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The key to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling will be clear recognition of constitutional alternatives to Obamacare. On November 14, the Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari to hear the appeal of the cases testing the constitutionality of Obamacare. The resulting decision will mark an historic watershed not only in the restoration of constitutional jurisprudence, but in fundamental, market reform of the entire entitlement state... --snip-- While the decision of simpatico Judge Laurence Silberman upholding the Obamacare mandate is somewhat troubling, that reflected Silberman's poorly reasoned conclusion that he was bound as a lower court judge by the Supreme...

Last week, President Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in a case that pits religious protections against the courts' ordinary ability to intervene in a labor dispute to prevent discrimination.In the early 2000s, Cheryl Perich was a "called teacher" or "commissioned minister" at Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich. As such, she taught religious classes, led students in prayer and incorporated religious teachings into secular subjects like math, science, social studies and art.But in 2004, she was diagnosed with narcolepsy and became unable to teach the fall semester that year. When she...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding. The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding.

A sharply divided US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday in a case examining whether a California law school can refuse to officially recognize a Christian student group that requires its members to embrace biblical passages denouncing homosexuality. Officials at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco said the group’s stance violates the school’s antidiscrimination policy – including bans on discrimination based on religious belief or sexual orientation.

The same Supreme Court justices whom President Obama blasted during his State of the Union address this year may ultimately decide the fate of his crowning achievement as more than a dozen states have called on the courts to strike down the health insurance mandate of Democrats' health care overhaul - a move that would threaten the entire law. Two major constitutional challenges have been levied against the new law, one by the state of Virginia, which enacted a law exempting its citizens from the federal health insurance mandate, and another by Florida and 12 other states. Legal scholars are...

The Supreme Court takes up another Second Amendment case. The Supreme Court today is the scene of a Constitutional duel in a case that will decide if the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms applies to the states. The answer will determine whether the Court's landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller is a hollow legal anomaly, or if it extends nationwide. In McDonald v. Chicago, the Justices will consider whether the Windy City's ban on handguns is Constitutional. Brought by plaintiffs including 76-year-old Otis McDonald, who wants to keep a handgun in his...

Supreme Court To Consider Another Case On Racial Bias In Hiring Chicago firefighters say they were illegally discriminated against through test scores. A lawyer calls it the flip side to last year's case involving white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. By David G. Savage February 20, 2010 Reporting from Washington - The controversy over racial bias, testing and firefighters that blew up at both the Supreme Court and the Senate last year returns Monday, this time as the justices decide whether blacks who were not hired in Chicago because of their test scores are due damages for years of lost...

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected on Tuesday to issue its latest decision on the fate of Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably America's most famous death-row inmate, convicted of slaying a Philadelphia policeman, a crime he denies committing. The court is due to rule on an appeal by the Philadelphia district attorney who is seeking to have Abu-Jamal executed and bring an end to a decades-long legal saga the inmate, a former journalist, wrote about while in prison. Abu-Jamal, now 55, was convicted in 1982 of killing officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. He has become an international cause celebre for...

Washington - The Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal from a Christian student group in San Francisco which refused to admit gays and lesbians and decide whether the group's right to religious liberty and freedom of association can trump a university's ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The case, to be heard next year, could set new rules for campus groups across the nation. The University of California's Hastings College of Law says its officially recognized student groups must be open to all of its students. The law school also has a general non-discrimination policy which applies...

Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack. Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away. They didn't kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison. Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United...

The case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday sounded like a television movie, a tale of wrongful imprisonment and the slow, inexorable wheels of justice. Prosecutors under pressure to close the case of a cop killer settle on two young African Americans. They fabricate evidence, coerce perjury and bury the investigation of a white suspect.A sympathetic prison barber unearths the investigative records that eventually lead courts to free the convicted men after years behind bars. And the men seek retribution for the prosecutors who framed them. But here's the twist: The prosecutors say that they can't be sued for anything...

Highlights of some high-profile cases that the Supreme Court will take up in its term that begins Monday (10/5/09): _Guns: The Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms has never been held to apply to state and local laws restricting guns. The court is taking up a challenge to a handgun ban in Chicago to decide whether this right, like many others in the Bill of Rights, acts to restrict state and local laws or only federal statutes. If the court sides with gun rights supporters, lawsuits to overturn all manner of gun control laws are likely. _Animal cruelty...

A, California -- Driving along a pockmarked road amid rocks and Joshua trees in a lonely southern California desert, religious controversy might be the last thing you'd expect to encounter. And if you don't look too closely, you're likely to zip right past the focus of a hotly contested Supreme Court battle. A federal judge has ordered the Mojave Cross, a war memorial erected by a veterans group 75 years ago, to be covered. It's boxed in plywood. The issue is less about what the cross symbolizes and more about where it sits: In the middle of the Mojave National...

