It took almost three quarters of a century, but one Sheriff in Alabama is finally speaking out against a 1939 law that allows for the state’s 67 sheriffs to keep leftover money the state provides to each municipality for feeding inmates in local prisons.

Sheriff Mike Rainey reportedly received $295,294 from the local, state and federal governments to spend on food for the county’s inmate population. But thanks to the old law, Rainey is entitled to pocket any money left over after he fulfills his responsibility of feeding his inmates.

It’s not hard to imagine how such a system could lead to massive corruption. In 2009, former Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett was himself put behind bars after he admitted to keeping more than $200,000 from the prison’s food budget while the inmates he oversaw were provided with inadequate food.

Remarkably, Bartlett may not have actually broken any laws, a point the Alabama Sheriffs Association made to defend Bartlett during his trial.

Sheriff Rainey, who is calling on the legislature to end the current system in favor of allowing county commissions to oversee the funding, says he has donated most of his potential earnings to charity, upwards of $10,000 so far. He also wants to ensure that inmates are served fresh, healthy food, he told the Montgomery Advertiser:

“Incarceration is punishment. I know some people think you shouldn’t worry about what an inmate eats, but I think it’s a moral issue,” Rainey said. “They’re not getting filet mignon, but they’re certainly not being served green bologna, nor will they be served something like that.”

The Alabama legislature has tried to pass bills before repealing the 1939 law, most recently in 2009, but those bills have failed to advance to the Governor’s desk.

As ThinkProgress previously explained, today’s majority opinion striking down much of Arizona’s harsh immigration law SB 1070 includes several passages suggesting that an Obama Administration initiative allowing undocumented college students and veterans to remain in the country is lawful. In a dissenting opinion joined by no other justice, however, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia takes a swipe at President Obama’s immigration policy:

After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30. If an individual unlawfully present in the United States

“• came to the United States under the age of sixteen;

“• has continuously resided in the United States for at least five years . . . ,

“• is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has obtained a general education develop­ment certificate, or is an honorably discharged veteran . . . ,

“• has not been convicted of a [serious crime]; and

“• is not above the age of thirty,” . . . .

The husbanding of scarce enforcement resources can hardly be the justification for this, since the considerable administrative cost of conduct­ing as many as 1.4 million background checks, and ruling on the biennial requests for dispensation that the nonen­forcement program envisions, will necessarily be deducted from immigration enforcement.

The Obama Administration justifies its new policy under a doctrine known as “prosecutorial discretion.” Because Congress has not appropriated enough money to deport every undocumented immigrant in the country — the $285 billion cost of doing so adds up to more than six times to Department of Homeland Security’s entire annual budget — the executive branch has the authority to decide how to use its limited enforcement resources by focusing on undocumented immigrants who commit serious offenses and shifting resources away from college students and veterans.

Scalia’s dissent essentially claims that the Obama Administration’s invocation of prosecutorial discretion is a sham because their new immigration directive would also cost money to implement. Scalia would have done well, however, to actually crunch some numbers before making this claim.

Although it is true that the administration’s directive requires immigrants to “pass a background check” and undergo a “case by case” examination of their circumstances before they can take advantage of the new policy, such review will cost only a fraction of how much it would cost to round up, detain, process and deport each of these immigrants. As a Center for American Progress report explains, it costs an average of $18,310 to apprehend a single undocumented immigrant, $3,355 to detain the immigrant while they are facing removal proceedings, $817 to conduct the proceeding itself and another $1,000 to actually deport the immigrant to their country of origin — for a total cost of more than $23,000 for each college student or U.S. military veteran removed from the country.

Private companies, by contrast, offer criminal background checks for as low as $34.95. Federal employees undergo somewhat more expensive screening — those background checks start out at $125 — but even top secret clearances only require $4,000 to conduct. In other words, even if every single person eligible for relief under the Obama Administration’s directive were subjected to the same rigorous screening process required of top security officials who handle information that would cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security if it became public, that would still cost about $19,000 less per immigrant than the cost of rounding up and deporting undocumented students and veterans.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that juvenile offenders who commit homicide crimes cannot be mandatorily sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The ruling extends the reasoning of a 2009 decision prohibiting the similar sentences for juveniles who commit non-homicide crimes. The decision followed a predictable pattern — it was decided 5-4 — but unlike some recent criminal justice cases, Justice Kennedy sided with the court’s “liberal” justices.

Two factors contribute to the determination that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment: first, life without parole for a juvenile is like a death sentence, and second, children, who lack maturity and a sense of responsibility, are constitutionally different from adults when it comes to sentencing. Of course, mandatory sentencing schemes do not take into account any characteristics, including age, of defendants.

