SUPREME COURT Justices expect disputes to surface in new term

The decision in the first case will affect thousands of people.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court session starting Monday features many of the same wrenching issues that splintered the justices during the last term and led to some unusually acrimonious dissents.
The death penalty, free speech and prison sentences are back on the agenda, along with new topics such as medical marijuana and out-of-state wine purchases that are likely to produce significant disagreement.
Many of the biggest cases last session came down to 5-4 votes and some justices on the losing end offered harshly worded minority opinions.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor predicted a disastrous impact from the court's June ruling limiting judges' roles in sentencing convicted criminals. "The court ignores the havoc it is about to wreak on trial courts across the country," she warned in what turned out to be a prescient statement.
The ruling struck down a state sentencing system and led judges around the country to invalidate the similar federal system. Some federal judges started reducing sentences, and prosecutors changed the way they handle cases, putting more information in indictments and revising the way plea bargains are done.
First case
Justices agreed over the summer to hear arguments on the first day of the nine-month term in two appeals that will determine whether the federal sentencing system violated defendants' Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. The decision will affect thousands of people.
"Often the court draws back when it looks over the precipice, but I'm not sure they're going to pull back" on this case, said Chris Landau, a Washington lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk. "They're not a timid court."
Justices also were divided 5-4 in a major test last term of the government's power to control speech. In this case, which upheld major parts of a campaign finance law, Justice Antonin Scalia complained that his colleagues caused a tragedy: "This is a sad day for the freedom of speech."
Washington lawyer Erik Jaffe, a former Supreme Court clerk, said strong opinions rarely produce long-standing animosity among justices.
"They get annoyed, frustrated or mad or whatever you see expressed in critically worded opinions. Then they get over it and go to the next case," he said.
This year's cases
During each term, the Supreme Court hears about 80 appeals, only a fraction of the nearly 10,000 the justices are asked to consider.
On schedule this year are cases dealing with the rights of immigrants, the power of the government to prosecute cancer patients who use marijuana at the recommendation of their doctors and the government's authority to take private property through eminent domain.
A case sure to elicit strong opinions will be argued this month when justices are asked to rule on the constitutionality of executing killers who committed their crimes when they were juveniles.
Two years ago, the four-member liberal wing of the court -- Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- criticized their colleagues for being unwilling to ban what they called the "shameful practice" of executing juveniles.
Those four were outvoted in a major death penalty case in June, over whether to throw out more than 100 death sentences that were handed down by judges instead of juries.