Supreme Court: No Limits On Navy Sonar Use
The Supreme Court on Wednesday lifted restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar in training exercises off the California coast, a defeat for environmental groups who say the sonar can harm whales.
The court, in its first decision of the term, voted 5-4 that the Navy needs to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats by enemy submarines.
Environmental groups had persuaded lower federal courts in California to impose restrictions on sonar use in submarine-hunting exercises to protect whales and other marine mammals.
The Bush administration argued that there is little evidence of harm to marine life in more than 40 years of exercises off the California coast.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. It said, rather, that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the Navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others.
The overall public interest tips "strongly in favor of the Navy," Roberts wrote. He said the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals.
"In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet," the chief justice wrote.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the Navy's own assessment predicted substantial and irreparable harm to marine mammals from the exercises. She said that "this likely harm ... cannot be lightly dismissed, even in the face of an alleged risk to the effectiveness of the Navy's 14 training exercises." Justice David Souter joined in Ginsburg's dissent.
Roberts pointed out that the federal appeals court decision restricting the Navy's sonar training acknowledged that the record contained no evidence marine mammals had been harmed.
The exercises have continued since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in February that the Navy must limit sonar use when ships get close to marine mammals.
A species of whales called beaked whales is particularly susceptible to harm from sonar, which can cause them to strand themselves onshore.
In other activity this week:
The Court heard oral arguments this morning in a case involving religious monuments on public property. Pleasant Grove City, Utah, wants to reject the donation of a display from a small religious group known as Summum.
The Salt Lake City-based reigious group hopes to erect a monument in the city's Pioneer Park, which is already home to a Ten Commandments monument that donated by another private group.
The Summum argued, and a federal appeals court agreed, that Pleasant Grove can't allow some private donations in its public park and reject others.
Cities and states worry that a ruling for the Summum would allow almost anyone to erect a monument in a public park, including people with hateful points of view, or lead to the removal of war memorials and other longstanding displays.
The Court appears close to ruling that crime lab reports used in drug and other cases may not be introduced at trial without allowing defendants to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare them.
The question arises from a Massachusetts drug case and turns on whether defendants' constitutional right to confront witnesses against them extends to lab reports. Prosecutors use such reports in thousands of cases each year. Typically, jurors are given the official reports with no accompanying testimony.
The Court declined to hear the appeal of a Texas woman convicted in a high-profile murder-for-hire case. The woman was convicted of using a fortune-teller to arrange the murder of a teen who spurned her daughter. The conviction was overturned by a higher court. But she was convicted again on federal charges because prosecutors said the hit men she hired came from Mexico.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The court, in its first decision of the term, voted 5-4 that the Navy needs to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats by enemy submarines.
Environmental groups had persuaded lower federal courts in California to impose restrictions on sonar use in submarine-hunting exercises to protect whales and other marine mammals.
The Bush administration argued that there is little evidence of harm to marine life in more than 40 years of exercises off the California coast.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. It said, rather, that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the Navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others.
The overall public interest tips "strongly in favor of the Navy," Roberts wrote. He said the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals.
"In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet," the chief justice wrote.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the Navy's own assessment predicted substantial and irreparable harm to marine mammals from the exercises. She said that "this likely harm ... cannot be lightly dismissed, even in the face of an alleged risk to the effectiveness of the Navy's 14 training exercises." Justice David Souter joined in Ginsburg's dissent.
Roberts pointed out that the federal appeals court decision restricting the Navy's sonar training acknowledged that the record contained no evidence marine mammals had been harmed.
Read the Supreme Court ruling and dissenting opinions in the Navy sonar case.
The exercises have continued since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in February that the Navy must limit sonar use when ships get close to marine mammals.
A species of whales called beaked whales is particularly susceptible to harm from sonar, which can cause them to strand themselves onshore.
In other activity this week:
The Salt Lake City-based reigious group hopes to erect a monument in the city's Pioneer Park, which is already home to a Ten Commandments monument that donated by another private group.
The Summum argued, and a federal appeals court agreed, that Pleasant Grove can't allow some private donations in its public park and reject others.
Cities and states worry that a ruling for the Summum would allow almost anyone to erect a monument in a public park, including people with hateful points of view, or lead to the removal of war memorials and other longstanding displays.
The question arises from a Massachusetts drug case and turns on whether defendants' constitutional right to confront witnesses against them extends to lab reports. Prosecutors use such reports in thousands of cases each year. Typically, jurors are given the official reports with no accompanying testimony.
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Posted by coopster41
Why does last year''s (or the near futures) precipitation have anything to do with global warming? The effects the earth will go through to recover from increased greenhouse gases (the next ice age) will not happen in our lifetime. Stop measuring your snow and try measuring the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and compare and see how rapidly it''s increasing.
You want to come and help me plow snow? We had a little over 100 inches last year! I need help feeding animals when it is 30 below also. Global Warming my A$$! The earth goes through its cycles and there is nothing we can do about it.
The use of high power sonar will likely take the same route. It won''t take sick animals to prove this, but instead it will take disasters and misfortunes to prove that high power sonars are inferior to other detection techonologies.
Our country survived loosing many aircraft and pilots to the limitations of Army Air Corp thinking, and it will survive loosing many vessels and seaman to the limitations of Navy thinking. The quest for military advantage is proven or disproven with losses or victories.
In the end, our military achievements are more possible without a hostile relationship.
Now that the cold war is over, I would like for the DIA and NSA to reveal what they do know about extra-terrerstrial life or vessels. I would be in favor of a Federal Constitutional Amendment that mandates disclosure of all extra-terrestrial life and vessels by all agencies within 24 hours, not 30+ years after an incident has been declassified.
xiaoyaliyi@163.com. :)
The risk is insignificant.
This should never have gotten past the first judicial case.
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Posted by au_fait at 07:21 PM : Nov 12, 2008
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Yeah, you''re so smart "au-***". I don''t think "co-exist" (sp?) "exists to (sp?) much". LOL