CIMA, California -- Driving along a pockmarked road amid rocks and Joshua trees in a lonely southern California desert, religious controversy might be the last thing you'd expect to encounter. And if you don't look too closely, you're likely to zip right past the focus of a hotly contested Supreme Court battle. A federal judge has ordered the Mojave Cross, a war memorial erected by a veterans group 75 years ago, to be covered. It's boxed in plywood.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments from campaign finance reform advocates and opponents in a case many insiders say will be the most significant decision in more than 35 years. The case the court will hear, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has the potential to overturn key elements of campaign finance law that prevent corporate spending on elections, a move that would open the door to millions of dollars that could not be spent previously. “This is the biggest case in campaign finance law, really, since Buckley v. Valeo in 1976,” said Rob Kelner, a partner at...

The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Stevens on Oct. 6. NSSF alerted conservation, sportsmen and outdoor media groups to this case previously and filed an amicus brief with the court. The case centers around a 1999 federal statute used to prosecute a Virginia man on animal cruelty-related charges that could similarly be used to prosecute retailers for stocking and selling books, DVDs or art depicting hunting scenes. In the 2004 case, the defendant was initially convicted, but the decision was later overturned by the Third Court of Appeals as a violation of the...

Although the Supreme Court's term doesn't formally kick off until Oct. 5, justices scheduled arguments in a key campaign finance case for Sept. 9, and are hearing a case early in the fall term regarding a legal fight over a war memorial in the Mojave National Preserve.

A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut sought Friday to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep under wraps sex abuse documents that could shed light on how a prominent retired cardinal handled the allegations. Bridgeport Diocese officials asked the state Supreme Court to continue a stay on releasing the documents while it asks the nation's highest court to review the case. The state court has ruled that more than 12,000 pages of documents from more than 20 lawsuits against priests should be released. Those documents have been sealed from public view since the diocese settled the cases in 2001.

Court to tackle clarity of Miranda warnings againBy Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 22, 5:36 pm ET WASHINGTON – "You have the right to remain silent." Most people only hear those words while watching cop shows on TV. They usually zone out for the rest of the now familiar Miranda warning to people under arrest. But in the real world, the Supreme Court is still listening to the words that follow. It agreed Monday to hear another case over just how explicit that phrasing must be. In its landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling, the high court...

Gun Rulings Open Way to Supreme Court Review JOHN SCHWARTZ June 16, 2009 A year ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark decision establishing the constitutional right of Americans to own guns. But the justices did not explain what the practical effect of that ruling would be on city and state gun laws. Could a city still ban handguns? The justices said the District of Columbia could not, but only because it is a special federal district. The question of the constitutionality of existing city and state gun laws was left unanswered. That left a large vacuum for...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide what sorts of business methods might be patented, an issue with the potential to reshape significant parts of the economy. “This is the most important patent case in 50 years, in particular because there is so much damage and so much good the court could do,” said John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University who submitted a brief in the appeals court in support of neither side. “The newest areas of technology are most threatened by the issues at stake here,” Professor Duffy said. “The court taking...

The case of a 13-year-old Arizona girl strip-searched by school officials looking for ibuprofen pain-reliever will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The justices in January accepted the Safford school district case for review, and will decide whether a campus setting gives school administrators greater discretion to control students suspected of illegal activity than police are allowed in cases involving adults in general public spaces. The case is centered around Savana Redding, now 19, who in 2003 was an eighth-grade honors student at Safford Middle School, about 127 miles from Tucson, Arizona. Redding was strip-searched by school...

Supreme Court to weigh strip-searches at schools In an Arizona case, officials were worried about campus safety, while the student felt embarrassment. By David G. Savage April 18, 2009 Reporting from Safford, Ariz. -- When Savana Redding, now 19, talks of what happened to her in eighth grade, it is clear that the painful memories linger. She speaks of being embarrassed and fearful and of staying away from school for two months. And she recalls the "whispers" and "stares" from others in this small eastern Arizona mining town after she was strip-searched in the nurse's office because a vice principal...

WASHINGTON — And now there are four. In the space of a week, the number of states allowing same-sex marriage has doubled, with Iowa and then Vermont joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. In California, gay and lesbian couples were exchanging vows for five months before voters put a stop to the practice in November. Californians are still talking it over, though, and loudly. New York and New Jersey may be next to debate the question. In other contexts, this sort of turmoil might amount to an invitation for the United States Supreme Court to step in. But there are all sorts...

Now showing at Supreme Court: 'Hillary: The Movie' By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer Mar 21, 10:00 am ET WASHINGTON – Months after its debut, "Hillary: The Movie" faces nine of the nation's toughest critics: the Supreme Court. The justices' review of the slashing documentary financed by longtime critics of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton could bring more than just a thumbs up or thumbs down. It may settle the question of whether the government can regulate a politically charged film as a campaign ad. David Bossie, a former Republican congressional aide who produced the Clinton movie and...

