Supreme Court
A month ago, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on an Arizona case did not get a lot of attention.
But many believe the ruling signaled a significant shift toward a less stringent interpretation of the separation of church and state.
Last October, iCitizenForum asked “Is Free Speech too costly when it hurts others?” and wondered whether the First Amendment protected Kansas’ homophobic Westboro Baptist Church from liability for its intentionally outrageous and unwelcome demonstrations at the funerals of fallen servicemen and servicewomen. That could colorably be among the civil offenses lawyers call “torts.”
Free speech is most endangered when the speech at issue is unpopular. In the case of the fringe Christian, homosexual-baiting Westboro Baptist Church, it is repugnant. All the same, a federal appeals court has ruled, it is protected. Now the United States Supreme Court is to consider the question.
The U.S. Senate recently approved Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan 63-37.
President Barack Obama selected Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, and she became the fourth female justice in the court's history.
There was a time when the phrase getting “the third degree” was more than a metaphor. A time when a bad cop knew how to use a length of good rubber hose. A time when rogue detectives opened the doors to a confession by hanging a suspect over one—his hands cuffed behind him. That time officially ended forty-four years ago, in 1966.
I’ve written before about the U.S. Supreme Court delaying release of audiotapes of oral arguments it heard involving “salty” language.
Syndicated columnist Ruth Marcus writes the court deliberately prolongs posting those recordings. And she believes that should change.
The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that, practice and precedent to the contrary, the First Amendment gives corporations and unions the power to spend as much of their general treasuries as they care to influence candidate elections—just as long as always they do it independently of the candidates themselves. The conclusion may be good or bad, but it had little to do with the cause before it, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor came with few surprises.
Everyone anticipated questions from Republicans about public statements Sotomayor made about her life influences, comments some interpreted to mean she could not rule on cases without bias.
The job description for U.S. Supreme Court justice does not include the ability to predict the future. Federal appeals court judges must rule on constitutionality, not probability.
But through the years, the “likelihood” of something occurring based on a law or an action under review by the court seems to have crept its way into rulings.
That may have merit, and it may not.
