Thursday, April 27, 2006
States Must Give Ample Notice Before Selling Homes
“The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that states must work harder to make sure to tell homeowners before their houses are sold for back taxes.” According to Law.com, “By a 5-3 vote, justices reversed an Arkansas Supreme Court's decision in the case of Gary Jones, a Little Rock man whose home was sold by the state because of delinquent taxes.”
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Va. Terror Case Sent Back to Lower Court
“The case of a prominent Muslim spiritual leader convicted on terrorism charges was returned to a federal judge in Alexandria yesterday after his attorneys told an appeals court that they believe the man was a target of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.” The Washington Post reports, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond said it sent the case back in part because attorneys for Ali Al-Timimi have raised concerns that the government has ‘undisclosed intercepts’ related to the controversial National Security Agency program.”
6th Circuit Refuses to Reconsider Ky. Ten Commandments Case
“A federal appeals court is standing by a ruling allowing a central Kentucky courthouse to keep a display of the Ten Commandments.” The First Amendment Center reports, “The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided yesterday in ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County that it won't reconsider arguments in the case against the display at the Mercer County courthouse in Harrodsburg, about 30 miles southeast of Lexington.”
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Supreme Court Weighs Police Search Conduct
“The Supreme Court considered Monday whether police officers should have knocked to announce their presence when responding to complaints about a party so loud that authorities could not be heard shouting their presence.” According to The Associated Press, “Several justices seemed ready to side with four Brigham City, Utah, police officers who tried in vain to get the attention of people at a July 2001 party before entering the home without a warrant and screaming, ‘Police!’”
High Court Won't Intervene in Fight over Jesus Poster
“The Supreme Court refused today to get involved in a fight over a Jesus poster that a New York kindergarten student submitted for a class assignment on ways to save the environment.” According to The First Amendment Center, “The Baldwinsville Central School District in suburban Syracuse wanted justices to stop a lawsuit filed by Antonio Peck and his parents, who claim his free-speech rights were violated when school officials censored his poster.”
Monday, April 24, 2006
Florida's Execution Method Disputed
According to The Miami Herald, “The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a Florida case that death penalty opponents hope will lead to sweeping changes in the way more than 30 states execute condemned killers.” “Convicted cop killer Clarence Hill -- who in January was strapped to a gurney awaiting execution by lethal injection when word arrived of a stay -- is convinced the method Florida uses to put convicted killers to death can cause excruciating pain.”
Tenn. 'Choose Life' Plates Halted by 6th Circuit
A federal appeals court has issued a decision to delay Tennessee’s production of its "Choose Life" specialty license plate, reports The First Amendment Center.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Federal Judge Says Air Force Ignored Records Law
“The U.S. Air Force engaged in a pattern of ignoring requests for the release of classified documents dating to the Vietnam War, establishing a response rate that is worse than the CIA's, a federal judge has ruled,” reports The Associated Press.
Court Lets Schools Ban Inflammatory T-Shirts
“Schools in the Western United States can forbid a high school student to wear a T-shirt with a slogan that denigrates gay and lesbian students, a sharply divided federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday,” reports The Los Angeles Times. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that a T-shirt that proclaimed "Be ashamed, our school embraced what God has condemned" on the front and "Homosexuality is shameful" on the back was "injurious to gay and lesbian students and interfered with their right to learn,” and can be barred on a public high school campus without violating the 1st Amendment.
Justices Weigh when Defendants can Assert Insanity
“The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday with an appeal from an Arizona teen who killed a police officer but might have believed he was shooting a space alien.” According to USA Today, “The case could affect insanity-defense laws nationwide.”
Thursday, April 20, 2006
High Court Examines Insanity Defense
“The much-maligned insanity defense was the focus of debate before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a case that could further limit its use.” According to Legal Times, “Justices seemed troubled by the case Clark v. Arizona, in which Eric Clark’s plea of insanity was rejected, resulting in Clark being convicted of first-degree murder for killing a Flagstaff police officer, even though, his lawyer said, Clark thought he was shooting at an alien being.”
Judge Says Ten Commandments Can Stay
“A Ten Commandments monument that has stood on the courthouse lawn for almost 50 years does not promote religion and can remain in place, a federal judge ruled.” According to The Associated Press, “U.S. District Judge James Carr said Tuesday that the monument can stay because the motives for placing it outside the Lucas County courthouse were secular and not an endorsement of a specific belief.”
