The unprecedented steps government leaders have taken to contain the coronavirus—and the more extreme measures being considered—are raising thorny legal questions for U.S. courts.
California’s Gavin Newsom became the first governor to impose an extraordinary lockdown measure Thursday night, directing state residents to remain at home or face fines, except for essential tasks like grocery shopping or walking a pet. Yet it’s unclear whether Newsom’s order is constitutional. Even if it isn’t, judges might allow such extreme steps, at least for a limited period of time.
Some of the legal questions presented by COVID-19 are new, like Newsom’s confinement order, or whether the Centers for Disease Control can impose quarantines inside U.S. borders to contain the virus.
Professor James Hodge, a public health law specialist at Arizona State University, said lockdowns of the sort seen in France—where President Emmanuel Macron has mobilized 100,000 police officers to enforce a shelter in place order for 15 days—is likely to trip multiple constitutional wires.
“We’ve seen lockdowns in China and Italy. The capacity to pull off similar efforts in the United States at any level of government is sketchy at best because of rights to travel, due process and other specific constitutional norms,” Hodge told the Washington Free Beacon. – READ MORE
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