Resource: County of Maricopa v. Lopez-Valenzuela

By: SCOTUSBlog

June 1, 2015

SCOTUSBlog

Issue: (1) Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding, contrary to this Court's decision in Demore v. Kim, that under United States v. Salerno, a denial of bail is permissible “only” after individualized assessments of flight risk or future dangerousness, thereby barring categorical denials of bail such as Arizona's Proposition 100 and calling into question categorical bans on bail in non-capital cases that exist in seventeen other states (and perhaps even calling into question categorical bans on bail in capital cases that exist in an additional twenty-two states); (2) whether, when adopting a categorical ban on bail for illegal aliens charged with serious felonies, a state may rely on logical assumptions, testimonial evidence of front-line prosecutors, and other anecdotal evidence that is in conformity with the empirical evidence of heightened flight risk by those unlawfully present in this country contained in studies conducted elsewhere, similar to what this Court has approved in analogous contexts, see City of Renton v. Playtime Theaters, Inc., or whether the state must conduct its own empirical analysis that is both jurisdiction- and category-specific in order to meet the requirements of Due Process; and (3) whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that Proposition 100 was facially unconstitutional, contrary to Salerno's requirement that a statute is facially invalid only if “no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid,” because among those categorically denied bail by Arizona’s Proposition, 100 are individuals charged with capital crimes, whom the Ninth Circuit recognized could categorically be denied bail.

https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/county-of-maricopa-v-lopez-valenzuela/