A federal judge in Mobile ruled on Thursday that same-sex marriage must be available throughout Alabama, for any gay or lesbian couple wishing to apply for a license — but not yet.
May 19 2015
Notre Dame birth-control protest denied again
Reacting to a Supreme Court order to reconsider, a federal appeals court refused on Tuesday for a second time to stop enforcement of the federal government’s birth-control mandate against Notre Dame University. In a two-to-one ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cleared the way for a trial of the university’s challenge… Read More
May 18 2015
No new limit on police use of force
This post also appears on scotusblog.com Amid an emotional national debate over claims that police are too quick to use excessive force, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that officers have some leeway to fire their guns to subdue a mentally disturbed person who is violently threatening them. The Court did so in a narrow ruling… Read More
May 7 2015
NSA’s telephone data sweeps ruled illegal
A federal appeals court, in a decision that may be mostly symbolic, ruled on Thursday that the National Security Agency does not have the authority to carry on its massive electronic sweeping-up of telephone data — authority that has been used for at least nine years but that is now due to expire at the start of… Read More
Apr 26 2015
Same-sex marriage: The decisive questions
This post also appears on scotusblog.com Twenty-two months ago, the Supreme Court — perhaps not fully realizing that it was doing so — set off a constitutional revolution. In a decision that spoke somewhat tentatively about an “evolving understanding of the meaning of equality,” the Court in United States v. Windsor saw in that understanding… Read More
Apr 13 2015
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part I, The couples’ views
This post also appears on scotusblog.com This is the first post in a four-part series on the written arguments that have been filed in the same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court. This post covers the briefs of the couples who are challenging the state bans. Later posts in this series will cover the state governments’… Read More
Apr 2 2015
Who has a right to speak up in the Supreme Court?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the post of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The post is by Lyle Denniston Staging a verbal protest inside the Supreme Court’s chamber when the Justices are in session is not, constitutionally speaking, as serious an offense as shouting fire in a crowded theater – the classic illustration that the… Read More
Mar 31 2015
Lawyers for same-sex marriage plea named
This post also appears on scotusblog.com. Lyle Denniston is the author. Under gentle pressure from the Supreme Court not to split up the argument on single questions, the legal teams supporting same-sex marriage have settled on one lawyer to present each issue. The teams thus have abandoned their earlier request to let four lawyers appear… Read More
Mar 24 2015
Have voter ID laws survived a new round of challenges?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Post by Lyle Denniston. Few constitutional issues over the right to vote divide the nation’s two dominant political parties more deeply than the question of whether elections would be fairer if every voter had to show a photo ID before casting a… Read More
Mar 20 2015
Puerto Rico ends defense of same-sex marriage ban
The government of Puerto Rico on Friday ended its defense in federal court of the territory’s ban on same-sex marriage The change in position was announced by commonwealth officials in San Juan, and was confirmed in a legal brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Five same-sex couples have a challenge to the ban… Read More
