Summary: We review four cases heard in oral arguments this week. Are human genes patentable? Should a federal law that favors American Indian tribes and parents be applied to take a adoptive child from a non-Indian family to return her to a father that washed his hands of her years before? Does the Congress have the power to require a former member of the military to register as a sex offender years after he served his sentence and after leaving the military? Is a person's silence in response to police questioning prior to arrest and the giving of Miranda rights admissible as evidence against him in a subsequent trial when the defendant does not testify? ORAL ARGUMENT - @3:38 Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. - Are human genes patentable? The Respondent discovered and isolated two gene mutations that it found to be correlated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer and sought to patent the gene mutations and the processes used to isolated and identify them. ORAL ARGUMENT - @24:05 Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl - Whether an unwed biological father and American Indian who has not complied with state law rules to attain legal status as a parent may sue under the Indian Child Welfare Act to block an adoption agreed to by the birth mother to a non-Indian parent. ORAL ARGUMENT - @40:19 United States v. Kebodeaux - Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that Congress lacks the Article I authority to provide for criminal penalties under 18 U.S.C. 2250(a)(2)(A), as applied to a person who was convicted of a sex offense under federal law and completed his criminal sentence before SORNA was enacted. ORAL ARGUMENT - @52:26 Salinas v. Texas - Whether or under what circumstances the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause protects a defendant’s refusal to answer law enforcement questioning before he has been arrested or read his Miranda rights.