Recent research on brain development in teenagers backs up the Court’s determination that children are different from adults, particalary when it comes to characteristics that should matter for sentencing: children are more reckless, risk-taking, and impulsive. A report published last year by British scientists, lawyers, and ethicists, argues that emerging understanding of how children’s brains develop should inform how we treat children who commit crimes:

“A number of psychologists have already shown that adolescents are not wholly responsible individuals and are inclined to take risks and behave in irresponsible ways,” said Nicholas Mackintosh, an emeritus professor in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge and chair of the Royal Society panel. “What neuroscience has shown in the last 10 years is that this is at least associated with the fact that the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence.”

In particular, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, impulse control and cognitive control, is among the slowest parts of the brain to mature and is not fully developed until around the age of 20. “Neuroscience adds to the evidence that a 10 or 12 or 15-year-old does not have a fully adult brain in many important respects,” said Mackintosh.

Differences in brain development are not the only characteristics that make juveniles different from adults. According to the court, juveniles are also more vulnerable to outside influences, lack control over their environment, and have a greater capacity for reform. Together, the characteristics specific to juveniles undercut both the retribution and deterrence justifications used to impose a punishment as severe as life without parole. A child who commits a crime is likely to be less blameworthy than an adult and less likely to consider the consequences of punishment before acting. The result of today’s decision: when it comes to mandatory sentencing, age matters.

–Alex Brown

Last year, Congressional Republicans exploited an unfortunate quirk in American law to hold the American economy hostage unless President Obama capitulated to rapidly escalating demands for austerity. When the federal budget runs a deficit, Congress must periodically cast a vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling or else the entire nation will be thrust into catastrophe. Had Republicans carried through on their threat to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, it likely would have dealt an even sharper blow to the U.S. economy than the worst part of the Great Recession that began in 2008.

At a meeting with reporters late last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) embraced a plan to make sure this kind of hostage taking can never happen again — declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional:

At a lunch roundtable with columnists earlier today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged President Barack Obama to avoid a new debt-ceiling showdown by stating that a statutory borrowing limit is inconsistent with Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”

She at first referred to this possibility obliquely while making a larger point about the lack of cooperative spirit between the Republican Party and the Obama administration but clarified her stance in response to further questions saying, “I would like to see the Constitution used to protect the country’s full faith and credit.” She didn’t offer a legal argument in favor of the position but argued on policy grounds that “you cannot put the country through the uncertainty” again, noting that America’s sovereign debt was downgraded by ratings agencies in the wake of the standoff even though it was successfully resolved.

Pelosi’s constitutional solution to the debt ceiling time bomb is not a new suggestion. Several senators proposed President Obama invoke the Fourteenth Amendment and disarm this time bomb during the GOP-led crisis last year — although Obama himself often showed rhetorical reluctance to turn to the Fourteenth Amendment.

If the American people choose to elect Obama to a second term, however, their decision may become utterly meaningless unless the White House executes some plan to take the debt ceiling off the table for good. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already warned that he will use the debt ceiling to take America hostage again in 2013, once again forcing a choice between a sudden economic collapse or a slow bleed due to austerity.

In other words, McConnell’s plan is to ensure that, no matter who wins the 2012 election, Republicans will get to set our nation’s policy. If America is to remain a democracy, eliminating the debt ceiling time bomb needs to be a top priority.

This morning, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-3 decision striking down three key provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070 law, and effectively limiting the scope of the law’s “show me your papers” provision requiring law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is in the country illegally. Here are four key takeaways from this decision:

1. Arizona Does Not Get To Have Its Own Immigration Policy: For decades the backbone of American immigration law has been an understanding that the United States has one immigration policy set by our national government, not fifty different immigration policies set by fifty different states. Today’s decision leaves this basic framework in place. In the words of Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion, “[i]t is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States.”

2. Arizona Cannot Create New Crimes Targeting Immigrants: SB 1070 criminalizes “willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document,” it makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work or seek work, and it authorizes police to arrest anyone the officer has “probably cause to believe” can be deported. All of these provisions were struck down by the Court. Notably, Justice Kennedy’s opinion acknowledged how forcing immigrants into the shadows can lead to their exploitation: “making criminals out of aliens engaged in unauthorized work—aliens who already face the possibil­ity of employer exploitation because of their removable status—would be inconsistent with federal policy and objectives.”

3. Arizona Cannot Detain People Simply Because They Might Be Undocumented: Although the opinion does not strike down the “show me your papers” provision, it significantly lessens the harm caused by this provision. SB 1070 provides that “[a]ny person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status de­termined before the person is released,” but the Court warns the state not to apply this provision literally if it wants to avoid running headlong into the Constitution:

Detaining individuals solely to verify their immi­gration status would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. The program put in place by Congress does not allow state or local officers to adopt this enforcement mechanism.

