Court Review: Volume 43, Issue 3 – Recent Criminal Decisions of the United States Supreme Court: The 2006-2007 Term

The past Term of the Court was one in which it swung to the right. A single justice, Justice Anthony Kennedy, made all the difference—being in the majority in every five-to-four decision that split along ideological lines. Cases of particular interest to state-court judges held that a passenger in a routine traffic stop is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes, that California’s determinative sentencing law was unconstitutional, and that the Court’s decision on Crawford v. Washington would not be applied retroactively on collateral review.