Constitutional Law

Crosses on Chaplain Badges Barred Under Settlement

An atheist’s lawsuit has resulted in a settlement requiring images of crosses to be removed from badges worn by police chaplains in Spokane. Ray Ideus, formerly a Lutheran pastor who became an atheist, filed federal suit last year challenging the inclusion of the Christian symbol on the badges. The city…

Dec 5, 2007 5:25 PM CST

Tribunals Considered Praying Habits of Gitmo Detainee

Two U.S. military tribunals have declared a German student to be an al-Qaida ally despite evidence that intelligence experts did not consider him a terrorist. Lawyers for Murat Kurnaz obtained documents showing the disparity in a lawsuit against the Pentagon, the Washington Post reports. Newly released portions of a ruling…

Dec 5, 2007 3:01 PM CST

Atheist Back With Pledge, Currency Challenges

Atheist Michael Newdow asked a federal appeals court in oral arguments yesterday to remove the words ”under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and ”In God We Trust” from U.S. currency. Newdow won a favorable ruling from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002 when he…

Dec 5, 2007 1:10 PM CST

Funny Lawyer Ads No Joke in N.Y.

Law firm ads that show attorneys towering over skyscrapers and offering legal advice to space aliens obviously aren’t meant to be taken seriously. But New York’s attorney general isn’t finding them at all amusing, reports Portfolio magazine on its website. In a brief filed yesterday in response to a July…

Dec 4, 2007 11:50 PM CST

ABA President Asks Attorneys to Sign Pakistan Petition

The president of the American Bar Association is calling on fellow attorneys to sign an online petition seeking the restoration of the rule of law in Pakistan. “I urge you not to look aside, as if standing up for the rule of law is somebody else’s job. Add your name,…

Dec 4, 2007 10:22 PM CST

State-Funded Prisoner Religion Program Tossed

A federal appeals court has ruled that a state-financed program that seeks to rehabilitate prisoners through Christian ideals violates the establishment clause. Americans United for Separation of Church and State had challenged the program run by InnerChange, a group affiliated with Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship that operates in six states,…

Dec 4, 2007 5:55 PM CST

Bell Gets 18 Months in Jena 6 Plea Deal

One of the Jena 6 defendants has agreed to a plea deal in juvenile court that apparently will require him to serve little additional time, after spending much of 2007 in jail. A conspiracy charge has been dropped and Mychal Bell, 17, will plead guilty to a second-degree battery count,…

Dec 3, 2007 11:58 PM CST

Motor Voter Law a Fast Track to Crime

Proudly proceeding on a fast track toward legal residency and eventual U.S. citizenship, Beth Keathley was so excited about having had a chance to vote in her first American election that she mentioned the milestone to her immigration officer. The next thing she knew, she had been charged with a…

Dec 3, 2007 9:45 PM CST

Judge Axes Verdict Due to Racist Remarks

A federal judge in Utah has thrown out a guilty verdict in an assault case against an American Indian defendant because of jurors’ racist remarks during deliberations. Rather than focusing on the allegations against defendant Kerry Dean Benally, who was accused of assaulting a federal officer investigating a report that…

Dec 3, 2007 8:37 PM CST

U.S. to Judge: We Can Kidnap Suspects

Extradition is only one way for the U.S. government to get suspected criminals in foreign countries back to American soil for trial. Another legitimate option is to kidnap them, a lawyer representing the United States reportedly told an appellate judge in a United Kingdom case, causing an uproar there once…

Dec 3, 2007 5:15 PM CST

Plea Deal for Jena 6 Teen?

A 17-year-old who has been imprisoned for much of this year in a controversial Louisiana case that has sparked massive civil rights protests may be close to a plea deal. Mychal Bell, who was originally charged with attempted murder in an alleged attack with five other black students about a…

Dec 3, 2007 4:15 PM CST

Supreme Court Accepts Right-to-Counsel Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a suspect taken before a magistrate has the right to a lawyer. The issue in Rothgery v. Gillespie County is whether the right to a lawyer does not attach until a prosecutor prepares a formal charge, SCOTUSblog reports. The magistrate at…

Dec 3, 2007 3:28 PM CST

Detainee Case Reflects ‘Interbranch Drama’

Updated: The latest Guantanamo detainee case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which asks whether federal courts have jurisdiction to hear the enemy combatant cases, “reflects an extraordinary interbranch drama,” the New York Times reports. Last year, the court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld struck down the military commission system because President…

Dec 3, 2007 1:21 PM CST

Teen Ranch Fails to Get Cert in Free Exercise Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a case that challenges Michigan’s decision to bar placements of troubled youths at a faith-based organization, SCOTUSblog reports. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled (PDF) in January that Michigan could refuse placements at Teen Ranch Inc. because the group…

Nov 26, 2007 4:01 PM CST

Supreme Court Turns Down Welfare Search Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to accept a case challenging a requirement that welfare recipients allow searches of their homes. The program, adopted in 1997 by the district attorney’s office in San Diego County, required unannounced home visits by the district attorney’s fraud investigators, SCOTUSblog reports. Those who refuse…

Nov 26, 2007 3:24 PM CST