Judge Says Ten Commandments Can Stay
“A Ten Commandments monument that has stood on the courthouse lawn for almost 50 years does not promote religion and can remain in place, a federal judge ruled.” According to The Associated Press, “U.S. District Judge James Carr said Tuesday that the monument can stay because the motives for placing it outside the Lucas County courthouse were secular and not an endorsement of a specific belief.”
Judge: Doctors not Required to Report Teen Sex
CNN reports, “In a victory for an abortion rights group, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that abortion clinic doctors and other professionals are not required under Kansas law to report underage sex between consenting youths.” According to the report, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled that a plain reading of the Kansas law gives health-care providers discretion to determine whether there is reason to suspect a child has been injured as a result of sexual abuse.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Guantanamo Detainees Lose Unusual Supreme Court Appeal
“The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a long-shot appeal filed on behalf of two Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay while the U.S. government tries to find a country to take them.” Law.com reports, “A federal judge said the detention of the ethnic Uighurs at the military prison in Cuba was unlawful but there was nothing courts could do. Without comment, the justices declined to consider an unusual direct appeal of that decision.”
Supreme Court Will Hear Courtroom Case of Conviction Vacated Because of Photo Buttons
“The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide if a convicted killer deserves a new trial because the victim's family members wore at his first trial buttons with photos of the alleged murder victim.” According to FindLaw, “A federal appeals court had thrown out Mathew Musladin's conviction and life sentence in the death of his estranged wife's fiance on grounds that the jury in his trial might have been swayed by the buttons.”
Supreme Court Turns Down Lawsuit over Death in 1970 of Chile's Army Chief
According to FindLaw, “The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to revive a lawsuit that accused former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of responsibility in the 1970 death of the head of the Chilean army.”
Monday, April 17, 2006
Judge Decries Rigid U.S. Immigration Laws
“A federal appeals judge has sharply criticized U.S. immigration laws,” reports The Associated Press, “writing that rules designed to combat terrorism instead force the ‘knee-jerk’ removal of ‘decent men and women.’” “Judge Maryanne Trump Barry complained that judges have no discretion in applying harsh and complex laws, and she urged the federal government to intervene in the case of a man from Northern Ireland denied asylum this week by the panel on which she sits, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Student Can Recite Poem With Profanity
The Associated Press reports, “A federal judge gave a ninth-grader permission Thursday to recite a poem at a state competition that his school objected to, claiming it contained profanity. “ According to the report, “The words ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ in W.H. Auden's ‘The More Loving One,’ do not constitute offensive language that could disrupt the school's educational priorities, said U.S. District Judge Brian Sandoval.”
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Judges Set Hurdles for Lethal Injection
“Judges in several states have started to put up potentially insurmountable roadblocks to the use of lethal injections to execute condemned inmates.” According to The New York Times, “Their decisions are based on new evidence suggesting that prisoners have endured agonizing executions.”
State hasn't Justified Denying Feast-Day Meats for Muslim Inmate
The First Amendment Center reports that Massachusetts’s highest court has ruled that the state prison system has failed to justify denying a Muslim inmate special feast-day meats, such as oxen and camel. According to the report, “In a unanimous April 7 ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said officials at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center had failed to show why providing the proper meats to Rashad Rasheed on certain holidays was a burden.”
Ky. Man Freed on DNA Evidence May Sue City
According to The Associated Press, “A man who spent seven years in prison for rape before a DNA test exonerated him may sue the city and several police officers who put him behind bars, an appeals court ruled.” “The court also questioned whether Louisville's police department used an unconstitutional practice of having witnesses identify suspects in one-on-one settings instead of in a lineup.”
Attorney Renews His Fight Against ‘Under God’ in Allegiance Pledge
According to The Kansas City Star, “If California atheist Michael Newdow gets his way, the Pledge of Allegiance no longer would include the phrase ‘under God.’” Newdow, whose former lawsuit on the same issue was dismissed because he didn’t have standing to sue on behalf of his daughter since he didn’t have legal custody of her, is pursuing another court case to remove those words as an attorney on behalf of other parents.
