Alaska campaign finance laws not challenged by Supreme Court
SCOTUS NEWS
For the second week in a row, the Supreme Court did not add any new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term. The justices will meet again for another private conference on Friday, Nov. 22.0 The justices will hold a private conference again on Friday, November 22.
More 14 years after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which removed limits on political expenditures made by corporations and unions for independent purposes, the justices have declined to comment on a challenge against the constitutionality of Alaska’s 2020 campaign finance laws. One regulation requires that anyone who donates more than $2,000 to groups spending money to influence elections of candidates must report the donation to the government within 24 hours. Five voters and two groups who spend money on election campaigns went to federal court to argue that the regulations violated the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, upheld the decision of the federal district court that denied their request to block the regulations prior to the 2022 elections. The Supreme Court also refused to overturn Michael Iervolino’s death sentence for the 2019 shooting death, of 20-year old Sloan Harmon. Iervolino argued that his trial should have been moved to another venue, but Alabama’s highest court for criminal cases rejected that argument and upheld his sentence.
Prosecutors described Harmon’s murder as the result of a road rage incident. The case was widely publicized because the victim’s son was the local district attorney. Iervolino was discussed in news articles for his criminal record and his recent release from prison. Law enforcement officials also commented on the case, calling the victim a “great citizen”, a “great soldier” and lamenting his loss to the community. Iervolino claimed that he was not entitled to a fair trial due to the victim’s close relationship with the local district prosecutor and the media coverage of the case. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s refusal to grant Iervolino his motion to move the case, as well as the conviction and death sentence. The Alabama Supreme Court declined to review his case.
Iervolino came to the Supreme Court this summer, asking the justices to take up his case and reverse. He argued that the “failure of a panel of impartial and indifferent jurors to provide a hearing violates the most fundamental requirement of due process.” It noted that the majority of news coverage about the murder had been published two years prior to the trial. The state wrote that only 18 of 70 prospective jurors had heard about the case. The other 12 said they did not prejudge the case based on their knowledge. The state noted that six of the 18 prospective jurors were excluded from the jury pool while the remaining 12 stated that they had not prejudged based on what they knew about the case. The justices also declined to weigh in on a technical question arising from the challenge to a West Virginia law that bans transgender girls and women from competing in girls’ and women’s sports at the middle school, high school, and college levels.
