Is a new Idaho law purporting to ban interstate transport of minors for gender-affirming care constitutional? Idaho's House of Representatives has just passed a bill criminalizing most forms of gender-affirming treatment for minors. Most audaciously to my eye, subsection (4) of the bill purports to criminalize transporting a minor out of state (to neighboring Oregon, say) for the provision of such treatment. Should Idaho attempt such a prosecution, I would guess that Subsection (4) would be overturned by a federal court as an infringement of the right to freedom of movement among the states. Is this correct? The closest valid law I'm aware of is the federal law against interstate travel for the purpose of dodging state age of consent laws, which is of course a very different matter. In abortion law, there is a related discussion here, but this regards an Alabama law that doesn't even purport to ban residents' seeking abortions out of state, which is moot while Roe v. Wade stands in any case.
Effect of Bill First of all, if this bill (Idaho House Bill 675) is passed in the form linked in the question, section 4, which prohibits transporting a child outside the state, ONLY applies when this is done for purposes prohibited in subsection (1), that is, traditionally defined female genital mutilation. It does not, in its linked form, prohibit transport to violate the new section (2) which prohibits procedures to &quot;change or affirm the child's perception of the child's sex&quot;. Thus the statement in the question that: subsection (4) of the bill purports to criminalize transporting a minor out of state (to neighboring Oregon, say) for the provision of such treatment. is incorrect. Notice that section 4 is not new, nor is it modified (except by changing th4e section number) by the current bill. My understanding is that the travel ban was, when it was passed, aimed at families who took female children outside the US, to African or Middle-eastern countries, for traditional rites that include FGM. This was done by a significant number of people with ethnic origins in such countries, and a number of US states passed laws banning such travel. This law, before the house bill, was one such law. The recent bill added &quot;gender affirming care&quot; into the law, by calling it another form of genital mutilation. However, for purposes of discussion, let us assume that subsection (4) is changed to refer to subsections (1) or (2), thus making the question correct. Right to Travel The right to travel from one state to another is a basic right under the US constitution. The LII page on &quot;Interstate Travel&quot; refers to it as: &quot;a right venerable for its longevity, but still lacking a clear doctrinal basis.&quot; See the Wikipedia article Freedom of movement under United States law The right to travel was recognized early on, in the case of Corfield v. Coryell (6 Fed. Cas. 546, no. 3,230 C.C.E.D.Pa. 1823). This case was decided by Justice Bushrod Washington, a member of the US Supreme Court, but it was decided while he was acting in his role as circuit judge, not by the Supreme Court as a whole. In that decision, Justice Washington included &quot;The right of a citizen of one state to pass through, or to reside in any other state, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise;&quot; as one of the &quot;privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states&quot; which are guaranteed to all citizens. This passage has been influential, although not undisputed, in interpreting the &quot;privileges and immunities clause&quot; of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1868) The Supreme Court held that the right to travel between states was fundamental, and that a state could not impede it by taxing the exit of people from one state to travel into another. Subsequent cases have deemed the right to travel protected against state restrictions both under the privileges and immunities clause, and under the commerce clause. In United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966) at 383 U.S. 757 the Court wrote: The constitutional right to travel from one State to another, and necessarily to use the highways and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce in doing so, occupies a position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized. The Guest court goes on to cite Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, (the case in which a tax on those leaving the state was overturned) and the Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 48 U. S. 492 in which Chief Justice Taney wrote: We are all citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States.&quot; All this would mean that a law prohibiting travel would need strong justification, and is probably subject to strict scrutiny, a standard of review requiring a &quot;compelling governmental interest&quot; and a &quot;narrowly drawn&quot; law. Medical Judgement The bill declares that procedures to &quot;change or affirm the child's perception of the child's sex&quot; are &quot;never necessary&quot;, any medical opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. Such an override of qualified medical opinion might be hard to justify in a criminal law. Civil Rights In BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA 590 U. S. ____ (2020) #17–1618 the Subreme court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. prohibits employment discrimination against homosexual or transgender individuals, writing: Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex, an employer who intentionally penalizes an employee for being homosexual or transgender also violates Title VII. This rule may well carry over to other areas of the law. Equal Protection Clause The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment reads nor [shall any state] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Treating members groups differently because of group membership is often, but not always, an equal protection violation. The provisions oc the bill, if enacted, might constitute such a violation.
