That's right, folks -- as the BMG oracle foretold last week, Leo Donofrio's effort to derail the inauguration of Barack Obama as president was dealt a harsh blow by the Supreme Court when the Justices denied his application for stay without … [Read more...]
Supreme Court upholds detainees’ rights!
C-SPAN is reporting that the Supreme Court has voted 5-4 that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge the United States in civilian court. The transcript of oral arguments can be found here. … [Read more...]
Rep. Polito’s Unnecessary Law
In the wake of a controversial Supreme Court decision to back Indiana's strict voter id law, which requires current, government-issued, photo id to vote, Mass State Rep. Karyn Polito is pushing to change Massachusetts laws to … [Read more...]
Supreme Court upholds lethal injection, 7-2; Stevens says death penalty is always unconstitutional
In a closely-watched decision, the US Supreme Court today upheld Kentucky's method of imposing the death penalty by lethal injection. Predictably, there was no majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for himself and … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Rules on Admissability of Evidence of Bias in Corporate Culture, Discrimination Suits
The Supreme Court ruled that courts may, on a case-by-case basis, consider allegations of discrimination by co-workers, offered as plantiff's evidence of biased corporate culture. (Sprint v Mendelsohn 06-1221) While the case reviewed was an … [Read more...]
Supreme Court eases 100-1 crack/powder sentencing rules
By a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court today upheld a sentence for a crack cocaine-related offense that was well below the famous 100-1 ratio. Under the 100-1 rule, an offense involving 5 grams of crack receives the same penalty as 500 … [Read more...]
The Seattle Decision
In my view, the dissenters were paying lip service to the notion of narrow tailoring and compelling state interest; they really were arguing for a change in the law to require such a strict standard of review only when the government uses … [Read more...]
A note on this week’s Supreme Court decision
As everyone knows by now, on Wednesday the Supreme Court issued one of the most important abortion decisions in many years, upholding the so-called "Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003." The replacement of Justice O'Connor with Justice … [Read more...]
Federal appeals court says 2nd amendment guarantees individual right to bear arms
Supreme Court Justices Brennan and Marshall agreed with the basis of the Songer Appeal
1. Interesting to note that in the Songer Appeal that the Appeals Court vote was 11 to 0 to hear the case. 2. Supreme Court Justices (Thurgood) Marshall and Brennan agreed with the basis of the appeal. I think few cases get to the Supreme … [Read more...]