This week, I appeared on the CNN special addressing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana. While I have been a long-standing supporter of same-sex marriage, I raised concerns over the dismissive treatment of religious concerns over the scope of anti-discrimination laws and how they may curtail free exercise of religion. I have previously written both columns and academic work on this collision between the two areas of law. In the program, I raised an example of the growing conflicts that we discussed earlier on this blog of a bakery that refused to make a cake deemed insulting to homosexuals while other bakers are objecting to symbols that they view as insulting to their religious views. This issue also came up with an advocate for LGBT rights on the show:
Category: Politics
We have previously discussed the criticism of reporters, newspapers like the New York Times, and international groups that President Obama has run one of the most hostile Administrations in history to press freedom and public openness. Now that Democratic stalwart, the Washington Post, has joined in the chorus of critics, detailing the secretive, almost Nixonian culture of the Obama Administration in a new article.
Last week, there was a compelling moment in the meeting of the Nebraska Oil and Gas Commission when a Nebraska farmer stepped forward to discuss the plan to allow 80 truckloads carrying 10,000 barrels per day containing fracking wastewater into Nebraska. Then the farmer offered the Commissioners a simple challenge: you drink it.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In what hopefully will become the conclusion of an oppressive years long ordeal, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, overturned the murder convictions against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
The news came as somewhat a surprise considering the zeal at which the prosecution fought to ensure the defendants be imprisoned for over two decades. The subsequent court drama and media circuses made it seem an almost foregone conclusion her fate would ultimately rest upon an extradition hearing within the purview of American courts.
Continue reading “Italian High Court Acquits Amanda Knox And Raffaele Sollecito”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an injustice to both the liberty of a Kurdish man and free speech in general a court in Turkey handed down thirteen year sentence to a defendant accused of removing a Turkish flag at a military base near Diyarbakir, Turkey. The disproportionate sentence followed an outraged Recep Erdogan who declared after the act, “[w]e don’t care if he is a child. Even if a child dares to take down our sacred flag both him and those who send him there will pay a price.”
Continue reading “Court Sentences Man To 13 Years For Removing Turkish Flag”
We have previously discussed how there appears to an ever-expanding list of words deemed inappropriate or biased. It appears “taxpayer” may be the next suspect noun. While Republicans and Democrats alike have made pitches to protecting taxpayers, New Republic’s Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig wrote an article objecting that the use of the word in the 2016 budget is problematic and that we should start to view the noun as yet another loaded and coded word.
The Bergdahl case will raise some considerable challenges for the defense in what could be one of the most notable desertion cases in modern U.S. history. That is, if it goes to trial. This would seem a case where everyone may prefer a plea. The evidence is strong against Bergdahl, though there is clearly a great deal of evidence that has yet to be released. Cases always appear stronger for the government at the time of indictment. However, what we know is pretty bad for the defense. On the other side, the Obama Administration would clearly prefer a plea to a trial that would highlight Bergdahl’s actions and the possible loss of U.S. personnel looking for a deserter (who was later traded for five blood-soaked Taliban leaders with terrorist ties). Such issues would be obvious for prosecutors to raise when discussing the appropriate punishment, if Bergdahl is convicted. However, it could be an argument that the Administration would not want pursued by prosecutors. While such interference is prohibited as “command influence” on a military case, there have been allegations of such influence in past high-profile cases, including controversies in this Administration. In this case, the pressure is likely to be considerable for prosecutors to accept a plea, though such a plea could fuel previously accusations that the case was being manipulated to avoid embarrassment for the Administration.
Below is the longer version of my column that ran in print this morning in USA Today.
Continue reading “The Bergdahl Trial: A Desertion Trial In Search of A Defense”
After months of alleged delay for political reasons until after the elections, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, has been charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, who serves as the grand mufti of Sifaudi Arabia, is calling for Kuwait to follow the lead of Saudi Arabia and ban the construction of any Christian religious site. While Islamic leaders like the Grand Mufti are outraged with any slight or restriction of their religion, they deny the most fundamental rights of free exercise to other religions in the name of Islam. This is nothing new for the Saudi cleric and his colleagues. He previously called for all churches to be destroyed in 2012. It is not clear if this is a repeat of his announcement a few years ago or a recycling of the earlier story. However, it is a shocking position from one of the highest Islamic clerics in the world and adds an insight into the recent religious violence in places like Syria and Iraq.
Continue reading “Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia: Ban All Christian Sites”
Today we have been discussing the call for disbarment against a California attorney for seeking an anti-Gay measure for the state ballot. In Texas, you have another attorney who has attracted controversy over stickers on local businesses reading “exclusively for white people.” The shirtless Adam Reposa is seen in a video defending the campaign. [Warning this story contains foul language]
We have often discussed how prosecutors rarely are held accountable for botched trials due to misconduct or sending innocent people to jail. There remains a body count mentality with many prosecutors that tends to fuel such violations. One former prosecutor has proven the exception, however. Attorney A.M. Stroud III has written a letter, later published in the Shreveport Times, that took responsibility for sending away Glenn Ford (left) for the 1983 murder of Isodore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweler — a murder he did not commit. Stroud’s letter expressed shame with his own conduct as a prosecutor and further called for an end to the death penalty in Louisiana.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
If it was possible to add another injustice levied against Farkhunda, a woman who suffered a brutal murder at the hands of a mob in Afghanistan that insisted she burned a Koran, authorities publicly announced she was in fact innocent of these claims.
In response to this outrage, a day of national morning occurred during her funeral and burial. Various leaders including Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned her murder as a heinous attack. Reports of police standing nearby and indifferent to the incident lead the president to call for fundamental reforms in the nation’s police forces.
Continue reading “Woman Beaten To Death And Set Alight In Afghanistan Was Wrongly Accused”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
During a conference held to award Journalist Glenn Greenwald the Siebenpfeiffer Prize for Journalism, Greenwald reported a conversation in which German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. In this the Vice Chancellor commented to him that the United States threatened Germany with withholding vital intelligence of terrorist activity if the nation granted asylum to Edward Snowden or otherwise allowed him to travel to Germany.
The event shows the extreme measures the Administration is willing to take regarding whistleblowers and others labeled as threats.
Continue reading “Glenn Greenwald: U.S. Threatened Germany Over Snowden Asylum”
This morning I will be testifying in the House of Representatives before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary. The hearing is entitled “Child Exploitation Restitution Following the Paroline Decision” and addresses a long-standing controversy over the limits on restitution in such cases. My testimony is below.
Continue reading “Turley Testifies Before House Committee On Restitution For Child Pornography”
There is an interesting controversy at Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park (outside of Chicago) where the school allowed students to hold a black-student only meeting. OPRF held a “Black Lives Matter” assembly on Feb. 27 but barred parents of white students who tried to participate. Principal Nathaniel Rouse (right), the assembly’s organizer, insisted he thought black students would speak more freely among members of their own race as what is known as affinity grouping. It might also be called racial segregation at a public school. What if white students wanted to engage in “affinity grouping” by excluding minority students?
Continue reading “Illinois School Holds Blacks-Only Student Event For “Affinity Grouping””