Constitutional Law

Military Officer Warned that Hamdi Nearing Insanity Due to Brig Conditions

A military officer warned that a suspected enemy combatant being held in a U.S. naval brig was nearing insanity because of isolation and sensory deprivation, according to newly released documents. Yaser Esam Hamdi, a onetime U.S. citizen who was eventually released to Saudi Arabia, was one of three men being…

Oct 8, 2008 3:06 PM CDT

Prof Tells Court There is No ‘Barney Fife’ Defense to Search Violations

A Stanford University law professor who urged the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to suppress evidence of a police search alluded to the deputy in The Andy Griffith Show to make her point. At issue was whether drug and gun evidence should be tossed because police found it while searching a…

Oct 8, 2008 1:44 PM CDT

McCain Admires Roberts, Alito, Despite their Vote on his Campaign Law

John McCain outlined his judicial philosophy in a May speech in which he held up two Supreme Court justices as models: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Both justices voted to strike down portions of McCain’s 2002 law restricting political campaign contributions, but that apparently…

Oct 8, 2008 1:01 PM CDT

Obama’s Statement Against Roberts’ Confirmation Shows Constitutional Views

Barack Obama voted against the confirmation of John G. Roberts Jr. for chief justice and issued a statement that shows his strong convictions on constitutional law. A former law professor, Obama said precedents and statutes can provide a just outcome in 95 percent of the cases, the Wall Street Journal…

Oct 8, 2008 12:38 PM CDT

Judge Asked Too Many Questions, Requiring New Trial

In a rare rebuke to the chief judge in Baltimore, a Maryland appellate court has found that he asked too many questions during a jury trial of an armed robbery case last year, requiring a reversal of the defendant’s conviction and a new trial. The 125 questions that Baltimore City…

Oct 7, 2008 11:50 PM CDT

Jury to Decide Why Sandy Morgan Died, in Jail and Mentally Ill

If jail authorities had checked her vital signs, they should have known that something was seriously wrong with Sandy Morgan in addition to her obvious mental illness, experts say. But despite checking her every 15 minutes, as part of a suicide watch, they didn’t realize the Pennsylvania woman needed emergency…

Oct 7, 2008 10:19 PM CDT

Judge Orders Release of 17 Gitmo Prisoners into the US

A federal judge has ruled that 17 Chinese Muslims at Guantanamo Bay who are no longer considered enemy combatants should be released into the United States by Friday. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina of Washington, D.C., said the Constitution bars the government from holding the men indefinitely without cause, the…

Oct 7, 2008 5:06 PM CDT

Supreme Court Declines Cases on ‘Choose Life’ Plates, Juror Bible Reading

Cases touching on religion and abortion were among several rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. One concerns whether anti-abortion activists can force Arizona to issue “Choose Life” license plates, and the other whether a Bible-reading juror requires a court to overturn a death sentence. The court accepted no new…

Oct 7, 2008 1:30 PM CDT

Calif. Judge Bans Anna Nicole Smith Breast Surgery Videotape

In the latest ruling in a steady stream of medical privacy cases, a California judge has nixed a Texas doctor’s claimed right to distribute videotapes of the 1994 breast augmentation surgery he performed on celebrity Anna Nicole Smith. After granting a preliminary injunction against Dr. Gerald Johnson last year, Los…

Oct 6, 2008 9:10 PM CDT

New Legal Frontier: Defining the Rights of Frozen Human Embryos

Thanks to today’s reproductive technology, the interrelated questions of when life begins and who has the right to make decisions about someone else’s body and children are becoming increasingly complex. The latest wrinkle: Whether frozen embryos belong to the couple (usually married) who asked a medical clinic to fertilize their…

Oct 6, 2008 6:20 PM CDT

Justices Blame FTC for Misleading Consumers about Light Cigarettes

During oral arguments today, two U.S. Supreme Court justices blamed the Federal Trade Commission for misleading consumers about the dangers of light cigarettes. The arguments did not bode well for smokers suing tobacco makers for making misleading advertising claims about the cigarettes’ lower levels of tar and nicotine. SCOTUSblog reports…

Oct 6, 2008 4:28 PM CDT

Scalia: ‘You Can’t Bear a Tank’

Fielding questions after a lecture at Harvard Law School on Wednesday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia outlined the limits of the court’s decision on the right to bear arms earlier this year in District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF). An audience member suggested that the ruling meant one could…

Oct 3, 2008 2:23 PM CDT

NYPD Cop Commits Suicide After Naked Man Dies in Taser Incident

A week after a much-criticized incident in which a naked man Tasered by New York City police fell from a fire escape and died, the lieutenant who ordered the use of the electronic stun gun apparently has committed suicide. Lt. Michael Pigott was found dead today in a police locker…

Oct 2, 2008 3:47 PM CDT

Pashto Fluency Put Law Student in Position to Help Gitmo Detainees

Although she was still in law school, Mahvish Khan had a critical skill that most trained attorneys representing detainees at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay didn’t—as the daughter of two Afghan immigrants, she grew up speaking Pashto. So when she offered her services to lawyers representing Gitmo…

Oct 1, 2008 10:41 PM CDT

Wash. State to Monitor All Violent Sex Offenders When Released, via GPS

The state of Washington plans to monitor electronically all newly released sex offenders considered potentially violent, for at least the first 30 days. The Global Positioning System tracking bracelets that the “Level 3” convicted sex offenders will wear on their ankles allow state Department of Corrections employees to keep an…

Oct 1, 2008 7:26 PM CDT