Double jeopardy in before US Supreme Court HOUSTON A former Enron Corp. executive is hoping a little known component of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause will help him avoid a retrial on charges related to financial fraud at the once mighty energy giant. Attorneys for F. Scott Yeager are set to present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday on the issue of whether double jeopardy prevents prosecutors from retrying individuals after a jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others that share an element with the acquitted charges. Prosecutors...

WASHINGTON – Months after its debut, "Hillary: The Movie" faces nine of the nation's toughest critics: the Supreme Court.The justices' review of the slashing documentary financed by longtime critics of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton could bring more than just a thumbs up or thumbs down. It may settle the question of whether the government can regulate a politically charged film as a campaign ad.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Supreme Court has turned down American and Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange who wanted to pursue lawsuits against companies that made the toxic chemical defoliant used in the Vietnam War. The justices offer no comment on their action Monday, rejecting appeals in three separate cases, in favor of Dow Chemical, Monsanto and other companies that made Agent Orange and other herbicides used by the military in Vietnam.

No. 08A524 Title: Gail Lightfoot, et al., Applicants v. Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State Docketed: Lower Ct: Supreme Court of California   Case Nos.: (S168690) ~~~Date~~~  ~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dec 12 2008 Application (08A524) for a stay pending the filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Kennedy. ~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~Phone~~~ Attorneys for Petitioners: Orly Taitz 26302 La Paz (949) 683-5411     Counsel of Record Mission Viejo, CA  92691 Party name: Gail Lightfoot, et al.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will tomorrow discuss whether or not it should take up the case of Leo C. Donofrio, Applicant, v. Nina Mitchell Wells, New Jersey Secretary of State, a case that challenges the citizenship of President-elect Obama. After the Justices meet -- and assuredly decline to hear the matter -- the anti-Obama activists supporting the case will hold a vigil near the steps of the highest Court in the land. The theory -- which is without evidence -- is that Mr. Obama's birth certificate is faked, and that he was not born in Hawaii but...

Most Americans don't realize it yet, but this Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court will review whether Barack Obama is indeed constitutionally eligible to become the next president. The justices will hold a conference on the question and consider the case for formal review.

This is a suit that has been in and out of SCOTUS and is back within it once again as Marbury was violated in my unique case and as I have been suing since April of 2007 to stop what is happening in our nation. Currently I have a case to be conferenced on December 5th, 2008. It is In Re Susan 08-6622; attached to it as if it has never been heard is the previous case, In Re Susan 07-9804. A third action is also present as I filed an application for a stay as the solicitor genral failed...

By Jonas Oliver | Article Date: 11/20/2008 4:46 PM On December 5, 2008 the United States Supreme Court is expected to meet to review a case being brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state in New Jersey, which challenges whether or not Barack Obama is a "natural-born citizen" and thus qualified under the U.S. Constitution's to become president. Ironically Donofrio’s suit also claims that Sen. John McCain’s name should not have been on the election ballot for the same reason. The case, which was unsuccessful at the state level, is not expected to find much...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California's highest court has agreed to hear legal challenges to a new ban on gay marriage, but is refusing to allow gay couples to resume marrying until it rules. The California Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted three lawsuits seeking to overturn Proposition 8. The amendment passed this month with 52 percent of the vote. The court did not elaborate on its decision. All three cases claim the ban abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. They argue that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change.

Today, the United States Supreme Court scheduled the case - Leo C. Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey - US Supreme Court Docket No. 08A407 - for a conference of the nine Justices. The conference is a completely private affair and the public may not attend. If four of the nine Justices vote to hear the case in full, oral argument may be scheduled. The conference is scheduled for December 5, 2008, ten days before the meeting of the Electoral College.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will settle a fight that pits Southern California dolphins against the U.S. military. In a closely watched case involving national security and the natural environment, the court agreed to review restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the California coast. The Bush administration contends that the sonar rules, meant to protect marine mammals, hinder military preparedness. "The chief of naval operations determined ... that those restrictions unacceptably risk naval training, the timely deployment of (naval) strike groups and national security," Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre said in a legal filing. The California Coastal Commission...

FoxNewsChannel Megyn Kelly just now (9:15am CST) reported as breaking news that the Supreme Court will not hear the appeal from the Texas group who sued to stop the DHS from building the border fence......