But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. To take one example, a person might be stopped for jaywalking in Tucson and be unable to produce identification. The first sentence of §2(B) instructs officers to make a “reasonable” attempt to verify his immigration status with ICE if there is reasonable suspicion that his presence in the United States is unlawful. The state courts may conclude that, unless the person continues to be suspected of some crime for which he may be detained by state officers, it would not be reasonable to prolong the stop for the immigration inquiry.

Although the Court technically does not reason a decision on this question, under today’s opinion, prolonging a person’s detention simply to verify their immigration status is almost certainly not allowed.

4. Obama’s DREAM Initiative Is Legal: Finally, as Judd Legum notes, the opinion strongly hints that the Obama Administration’s directive allowing undocumented college students and veterans to remain in the country is lawful. Indeed, on page 17 of the opinion, the Court explicitly lists “a veteran” or a “college student” as two examples of undocumented immigrants who should not experience “unnecessary harassment.”

In the end, the Obama Administration got 85 percent of what it asked for from the Supreme Court today, plus an unexpected lift to its newly announced immigration directive. Three of SB 1070′s four challenged provisions were struck down, and the remaining provision was significantly limited. Moreover, it is possible that a subsequent challenge could invalidate show me your papers for good. The Court leaves open the possibility that future constitutional challenges to this provision could strike it down.

Today, the Supreme Court issued a decision invalidating most of Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Georgetown Law professor David Cole, a vocal civil liberties advocate, called the decision “almost a total victory for the Obama administration,” which challenged the constitutionality of the law.

But the decision signaled that the court also views Obama’s recent immigration directive, halting deportations for many young undocumented immigrants, as legal. Essentially, the court underscored that the federal government has broad discretion under the law to decide who to deport. From the decision:

Congress has specified which aliens may be removed from the United States and the procedures for doing so.  Aliens may be removed if they were inadmissible at the time of entry, have been convicted of certain crimes, or meet other criteria set by federal law.  See §1227. Removal is a civil, not criminal, matter.  A principal feature of the removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials. See Brief for Former Commissioners of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service as  Amici Curiae  8–13 (hereinafter Brief for Former INS Commissioners).

…Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns.  Unauthorized workers trying to support their families, for example, likely pose less danger than alien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime. The equities of an individual case may turn on many factors, including whether the alien has children born in the United States, long ties to the community, or a record of distinguished military service.

Kris Kobach, an immigration advisor for Mitt Romney, said that Obama’s order was illegal. It does not appear likely that the Supreme Court agrees.

This explains why Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion, upholding the entire law, included a lengthy section blasting Obama’s immigration order. He also read from that section at length from the bench.

Normally, the federal government wins nearly seven out of ten cases it argues in the Supreme Court. This is true for a variety of reasons: the Solicitor General’s office includes some of the best and most experienced Supreme Court advocates in the country; many of the federal government’s cases are criminal cases, where the conservative justices typically favor the government; and longstanding precedent requires the justices to defer to the federal government’s views in certain kinds of cases. Perhaps most importantly, the justices have typically valued the Solicitor General’s opinion since the SG represents a co-equal branch of government that, unlike the judiciary, is lead by someone that is actually elected by the American people.

As Adam Winkler points out, however, the Roberts Court appears to care very little what the Obama Administration has to say:

Studies show that, in the past, the solicitor general wins most of his cases. When he is a party to a Supreme Court case, the solicitor general wins nearly 70 percent of the time. This term that number looks to flip. If the Court rules against Obama in the health care case and the other major decision yet to come down — on Arizona’s controversial immigration law — the federal government will have lost nearly 65 percent of its cases.

To date, the Court has ruled against the Obama administration in over half the cases in which the federal government was a named party. The justices rejected Obama’s positions in important cases dealing with GPS surveillance of vehicles; the scope of religious institutions’ exemption from employment discrimination law; the formatting of passports; and procedures under the Clean Water Act, among others. . . . This Court’s anti-Obama leanings even led to victories for Native American tribes, who over the course of American history have won precious few cases against the federal government.

A partial explanation for this shift could be that the justices have found a different team of elite lawyers they would rather take advice from — America’s top corporate lobbying group. So far this term, the Roberts Court sided with the United States Chamber of Commerce in every single one of the cases where the Chamber expressed a view. Moreover, the Chamber’s win rate for the duration of the Roberts Court closely matches the very high win rate once enjoyed by the Solicitor General. According to the Constitutional Accountability Center, the Chamber’s overall win rate before the Roberts Court is 68 percent, or 60 of 88 cases: