WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday waded warily into Middle Eastern politics and a dispute between Congress and the president in the case of a 9-year-old Jerusalem-born American who wants his passport to say he was born in Israel.
The justices appeared unlikely to rule for Menachem Zivotofsky, whose family sued the government after State Department officials refused to list Israel as his place of birth in his American passport.
The Obama administration says the passport policy is in line with long-standing U.S. foreign policy that says the status of Jerusalem should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
But Congress passed a law in 2002 seeking to give Americans born there the right to have Israel listed as their birthplace.
The justices seemed reluctant to question the administration’s position that the law was an improper congressional attempt to speak for the country on foreign policy. Justice Elena Kagan said the congressional action read more like a foreign-policy statement than a passport law.
Nathan Lewin, a Washington lawyer representing the family, said the law concerns the ability of people to identify themselves as they wish.
“It was not designed to create a kind of political brouhaha,” Lewin said.
But Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., arguing for the administration, said the Constitution gives the president exclusive authority in this area because it would hurt U.S. interests on the world stage if the country spoke with more than one voice.
The administration, like its Republican and Democratic predecessors, says it doesn’t want to stir up anger in the Arab world by appearing to take a position on the ultimate fate of Jerusalem.
The Justice Department says the U.S. has consistently declined to recognize any nation’s sovereignty over Jerusalem since Israel’s creation in 1948.
Other Supreme Court action Monday
• The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether juveniles convicted of killing someone may be locked up for life with no chance of parole, a follow-up to last year’s ruling barring such sentences for teenagers whose crimes do not include killing.
The justices will examine a pair of cases from the South involving young killers who are serving life sentences for crimes they committed when they were 14. Their lawyers contend the sentences violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
• The court refused to hear an appeal from a Texas death-row inmate who won a last-minute reprieve from the high court in September. The justices turned away the appeal of Duane Buck, who wanted them to consider whether race played an improper role in his sentencing.
Buck, who is black, was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend and a man in her apartment in July 1995. His attorneys contend Buck deserves a new sentencing hearing because of a psychologist’s testimony that black people were more likely to commit violence.
• The court won’t hear an appeal from some television networks being sued by a paranormal investigator, Larry Montz, who claims his idea was stolen and turned into the television show “Ghost Hunters.” Without comment, the court turned away an appeal from NBC Universal, Inc., Universal Television Networks and Pilgrim Films & Television Inc. The Associated Press
