In this case the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s limited approach to the insanity defense, holding that due process does not require a state to use both prongs of the M’Naughten insanity test; and that the states are not obligated to permit a defendant to argue that mental illness prevented him ...

Ronald Banks, a prisoner confined in a Long Term Segregation Unit (LTSU) within the Pennsylvania prison system, sued the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to challenge the constitutionality of a prison rule that bans access to newspapers, magazines and photographs for all inmates housed in the LTSU. The LTSU is the ...

Without deciding whether the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations grants individuals any enforceable rights, the Court held that a violation of that treaty does not require the states to suppress evidence or forego their procedural default rules.

In this case, the Supreme Court addressed the derivative rights of criminal defendants ...

This death penalty case exemplifies the huge philosophical divide on the Supreme Court over capital punishment. Here, a 5-to-4 majority (consisting of Justices Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy and Alito) held that Kansas' capital sentencing statute, which requires the imposition of the death penalty when the sentencing jury determines that aggravating ...