Monday, April 10, 2006
2nd Circuit Hands N.Y. Preacher Victory Over Noise Ordinance
“A preacher found relief on April 6 when an appeals court ruled that Ithaca, N.Y., selectively used its noise ordinance to silence him in violation of his rights to free speech, equal protection and freedom of religion,” reports The First Amendment Center. “The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ordered a federal judge in Albany to declare victory for Kevin Deegan, saying it found the noise ordinance ‘cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.’”
Friday, April 07, 2006
Gov't Wants Boy Scout Ruling Overturned
“The Defense Department wants to continue supporting the decades-old National Boy Scout Jamboree because preparing a military base for the event trains soldiers how to deal with displaced people, government attorneys said Thursday.” According to The Associated Press, “The government is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling that the Pentagon's support of the jamboree violates the First Amendment because the Scouts require members to swear an oath of duty to God.”
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Judge Allows Protests at Memorial Day Air Show
Anti-war protesters will be allowed to distribute leaflets and carry signs at the Columbia, Missouri’s annual Memorial Day air show after a federal court ruled in favor of two peace activists in a First Amendment dispute, reports The First Amendment Center. But, according to the judge’s ruling, protesters won't be allowed to collect signatures on anti-war petitions.
8th Circuit Sides with Ex-Teacher in Graduation-Prayer Dispute
“A federal appeals court has sided with a former teacher who complained about prayers at a graduation ceremony in an eastern Arkansas school district.” According to The First Amendment Center, “The three-judge panel of the appeals court wrote yesterday in Warnock v. Archer that an injunction prevented the school district from orchestrating or supervising prayers at school graduation or baccalaureate ceremonies.”
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
School is Told to Restore 'Jesus' Bricks
“A federal judge has ordered a public high school to return bricks inscribed with Christian messages to a walkway, concluding their removal violated the free speech rights of the people who paid for them,” reports The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue ruled in favor of arguments submitted by attorneys for The Rutherford Institute that the bricks, with engravings such as "Jesus Saves" and "Jesus Christ The Only Way!," did not constitute an endorsement of religious views by the Mexico Academy, a high school in upstate New York.
2 Justices Indicate Supreme Court Is Unlikely to Televise Sessions
“Television cameras are not about to enter the Supreme Court any time soon.” According to The New York Times, “That was the unmistakable message that two Supreme Court justices gave Congress at a hearing on Tuesday on the court's budget.”
Tex. Court Overturns Convictions Under ‘Fetal Rights’ Law
“Last week,” reports The New Standard, “a Texas appeals court overturned the convictions of two women who had used illegal drugs while pregnant, invalidating the prosecution’s controversial reading of a state law protecting the unborn.” According to the report, “The decision, which skirted the constitutional issues at the center of the national abortion debate, drew support from a diverse host of both pro- and anti-abortion-rights groups.”
High Court Cases Put International Law in the Spotlight
“The day after the justices heard arguments on whether enemy combatant Salim Hamdan, detained at Guantánamo Bay, was entitled to certain protections under the Geneva Conventions, the justices took up the much less heralded cases of two foreign nationals claiming that their rights under the Vienna Convention were violated and that their criminal convictions should be set aside,” reports Law.com. “And in both contexts, the Bush administration argued there were no judicially enforceable rights created.”
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Judge Rules Mich. Video Game Law Illegal
“A federal judge has ruled that a Michigan law that bars retailers from selling or renting violent video games to minors is unconstitutional.” According to The Associated Press, “The Entertainment Software Association, Video Software Dealers Association and Michigan Retailers Association, trade groups representing U.S. computer and video game publishers, filed a lawsuit in September, charging that the law is unconstitutionally vague and limits First Amendment rights.”
Monday, April 03, 2006
High Court Refuses to Hear Padilla Appeal
“The Bush administration succeeded Monday in its effort to keep the case of Jose Padilla, an American-born former enemy combatant, off the Supreme Court’s docket,” reports Law.com. “The Court denied review in Padilla’s case, as requested by the Justice Department, which argued that because Padilla is no longer in military custody, his challenge to his detention as an enemy combatant is moot. But statements from the justices indicated that his case was a close call.”
Anthony Kennedy Is Ready for His Close-Up
The New York Times has this editorial discussing the impact Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy may have as the “swing-voter” on the Roberts Court as many controversial and wide-ranging issues make their way before the nation’s High Court. According to the editorial, “That means that until its membership changes again, he is likely often, although certainly not always, to have the final word on such deeply divisive issues as abortion, affirmative action and campaign finance.”
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