Supreme Court: Significant cases to be heard in new term

The U.S. Supreme Court has 49 appeals on its schedule for the 2011-12 term, which began Monday. But the biggest cases in line for arguments are those not yet on the docket.

Justices are widely expected to add dozens of other appeals to their schedule, foremost among them the challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. The core of the law — and the case against its constitutionality — is the “individual mandate,” a requirement that Americans buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty tax.

Never before has the authority of the federal government under the mestastasized Commerce Clause been used to order citizens to purchase a product from the private sector under the threat of punishment.

Twenty-eight states and private plaintiffs have sued in multiple jurisdictions to block the law’s enforcement, with federal appeals courts split on its constitutionality. ObamaCare is a dark cloud over an economy already crippled by uncertainty because the law contains hundreds of provisions that boost costs for businesses and insurers alike. The court’s decision would influence not only President Obama’s re-election bid and the rest of the 2012 elections, but the jobs market, the investment climate and health care in every state. The court should dump the entire law.

Justices also are expected to take up the constitutionality of Arizona’s illegal immigration law, which inspired a wave of protests and similarly strict immigration enforcement legislation in statehouses from coast to coast.

At issue is whether states can take steps to ensure residents comply with federal immigration laws, when the federal government doesn’t make enforcement a priority while saddling states with the fiscal and social costs of illegal immigration. The most controversial provision of the Arizona statute allows police to verify a suspect’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. If the court decides states can play a broader role in enforcing federal immigration laws, border states would gain the ability to control the staggering costs to taxpayers that illegal immigrants impose on schools, hospitals and the criminal justice system.

As for the cases the court already has agreed to hear, two appeals have profound ramifications for Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. First, in U.S. v. Jones, justices will decide whether authorities must obtain a warrant before they can track the movement of suspects with a global-positioning-system device. Second, in a case out of New Jersey’s Burlington County, the court will determine whether corrections officials can perform strip searches and body-cavity searches on all suspects regardless of their offense. A man sued the county after undergoing the humiliating intrusions over parking fines he had already paid.

The Constitution is clear: We are a free people, “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” and the government cannot carry out “unreasonable searches and seizures” in the absence of a warrant and probable cause.