Washington DC, Apr 4, 2008 / 06:40 am (CNA).- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case in its next term to decide whether a Utah city must allow a monument to be installed in a public park by a New Age group that promotes pyramids, mummification, and sexual ecstasy, Cybercast News Service reports. This week Supreme Court justices agreed to hear a case involving a Salt Lake City-based religion called Summum, whose founder claims to have been visited by “highly intelligent beings.”  The group, arguing on First Amendment grounds, has sought to erect a monument to its “Seven Aphorisms”...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether a religious group must be allowed to put its monument in a city park near a similar Ten Commandments display. The justices agreed to hear an appeal by the city, Pleasant Grove in Utah, arguing that a lower-court ruling for the religious group could affect whether cities around the nation must display privately donated monuments on public property. The Summun religious group, founded in Salt Lake City in 1975, sought to erect a monument to the tenets of its faith, called the "Seven Aphorisms," in a...

Associated Press A domestic-violence convict's rifle and police lacking a warrant are at issue. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court stepped yesterday into two criminal cases, one that will help define the limits of police searches without warrants and the other interpreting a law on guns and domestic violence. Five police officers from Utah asked the court to consider whether officers may enter a home without a search warrant when an informant is already inside and sees evidence of a crime. The case against Afton Callahan of Millard County, Utah, will test whether the officers who conducted the search may be...

Thirty years after the US government commission that monitors communications began enforcing a ban on expletives on the airwaves, it is seeking to extend its policing to also cover swear words that slip out "fleetingly." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a key step toward that goal Monday when the US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on the policy of imposing fines on broadcasting groups that air isolated swear words uttered during live shows. The FCC had taken its case to the highest court in the land after it was slapped down by a court in New York in...

Gun Case Argument Schedule is Set Tony Mauro 02-25-2008 In a brief order on today's order list the Supreme Court dashed the hopes of gun rights advocates who hoped to have two lawyers and additional time arguing their cause before the Supreme Court when it hears arguments in the historic case D.C. v. Heller on March 18. Without explanation, the Court denied the motion of Texas Solicitor General R. Ted Cruz for argument time on the side of Alan Gura of Gura & Possessky, who has argued the pro-Second Amendment position from the start of the case. But the Court...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court said today it will hear arguments over the state's ban on same-sex marriage next month in San Francisco. A court scheduled a special three-hour hearing, three times as long as its usual sessions, for March 4 to consider lawsuits filed by the city of San Francisco and same-sex couples challenging the California law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. A ruling is due within 90 days of the hearing. The Legislature passed the law in 1977, and voters reaffirmed it in a 2000 ballot measure. It was...

Today the Supreme Court will consider a petition to hear a case raising profound issues regarding the right of individuals to make their own health-care decisions. The case is Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. von Eschenbach. The suit claims that FDA violates the due process rights of terminally-ill patients, who have exhausted all approved options and are unable to enter a clinical trial, by prohibiting access to promising investigational drugs. Consider the plight of such patients. They search for clinical trials of new drugs that might extend their lives. Nearly all are ineligible. Of the few...

Letter from counsel for the petitioners proposing a Lodging of Council Session Transcripts as legislative history of the laws at issue, and copies of local municipal laws regulating the firing of guns in the 19th Centry as history of regulation of firearms in the District of Columbia.

The future of the death penalty will be in the hands of the Supreme Court tomorrow when the justices hear arguments in a closely watched case that tests the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection. The case, brought by two death-row inmates in Kentucky who are challenging the three-drug cocktail used to kill prisoners, already has led Texas — the nation's leader in executions — and other states to halt executions until the high court decides the Kentucky case. When Oklahoma first authorized lethal injection in 1977 — a year after the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was constitutional...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Friday it would decide whether the death penalty can be imposed for the crime of...

The dispute over Indiana's voter identification law that is headed to the Supreme Court next week is as much a partisan political drama as a legal tussle. The mainly Republican backers of the law, including the Bush administration, say state-produced photo identification is a prudent measure to cut down on vote fraud - even though Indiana has never had a prosecution of the kind of fraud the law is supposed to prevent. The opponents, mainly Democrats, view voter ID a modern-day poll tax that disproportionately affects poor, minority and elderly voters - who tend to back Democrats. Yet, a federal...

The Supreme Court will open the new year with its most politically divisive case since Bush v. Gore decided the 2000 presidential election, and its decision could force a major reinterpretation of the rules of the 2008 contest. The case presents what seems to be a straightforward and even unremarkable question: Does a state requirement that voters show a specific kind of photo identification before casting a ballot violate the Constitution? The answer so far has depended greatly on whether you are a Democratic or Republican politician -- or even, some believe, judge. "It is exceedingly difficult to maneuver in...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider reinstating part of the conviction of the man who planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, case the government says will greatly affect terrorism prosecutions. Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2005 after being convicted on nine counts for plotting to bomb the airport around Jan. 1, 2000. Customs agents in Port Angeles caught him with explosives in the trunk of his rental car when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999. The ensuing scare prompted the cancellation of...