Reference no: EM133245802

1. South Dakota v Dole

In response to a media frenzy over a rural hospital's misidentification of two babies who ended up being raised for several years by the wrong parents, Congress conditioned receipt of 10% of federal law enforcement funds (including funding for local police forces and building state prisons) on a state's passage of a statute imposing criminal penalties on any person knowingly altering or destroying a newborn's identification records, such as photographs, footprints, fingerprints, or patient identification tags.

Does this condition satisfy the four-part Spending Clause test established in South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)?

5. Woods v Cloyd W. Miller Co.

Congress has declared war on a nation it identified as an aider and abettor of terrorist organizations. In less than a month, the United States military has achieved its objectives and the President has declared that hostilities have ceased. During the hostilities, Congress considered a series of laws intended to prepare the United States for domestic acts of retaliatory terrorism. Given the war's short duration, however, none of the laws went into effect until after cessation of the hostilities.

Invoking its war powers, Congress passed an act that criminalized the possession or consumption of listed antibiotics. Congress's stated concern was that the listed antibiotics were the best known therapy for biological agents likely to be used in a terrorist attack, and that those antibiotics currently were in limited, though sufficient, supply. But if doc tors and patients hoarded those antibiotics, the United States would lack an adequate supply in the event of a terrorist attack. Further, given the known side-effects of the listed antibiotics, the government feared that widespread prophylactic use of the antibiotics (out of an unjustified paranoia) would cause great harm with little benefit.

Is the act a valid exercise of Congress's war powers?