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Court considers whistleblower free speech rights
Court Watch |
2014/04/29 22:44
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When Edward Lane testified about corruption at a community college program he headed in Alabama, he was fired.
The Supreme Court on Monday considered whether the First Amendment protects Lane and millions of other public employees from job retaliation when they offer testimony about government misconduct in court.
The high court has previously ruled that the constitutional right to free speech protects public workers only when they speak out as citizens, not when they act in their official roles.
Most justices appeared to side with Lane's view that court testimony revealing official misconduct should be constitutionally protected even if it covers facts a government employee learned at work.
But the justices struggled over whether that protection should automatically cover all public workers, even police officials or criminal investigators whose job duties require them to testify in court about specific cases. |
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Oklahoma gay-marriage case before US appeals court
Court Watch |
2014/04/17 20:49
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Court arguments over Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage will center on whether voters singled out gay people for unfair treatment when they overwhelmingly defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Judges at a federal appeals court in Denver will hear arguments Thursday from lawyers representing a couple challenging Oklahoma's ban and the Tulsa County clerk who refused to grant them a license. The judges heard a similar case from Utah last week.
Oklahoma voters approved the ban in 2004 by a 3-1 margin. The Tulsa couple tried to obtain a marriage license shortly afterward.
A federal judge overturned the ban in January, saying it violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Lawyers for the state say voters have a right to set their own laws. |
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High court voids overall contribution limits
Court Watch |
2014/04/03 21:13
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The Supreme Court struck down limits Wednesday in federal law on the overall campaign contributions the biggest individual donors may make to candidates, political parties and political action committees.
The justices said in a 5-4 vote that Americans have a right to give the legal maximum to candidates for Congress and president, as well as to parties and PACs, without worrying that they will violate the law when they bump up against a limit on all contributions, set at $123,200 for 2013 and 2014. That includes a separate $48,600 cap on contributions to candidates.
But their decision does not undermine limits on individual contributions to candidates for president or Congress, now $2,600 an election.
Chief Justice John Roberts announced the decision, which split the court's liberal and conservative justices. Roberts said the aggregate limits do not act to prevent corruption, the rationale the court has upheld as justifying contribution limits.
The overall limits "intrude without justification on a citizen's ability to exercise 'the most fundamental First Amendment activities,'" Roberts said, quoting from the court's seminal 1976 campaign finance ruling in Buckley v. Valeo.
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the outcome of the case, but wrote separately to say that he would have gone further and wiped away all contribution limits.
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Appeals court sides with Alaska on roadless rule
Court Watch |
2014/03/28 16:25
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A divided federal appeals court panel on Wednesday sided with the state of Alaska in reversing a decision that reinstated prohibitions on road-building and the harvesting of timber in the nation's largest national forest.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had articulated "a number of legitimate grounds" in a 2003 decision to temporarily exempt the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska from the Roadless Rule, which contains the prohibitions.
A lower court judge, in 2011, had found the decision to be arbitrary and capricious.
The appeals court panel sent the matter back to the district court to determine whether additional environmental review is required. Ninth Circuit Court Judge M. Margaret McKeown dissented, saying the justification for the overturning the lower court's decision was missing. |
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