Let's back up. It's premature to say that SB 8 &quot;avoids the constitutional restrictions on banning abortions&quot;. The constitutionality of SB 8 has not been resolved; the Supreme Court said so explicitly (page 2). In fact there is good reason to think that is unconstitutional under existing interpretation of the Constitution per Roe v. Wade and the like. (Whether the court will actually follow existing interpretation is another question, of course.) But the courts do not determine the constitutionality of laws just because someone asks them; they only do so when it needs to be decided to resolve a particular case. For instance, if a person is charged with a crime, they can challenge the constitutionality of the law under which they are charged, and courts will address that question unless the case is resolved some other way. There are also ways that a person who wants to violate the law can pre-emptively sue the government to prevent them from enforcing the law, if they can show such enforcement is likely to affect them. The issue in SB 8 is that since it wouldn't be the government enforcing the law, it's unclear who an abortion provider can pre-emptively sue. In Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, they tried to sue the State of Texas, its courts, and a private party who they thought might be likely to sue them. The SCOTUS majority found that none of those defendants were relevant. However, if and when an abortion provider actually does get sued, there'll be a clear case which has proper parties and is ripe, and courts then will have to consider whether SB 8 is constitutional or not. So if your hypothetical gun control statute were treated similarly, the law might avoid pre-emptive challenges, with a chilling effect on gun sales. But sooner or later, someone would probably violate the law (maybe deliberately as a test case), and the courts would consider whether it was constitutional or not. Under prevailing interpretations of the Second Amendment, they'd probably find that it wasn't. A key difference, of course, is that abortions are much more time-sensitive than gun purchases; being temporarily blocked from having an abortion is much more consequential in most cases than being temporarily blocked from buying a gun. The other subtext is that, although SCOTUS said their decision in Whole Woman's Health is not based on the constitutionality of SB 8, it's widely suspected that several of the justices are not all that keen on the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, and might look to overturn Roe when it comes up. As such, they may not be very motivated to look for procedural avenues to block SB 8 in the short term, since they might be inclined to uphold it in the long term. The dissenters in Whole Woman's Health certainly thought those avenues were available. But in the case of your hypothetical gun control bill, if a majority of justices were pretty convinced that the law was unconstitutional, they might try harder to come up with grounds to block it pre-emptively.
In that case, Cruise-Gulyas was subject to a second stop, and the court found that the second stop was an illegal seizure. There is no qualified immunity since this was an exercise of a clearly established First Amendment right. The authority to seize her ended when the first stop ended. The finger is not a basis for a stop, since it does not violate any law ("This ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity", Swartz v. Insogna, 704 F.3d 105.
In the specific example you have given, Florida law could not be applied. A state has jurisdiction over a crime under constitutional due process limits on the scope of a state's criminal jurisdiction if the crime is either committed within the state (regardless of where the harm occurs) or is directed at or impacts the state (the classic example is a gunshot fired from the Ohio side of the state line killing someone located in Indiana, which could be prosecuted in either state, or in both states as it doesn't violate double jeopardy to be prosecuted for the same offense by more than one sovereign). Sometimes these issues are framed not as "jurisdictional" per se, but as "conflict of law" questions limited by the constitution. The proof that a crime was committed in the territory where it is applicable is called proof of locus delecti and depends upon the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it. To determine where a crime is committed depends on what acts constitute the crime, something that leaves considerable room for flexible interpretation and a careful reading of the exact wording of the relevant criminal statute. The most important limitation on the territorial jurisdiction of a U.S. state is the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This applies directly in the case of federal criminal prosecutions in the federal courts, and applies in state courts because it is incorporated to apply in state court cases through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States under 20th century case law applying the "Selective Incorporation doctrine." The Sixth Amendment mandates that criminal trials be conducted “by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” If a suspect is not present in a state to be criminally prosecuted, then the options available to a state are (1) to toll the running of the statute of limitations while the suspect is outside the state to the extent permitted by the relevant state statute and the U.S. Constitution, (2) to bring a civil lawsuit against the suspect