WASHINGTON — In a case that carried echoes of two of its most divisive decisions in recent years, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that black firefighters in Chicago did not miss a deadline to argue that the city used an employment test in a way that disproportionately hurt their chances. þþThe decision was reminiscent of one decided last year by a 5-to-4 vote, Ricci v. DeStefano. There, the court ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven claiming race discrimination. þþMonday’s decision also touched on issues at the core of a 5-to-4 decision from 2007, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. In that case, the court ruled against Lilly M. Ledbetter, saying she had not filed her pay discrimination suit soon enough. (Congress effectively reversed that ruling, though not in a way that affected the Chicago case.) þþThis time, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a unanimous court. The facts of the case, a concession by Chicago and the text of the law at issue compelled a ruling in favor of the black firefighters, Justice Scalia wrote. þþThe case arose from a written employment test administered to more than 26,000 applicants in 1995. The city said that everyone who scored above 65 on the test was qualified, but it limited its initial hiring to a random selection from among candidates who scored 89 or better, a group it called “well qualified.” þþA trial court judge, in a ruling not contested by the city on appeal, found that “the cut-off score of 89 is statistically meaningless.” The city stipulated that the 89-point cutoff had a “severe disparate impact against African-Americans.” þþThe plaintiffs sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race discrimination in employment and required them to file a claim within 300 days of the contested practice. The question in the case was whether each of 11 rounds of hiring based on the 1995 test amounted to a fresh unlawful use of the test results. þþThe trial judge ruled that the city’s “ongoing reliance” on the 1995 test was a “continuing violation” of Title VII. The judge ruled in favor of a class of 6,000 black applicants who had been designated as qualified but not hired, ordering the hiring of 132 of them and payments to the rest. þþThe federal appeals court in Chicago reversed, saying that the plaintiffs should have filed a claim within 300 days of when they were first sorted into the categories of “well qualified” and “qualified.” þþJustice Scalia said the appeals court had answered the wrong question. Under Title VII’s disparate-impact prong, he wrote, each use of a forbidden employment practice gave rise to a separate claim. þþJustice Scalia distinguished the Ledbetter case as concerning disparate-treatment discrimination. þþ“For disparate-treatment claims — and others for which discriminatory intent is required — that means the plaintiff must demonstrate deliberate discrimination within the limitations period,” he wrote. “But for claims that do not require discriminatory intent, no such demonstration is needed.” þþJustice Scalia acknowledged that the court’s ruling in the new case, Lewis v. City of Chicago, No. 08-974, may allow suits over long-established practices. But a contrary ruling, he said, would let employers continue to use an unlawful practice with impunity. þþ“Truth to tell,” he said, “both readings of the statute produce puzzling results.” But he added that the court’s job was not to adopt the approach that “produces the least mischief” but “to give effect to the law Congress enacted.” þþDeath Penalty þþIn an unsigned decision, the court ordered the federal appeals court in Atlanta to have another look at a capital case in which a lower-court judge had adopted verbatim a decision drafted by prosecutors. Two justices dissented. þþThe case, Jefferson v. Upton, No. 09-8852, involved Lawrence Jefferson, a Georgia man who was convicted in 1986 of killing a co-worker while the two men were fishing. Mr. Jefferson maintains that his trial lawyers failed to investigate an injury that he suffered as a child when a car ran over his head. þþAfter a hearing on a state-court challenge to his conviction on that ground, the trial judge, without telling the defense, asked prosecutors to prepare a written decision and then adopted it without changes, even though it described statements from a witness who had not testified. þþThere is some dispute about precisely what happened, Monday’s decision said, including whether Mr. Jefferson’s lawyers were later given a chance to respond to the state’s proposed decision. It is undisputed, however, as the Georgia Supreme Court wrote in ruling against Mr. Jefferson in 1993, that “the state concedes that it drafted a proposed final order at the court’s request that was adopted verbatim.” þþProsecutors said this practice was “constitutionally acceptable.” þþJustice Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented, saying that Mr. Jefferson had not properly raised the argument addressed by the majority. þþDNA Evidence þþThe court agreed to hear an appeal from Hank Skinner, a death row inmate in Texas who seeks access to DNA evidence that he says could prove his innocence. In March, the court granted a stay of execution less than an hour before Mr. Skinner was to be put to death for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons. þþProsecutors have blocked Mr. Skinner’s requests to test blood, fingernail scrapings and hair found at the scene of the killings. Mr. Skinner maintains he was sleeping on a sofa in a stupor induced by vodka and codeine when the killings took place on New Year’s Eve in 1993. þþRobert C. Owen, one of Mr. Skinner’s lawyers, said the court’s decision to hear the case, Skinner v. Switzer, No. 09-9000, “represents the necessary first step to our eventually obtaining the DNA testing that Mr. Skinner has long sought.” þþLast year, in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, the Supreme Court rejected what it called a free-standing constitutional right of access to DNA evidence. Mr. Skinner sued under a federal civil rights law known as Section 1983, and the immediate legal question before the court is whether a suit under that law is permissible here. þþMr. Owen said he hoped “to persuade the court that if a state official arbitrarily denies a prisoner access to evidence for DNA testing, the prisoner should be allowed to challenge that decision in a federal civil rights lawsuit.” þ
Source: NY Times
