U.S. opposes new role for Puerto Rico

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Lyle Denniston Independent Contractor Reporter

Posted Sat, December 26th, 2015 9:06 am

U.S. opposes new role for Puerto Rico

The Obama administration, relying on legal precedents going back more than a century, has urged the Supreme Court to rule that Puerto Rico remains a dependent U.S. territory and does not govern itself as an independent “sovereign.” It thus challenged the island commonwealth’s claim that since 1952 it has had the status of a self-governing entity with its people free to have their own legislature write the island’s own laws, including criminal laws.

 

The Court has agreed to review the constitutional status of Puerto Rico, and will hold a hearing on that issue in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle on January 13 in a case on the power of its criminal prosecutors. That will be the first of two cases on Puerto Rico’s status, with a second case coming up later in the Term on how it can handle its current debt crisis (Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust).

 

In the Sanchez Valle case, Puerto Rico is seeking treatment as a self-governing entity so that it would be free to prosecute two individuals for gun crimes even though they previously were convicted in federal court of crimes based on the same incidents. Ordinarily, two prosecutions for the same crime would violate the Constitution’s ban on “double jeopardy.”

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Argument preview: A lofty issue for Puerto Rico

By Lyle Denniston on Jan 6, 2016 at 5:31 pm

 

Analysis

Puerto Ricans have much on their mind these days — like $73 billion in debts that they cannot pay. That is an issue the Supreme Court will get to later in the Term. But, next week, on Wednesday, its government leaders will be asking the Justices for something bigger than financial rescue: nothing less than the freedom to govern themselves (a plea, by the way, that many on the island do not support).

 

At issue in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, according to lawyers for its government, is whether Puerto Rico is truly a master of its own destiny, or has not yet gained the right to stand alone and thus remains a dependency of the U.S. Congress. True sovereignty is what they say they want.

The island now has the legal status of a commonwealth, but it has some attributes of self-governance: it adopted its own constitution more than six decades ago, and its legislature has the power to pass laws that govern the island — laws that no longer need to be ratified by Congress. But that is as far as it should be allowed to go at this point, the federal government argued as recently as last week, when it filed a brief in this case. To go further, it added, Puerto Rico must either become a U.S. state or become an independent nation, neither of which seems imminent.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/01/argument-preview-a-lofty-issue-for-puerto-rico/#more-236816

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Supreme Court Asks: What is Puerto Rico to Washington? By JESS BRAVIN 6:46 pm ET Jan 13, 2016

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over what Puerto Rico’s attorney general called “the most important case on the constitutional relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States since the establishment of the commonwealth in 1952.”

 

The island’s economic crisis wasn’t at issue; a suit challenging Puerto Rico’s effort to restructure its public utility debt is slated for argument later this year. Rather, it was a routine prosecution over gun sales without a license that gave rise to reflect where Puerto Rico stands in relation to Washington: Is it an autonomous polity akin to a state, or a subordinate territory with colonial status.

 

”If we simply write an opinion and it says, ’Puerto Rico is sovereign,’ that has enormous implications,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, reshaping doctrines established in the early 20th century to govern the territories acquired after the Spanish-American War that, for the first time, were expected to hold second-class status indefinitely

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/01/13/supreme-court-asks-what-is-puerto-rico-to-washington/

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Lyle Denniston Independent Contractor Reporter

Posted Wed, January 13th, 2016 4:24 pm

 

Argument analysis: Puerto Rico — special no more?

 

Analysis

It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when the very last words spoken by a lawyer during a Supreme Court argument sum up very clearly what the whole hour has been about. That happened on Wednesday, when a lawyer’s closing, plaintive comment was: “Please do not take the constitution of Puerto Rico away from the people of Puerto Rico.”

 

Actually, there does not seem to be any real risk of that, but the entire argument in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez-Valle had the rather morose quality of suggesting that Puerto Rico was about to slide back into the nineteenth-century status of a mere colony, not a proud Caribbean master of its own destiny. If it is true that Congress has as much power over the island as was suggested, especially by a federal government lawyer, the island’s dependent status is clearer than it has ever been for more than six decades.

 

That prospect was entirely opposite of what the current government leaders of Puerto Rico had sought in taking their case to the Supreme Court. They wanted a declaration that, at least up to a point, Puerto Rico was entitled to the dignity of “sovereignty.” http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/01/argument-analysis-puerto-rico-special-no-more/

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Lyle Denniston Independent Contractor Reporter

Posted Thu, June 9th, 2016 2:27 pm

Opinion analysis: Setback for Puerto Rico’s independent powers (UPDATED)

UPDATED Friday 7:21 a.m. Puerto Rico’s governor, arguing that the Supreme Court ruling is wrong, said in a statement that the commonwealth will complain to the United Nations about the harm to its self-governing status. The governor said he will seek to appear before the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization later this month. His full argument on this issue was laid out in a letter to the U.N. last December. The U.N. does not appear to have authority to order any change in the commonwealth’s status under the U.S. Constitution, but it can make public declarations on the subject. Justice Breyer took note of the U.N. role in his dissenting opinion Thursday.

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Analysis

Amid a lofty discussion of what the Constitution says about “sovereignty,” a divided Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Puerto Rico does not have independent authority to prosecute someone for the same crime that has been charged in federal court. The argument appears to diminish the constitutional stature that the Puerto Rican government thought it has had for nearly seven decades.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/opinion-analysis-setback-for-puerto-ricos-independent-powers/