional violations.

Plus, law enforcement can often undercut state torts. For example, courts in New Mexico have ruled that because police officers did not employ unconstitutionally excessive force, [they] cannot be liable for assault and battery under New Mexico law.

This lack of accountability is why many organizations from across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Institute for Justice, the Leadership Conference, LEAP, the NAACP, the Reason Foundation, and the R Street Institute, have all filed amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to side with Torres.

If this Court takes the extraordinary position that a police officer deliberately shooting at and wounding an individual is not a Fourth Amendment seizure, the NAACP warned, many innocent victims of police shootings will be left without a remedy.

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Can A Woman Sue Cops Who Shot Her In The Back? Supreme Court Unsure If Fourth Amendment Even Applies - Forbes