The Supreme Court announced its decision to address whether prosecutors in a drug-trafficking case have the right to present a government witness providing expert testimony to counter the defendant's claim of being an unwitting carrier, known as a "blind mule." The decision was disclosed in a list of orders released from the justices' private conference on Thursday.
The case in question involves Delilah Diaz, who was apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border with 28 kilograms of methamphetamine concealed in her car. Diaz argued that the vehicle belonged to her boyfriend, and she was unaware of the drugs.
Since Diaz could only be convicted if the government could prove her knowledge of transporting drugs, prosecutors enlisted a Homeland Security agent as an expert witness during her trial. The agent testified that drug couriers generally know when they are transporting drugs across the border, asserting that traffickers rarely use blind mules for fear of losing the drugs. Diaz was subsequently convicted and received a seven-year prison sentence.
On appeal, Diaz contended that admitting the agent's testimony violated Federal Rules of Evidence, which prohibit expert witnesses from expressing opinions about a defendant's mental state or the ability to assert a defense. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected her appeal, reasoning that the evidentiary rules only prohibit experts from explicitly stating whether someone knew they were committing a crime. Diaz sought the Supreme Court's intervention last summer.
The announcement indicated that the justices granted review only in Diaz's case. Additionally, the court requested the Biden administration's views in an antitrust case involving a U.S.-based soccer promoter, Relevent Sports, against the U.S. Soccer Federation and FIFA. The case questions whether an allegation of association members agreeing to adhere to the association's rules is sufficient to plead a conspiracy under federal antitrust laws.
The court, with dissents from the three liberal justices, declined to review Johnson v. Prentice. In this case, the court was asked to determine when prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment by continuously depriving a solitary confinement inmate of exercise. The case involved Michael Johnson, who spent over three years in isolation at an Illinois state prison, contending that his access to exercise was severely restricted due to various infractions.
Johnson initiated a federal civil rights lawsuit against prison officials, contending that his claims were dismissed by a federal appeals court in Illinois. The court ruled that denying an inmate access to exercise does not violate the Eighth Amendment unless it is imposed as punishment for a "trivial infraction." Following the denial of a rehearing by the full appeals court, Johnson brought his case to the Supreme Court, where his appeal was declined on Monday.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Jackson argued that, instead of scrutinizing the reasons behind Johnson's restricted exercise, the lower courts should have examined whether prison officials demonstrated "deliberate indifference" to Johnson's health and safety. According to Jackson, if the court of appeals had adopted this approach, Johnson's case should have, at the very least, been permitted to proceed to the jury for a decision.
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