What Monday’s Supreme Court rulings mean for Iowa

It's a big week for the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the nation's top court issued several important rulings, including striking down most of Arizona's immigration law and ruling that states cannot automatically give juvenile criminals adult-size sentences.

Still to come is the much-anticipated ruling on President Barack Obama's health-care reform. That one is expected Thursday from the court.

In the immigration case, the court struck down three major provisions of the Arizona law, including a requirement for all immigrants to obtain or carry registration papers, another making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job, and a third allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.

The court unanimously upheld the “show me your papers” part of the state's law but blunted its effectiveness.

The 5-4 decision in the juvenile sentences case is in line with others the court has made, including ruling out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for young people whose crimes did not involve killing. Judges could still sentence juveniles to life without parole in individual cases of murder, but the ruling said state laws cannot automatically impose such a sentence.

We “hold that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishment,' ” said Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the opinion for the majority.