instead of a criminal prosecution, or (3) to seek extradition of the suspect, which must be granted under certain circumstances under the United State Constitution and reads as follows in the pertinent part: Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2: A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. (Note that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to civil lawsuits. Civil lawsuit trials can be conducted in a state other than the state where the breach of contract or tort giving rise to the lawsuit took place for jurisdictional purposes and not infrequently is brought in another state, although constitutional choice of law rules limit the circumstances under which a particular state's laws can be applied to a particular set of circumstances in a lawsuit.) The Sixth Amendment, on its face, prohibits Florida from prosecuting a case in the example given in the question involving a crime that was committed solely in Washington State. Of course, the exact definition of the crime might determine where it was committed. In traditional "common law" "blue collar" crimes there is usually no ambiguity over where it is committed except in the most extraordinary circumstances, but in prosecutions of conspiracies and crimes involving economic activity (such as owning or mailing something), the question of where a crime is committed can grow much fuzzier. For example, one could imagine a differently defined crime prohibiting providing funds to finance a purchase of marijuana in excess of 20 grams being committed both in Washington State and Florida at the same time (e.g. perhaps a purchase of marijuana in Washington State was financed by a Florida bank by delivering cash to a courier in Florida who is bound for Washington State knowing that the cash would be used to finance a marijuana purchase). Similar ideas apply in international circumstances where the Sixth Amendment and Extradition Clause do not apply. But, in those cases, the more flexible and less well defined "law of nations" as interpreted by Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court and the President still does impose some territorial boundaries on prosecutions for actions which are not crimes in the country where they are committed under that country's domestic laws. But, those boundaries are not so hard and fast and the idea that a crime is committed in places where it has an impact allow for considerable flexibility in prosecuting crimes committed outside the United States. It has also been well settled since the earliest days of the United States that "The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another." The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66, 123 (U.S. Supreme Court 1825) and that this applies to states applying each other's penal laws as well. So, Florida cannot enforce a violation of the criminal laws of Washington State in its courts either. If you get in a bar fight in Seattle, you can't be prosecute for assault in a court in Orlando, even if both of the parties to the bar fight were Orlando residents and U.S. citizens. Some notable cases resolving the question of whether locus delecti is present in a particular case include the following: In Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347 (1912) although none of the defendants had entered the District of Columbia as part of their conspiracy to defraud the United States, they were convicted because one co-conspirator had committed overt acts in Columbia (225 U.S., at 363). So conspiracy is a continuing offense committed in all the districts where a co-conspirator acts on the agreement. Similarly, In re Palliser, 136 U.S. 257 (1890) the sending of letters from New York to postmasters in Connecticut in an attempt to gain postage on credit, made Connecticut, where the mail he addressed and dispatched was received, an appropriate venue (136 U.S., at 266—268). A typical state statute on the subject from Colorado's Revised Statutes (2016) is as follows: § 18-1-201. State jurisdiction (1) A person is subject to prosecution in this state for an offense which he commits, by his own conduct or that of another for which he is legally accountable, if: (a) The conduct constitutes an offense and is committed either wholly or partly within the state; or (b) The conduct outside the state constitutes an attempt, as defined by this code, to commit an offense within the state; or (c) The conduct outside the state constitutes a conspiracy to commit an offense within the state, and an act in furtherance of the conspiracy occurs in the state; or (d) The conduct within the state constitutes an attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit in another jurisdiction an offense prohibited under the laws of this state and such other jurisdiction. (2) An offense is committed partly within this state if conduct occurs in this state which is an element of an offense or if the result of conduct in this state is such an element. In homicide, the "result" is either the physical contact which causes death or the death itself; and if the body of a criminal homicide victim is found within the state, the death is presumed to have occurred within the state. (3) Whether an offender is in or outside of the state is immaterial to the commission of an offense based on an omission to perform a duty imposed by the law of this state. Case law under this statute sometimes describes the issue presented under this statute a question of "sovereign jurisdiction." See, e.g., People v. Cullen, 695 P.2d 750 (Colo. App. 1984).
