Rachelle Jackson, a Chicago nurse, was probably expecting a thankful reception from the colleagues of Officer Kelly Brogan, a police officer that she dragged from a burning police cruiser. Instead, she was arrested and stayed in jail for 10 months on charges that she robbed, battered and disarmed a peace officer. She now has $7.7 million worth of apologies from a Chicago jury. Defense counsel is irate, insisting that the officer said that Jackson put her into a strangle hold and took her gun.
Continue reading “Chicago Nurse Wins $7.7 Million After She Rescued an Officer Only to Be Arrested by His Colleagues”
Category: Constitutional Law
Justice Edward H. Lehner has taken the ultimate form of judicial notice. His salary is too small so he has ordered the legislature to give him and the rest of the state’s 1,250 judges a raise within 90 days.
Continue reading “Judicial Notice: New York Judge Orders Himself a Raise”
Maclean Magazine is the latest publication to be called to the dock to answer to the new speech police in Canada. The magazine is accused of hate speech and has had to answer for the publication of an article written by Mark Steyn entitled Why the Future Belongs to Islam. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, a Robespierrean institution that reviews and punishes improper speech, held a week of hearings on the magazine and will soon issue its ruling. The tribunal is an example of an expanding crisis in various Western nations, where free speech is being sacrificed in the name of combatting intolerance.
Continue reading “Maclean’s Magazine Faces Speech Police In Canada”
In a massive blow to the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the opinion below, Justice Kennedy delivers the opinion of a lifetime: holding faithfully to the Constitution in a time of prolonged crisis.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Rules in Favor of the Detainees in Massive Blow to Bush Administration”
The steady decline of student rights and free speech continues with another high school cracking down on free speech. In Redding, California, Shasta High School’s student newspaper Shasta High Volcano will be shutdown because administrators did not like a photograph of a flag-burning student.
Shasta High School Principal Milan Woollard appears to believe that conformity and censorship are important components to teach new citizens.
The Bush Administration has been cracking down on obscenity across the country and a very interesting (and very disgusting) case is being heard by a jury in Los Angeles. At issue is the work of Ira Isaacs who produces and sells videos of so called “poo porn” involving bestiality and sexual fetish films involving feces and urine.
Continue reading “New Obscenity Case Goes to Trial in Los Angeles”
A very disturbing free speech case has emerged out of Canada: another example of how the West is abandoning principles of free speech in its widening definitions of hate speech. The Alberta Human Rights Commission has punished Rev. Stephen Boission and the Concerned Christian Coalition for anti-gay speech, not only awarding damages but censuring future speech that the Commission deems inappropriate. Boission’s offense came in the form of a letter containing anti-gay language.
Continue reading “Oh Canada! Alberta Human Rights Commission Punishes and Censures Anti-Gay Speech”
In the nation’s capitol, the Washington, D.C. police are closing off whole neighborhoods this weekend in a crack down on crimes — and civil liberties. No one will be allowed into areas of the Capitol unless they live their or can show that they are going things like going to church.
In a case closely watched by religious and gay rights groups, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that the state must enforce parental visitation rights of a mother’s former lesbian partner under a Vermont court order. The victory for Janet Jenkins over Lisa Miller is what many religious groups had feared that the full faith and credit clause and other provisions would required other states to recognize the marital and parental status of gay couples from states like Vermont and soon California.
Continue reading “Virginia Upholds Parental Rights of Non-Biological Lesbian Mother”
The Turkish Constitutional Court delivered a great victory for those fighting to preserve the country’s secular traditions. It upheld the ban on female university students wearing headscarves — despite the efforts of Turkey’s new pro-Islamic president. For secularists, it is a great victory, but it is highly problematic from a civil liberties standpoint.
Continue reading “Turkish Constitutional Court Upholds Ban on Students Wearing Scarves”
Fantasy baseball players rejoice. The fantasy continues. The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal in Major League Baseball Advanced Media v. C.B.C., 07-1099 — letting stand a ruling in favor of fantasy baseball businesses. It is a maor blow against Major League Baseball, which could now face a reexamination of fees paid by large Internet sites. Continue reading “Play Ball! Supreme Court Declines Fantasy Baseball Case”
A Tampa case may present an ideal context to review the long-criticized pornography test and the role of community standards in the Internet age. Paul F. Little, known as “Max Hardcore,” is facing an obscenity prosecution for selling porn on the Internet. The Bush Administration could have chosen any state in the Union, but engineered an indictment in Tampa — an open case of forum shopping for the most conservative jury pool that it could find. The Supreme Court has never produced a coherent and consistent approach to obscenity and this case is the result of this long-standing judicial failure. Continue reading “James Madison Meets Max Hardcore: Florida Obscenity Case Could Force Review of Community Standards in Internet Age”
Al Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has already violated every possible international and domestic law in his career. However, he has now been recorded admitting to a knowing violation of Title VII: the refusal to allow women to serve as terrorists and suicide bombers. If he thought the CIA was dogged, wait until he feels the wrath of NOW.
Continue reading “Shattering the Terrorist Glass Ceiling: Al Qaeda Leader Rejects Role of Women as Terrorists and Suicide Bombers”
In yet another expansion of the regulation of student speech, the Second Circuit has ruled against high school student Avery Doninger who contested her punishment for posting an objectionable message on an Internet site about Lewis Mills High School. When she objected to the cancellation of a school event in vulgar terms, school officials barred her from running for Senior Class secretary. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the Second Circuit upheld the right of school officials to punish students for out-of–school speech in a major blow to both the first amendment and student rights.
In yet another blow to the Texas officials who ordered the mass removal of children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch, the Texas Supreme Court has agreed with an appellate court that they must be returned. Officials will now have to reunite as many as 450 children with their parents. It is not must a rebuke to Child Protective Services, which adopted the most extreme measures in the case without evidence of individual guilt, but to District Judge Barbara Walther who showed very little concern over the rights of the accused parents in the matter. Continue reading “Texas Supreme Court Orders Return of Children in Polygamy Case”