YOU NEED TO KNOW MORE FACTS The age of consent to sex in the United States, in cases not involving child pornography (which is federally regulated as well as subject to state regulation) is a matter of state law, although federal law criminalizes crossing state lines for the purposes of sex with a minor in certain cases. There is moderate variation from state to state on this issue. Many (probably most, but I haven't counted in a detailed survey) U.S. states have at least two separate components of a statutory rape law and a separate child prostitution law, to which different provisions regarding mistake of age apply. One component of a typical state statutory rape law, which usually pertains to teenagers above a certain age, is a misdemeanor and includes a good faith mistake of age after reasonable investigation exception (at least if it does not involve commercial prostitution). This component also often has an &quot;age gap&quot; limitation for at least part of the age range that is sometimes a crime, to make sex not a crime if the couple are close in age (typically four years apart or ten years apart). The other component of a typical state statutory rape law, which usually pertains to pre-pubescent minors, is usually a felony and does not have a mistake of age exception (this is sometimes called a strict liability statute even though you need to have an intent to do some things like an intent to voluntarily have sex). These laws have been upheld against constitutional due process challenges, at least as applied in particular cases. It is constitutional to have a statutory rape law with only a strict liability component. But it is relatively uncommon for a state to have such a law. You need to know you are having sex with the person you think you are having sex with (if you were blindfolded and someone replaced your intended and believed partner with someone else without your knowledge, expectation, or consent, you would also be a rape victim, not a perpetrator and the child would be raped by the person arranging it even though you carried out the act unwittingly), but you don't constitutionally need to know that the person you are having sex with is under the statutory age and ignorance or mistake regarding the statutory age is no excuse. In the U.S., state laws banning being a buyer of commercial prostitution by people under age eighteen, typically apply even if sex with that person would not be a crime if it was non-commercial, and typically do not have an exception for mistake of age, although statutes vary. Also, many states, in addition to a statutory rape law also have a law prohibiting certain people who are in &quot;positions of trust&quot; such as teachers and coaches, from having sex with people under their supervision, even if by virtue of age alone, the statutory rape law would not be violated. You can sometimes be guilty of attempting to commit a crime, or engaging in conduct believing certain facts to be true (as in the case of many child prostitution crimes), but plain vanilla statutory rape crimes are frequently not crimes for which an attempt is cognizable.
No. Only specified means of disposition of bodies are allowed by law in Kentucky and this is not one of them. The statute that applies once the body comes into the possession of a coroner is here. The statute that applies when a death appears to involve suspicious circumstances is here. Dispositions of a body that constitute the crime of "desecration of a dead body" crimes in Kentucky are described here. But, the the scenario in the question, while not within any of the clear exceptions to that particular crime, is also not clearly within the definition of that crime. Instead, it would probably be a violation of state funeral home regulations, which are mostly civil rather than criminal offenses. A subtle point is that certain transformations of a dead body such as cremation and certain kinds of treatments (such as plasticizing) that can cause a body to cease to rot also have the effect of causing the dead body to no longer count as a dead body legally for purposes of laws regulating the disposal of dead bodies. Kentucky law does not expressly authorize something quite similar to the original post which is the Tibetan Buddhist and Parsi (a.k.a. Zoroastrian) religious practice of "sky burial". But, the free exercise clause of the freedom of religion granted by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (a federal statute), may either render this state prohibition unconstitutional or pre-empt it under federal law, because religious practices have greater legal protections than artistic practices. This would be a close call because sky burial can present public health risks that overcome first amendment freedom of religion rights.
The 5th amendment protects you from self-incrimination. If by possessing a firearm you are in violation of the law you cannot be compelled by law to reveal this information. If the police discover you have a gun in violation of the law you can be arrested and prosecuted for that offense. They cannot additionally prosecute you for not telling them about a gun. I thought there was a supreme court case about this specific situation, but the closest I can find for now is Haynes v. United States. The 7-1 majority held that people prohibited from possessing firearms cannot be compelled to register their firearms that they are possessing illegally. They are stopped by the police and asked this question. They answer truthfully. Then they can be arrested and prosecuted for the illegal possession of the gun. How does this square with the right not to self-incriminate? Or is asking the question considered to be a search? Police can generally ask whatever they want. If you choose to waive your 5th amendment rights, that's your mistake. Can the state prosecute this person for carrying the illegal weapon? The state can generally prosecute crimes it knows about. So yes, in this case they can. Suppose that next to the weapon a stash of illegal drugs is discovered, which was only found due to the action taken to secure the weapon. Can the state prosecute for that? The state can generally prosecute additional crimes it uncovers during investigations or other lawful actions. So yes, this can be prosecuted.
Assuming that all of these locations are in the same state, this is not an issue of federal law and is not governed by the U.S. Constitution. The geographical jurisdiction of state and local law enforcement officers is exclusively a matter of state law and has no single correct resolution. Different states handle the issue differently. Even if state law or the state constitution prohibited the arrest, this violation of state law or the state constitution, would not give rise to a federal claim for violation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which may vindicate only federal rights, and could not form a basis for a collateral attack on a state court conviction in a federal court habeas corpus petition which is likewise limited to vindications of federal law rights. Any remedy would have to be secured in the state court system invoking state law rights (assuming for sake of argument that state law provides such a remedy), or in a diversity lawsuit in federal court applying state substantive law, if the defendant was from another state and the amount in controversy was in excess of $75,000.