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Alaska Supreme Court says Tax Exemptions Cannot Be Denied to Gay Couples

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Photo Credit: Mel Green / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Mel Green / Creative Commons

Same-sex couples in Alaska must receive certain property tax exemptions given to married couples, despite a ban on gay marriage, the state Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The decision in a lawsuit brought by three Anchorage same-sex couples represented a blow to the state, which had prevented gay and lesbian couples from taking advantage of a tax break for senior citizens and disabled veterans that, in some circumstances, takes into account marital status.

The ruling follows high-profile victories in recent months by gays and lesbians seeking the right to wed in several U.S. states.

Marriage rights have been extended to gay couples in 17 states and the District of Columbia in a trend that gained momentum when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that legally married same-sex couples nationwide are eligible for federal benefits.

In 1998, Alaska voters amended the state’s constitution to restrict marriage to between a man and a woman.

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Ala. Supreme Court: ‘Unborn Child Has Inalienable Right to Life From its Earliest Stages’

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

In a case about a pregnant woman who used cocaine and endangered her unborn child, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed (8-1) that the word “child” includes “an unborn child,” and that the law therefore “furthers the State’s interest in protecting the life of children from the earliest stages of their development.”

In his concurring opinion, Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore wrote that “an unborn child has an inalienable right to life from its earliest stages of development,” and added, “I write separately to emphasize that the inalienable right to life is a gift of God that civil government must secure for all persons – born and unborn.”

The court decision on April 18 was in reference to Sarah Janie Hicks v. State of Alabama. Hicks had been charged in 2009 with violating Alabama’s chemical-endangerment statute, which in part says that a “person commits the crime of chemical endangerment” by “knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance, chemical substance, or drug paraphernalia,” a felony.

In Hicks’ case, she was charged with using cocaine while pregnant. Her child, “J.D.,” tested positive for cocaine “at the time of his birth,” reads the court document. (See Hicks v. Alabama.pdf)

In January 2010, Hicks pleaded guilty to the crime but also “reserved the right to appeal the issues” she and her attorneys had presented earlier in trying to get the charges dismissed. Hicks got a three year suspended prison sentence and was placed on probation.

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Supreme Court Limits Damages to Victims of Child Porn

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the amount of damages that those who possess child pornography must pay victims, throwing out a $3.4 million award that went to a woman whose childhood rape has been widely seen on the Internet.

The court voted 5 to 4 that those convicted of possessing child pornography must pay restitution to victims. But it said the amount of damages paid must be proximate to the harm that a specific offender has caused.

The case before the court involves a a Texas man, Doyle Randall Paroline, who pleaded guilty to possessing 300 images of child pornography, including two of a girl identified in court documents as “Amy Unknown” when she was eight or nine years old. An appeals court had said Paroline was liable for all of the $3.4 million in damages that Amy, now an adult, was owed for psychological damage and lost income after she discovered the images.

All nine Supreme Court justices indicated that the law Congress passed requiring restitution to victims of child pornography was flawed and several called for a rewrite that would provide more precision and guidance.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, noted that his approach “is not without difficulties.”

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Former Supreme Court Justice: Amend 2nd Amendment

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Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in his new book, recommends six rewrites to the U.S. Constitution. He would restrict gun ownership to militia members; ban the death penalty; and allow government to set “reasonable limits” on campaign financing, among other things.

But Stevens says he’s no radical:

“I think every one of my proposals is a moderate proposal,” Stevens told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

One of Steven’s proposals would add five words to the Second Amendment, which would then read: “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, when serving in the militia, shall not be infringed.”

Stevens agreed that adding those five words would allow legislatures and Congress, rather than the courts, to “do what they think is in the best public interest.”

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Limit on Campaign Giving (+video)

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / JONATHAN ERNST

Photo Credit: REUTERS / JONATHAN ERNST

By Stephen Dinan.

The Supreme Court overturned aggregate campaign finance limits Wednesday, freeing wealthy Americans to give to as many federal candidates as they want — though the justices left in place the cap on how much can be given to any one person.

Still, the 5-4 decision further erodes the system of campaign finance restrictions written by Congress, but that already was teetering under the weight of its complexity and previous court decisions.

Democrats in Congress said the ruling is another step toward letting the rich hold sway over elections. They warned that wealthy conservatives will try to swamp elections by giving more freely and letting candidates siphon money among themselves.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, said campaign giving is a fundamental part of free speech that Congress cannot restrict lightly.

“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects,” the chief justice wrote. “If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests, and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.”

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Photo Credit: Rod Lamkey, Getty Images

Photo Credit: Rod Lamkey, Getty Images

Supreme Court lifts ban on aggregate campaign donations

By Richard Wolf and Fredreka Schouten.

The Supreme Court took another step Wednesday toward giving wealthy donors more freedom to influence federal elections.

The justices ruled 5-4, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that limits on the total amount of money donors can give to all candidates, committees and political parties are unconstitutional. The decision leaves in place the base limits on what can be given to each individual campaign.

“The government has a strong interest, no less critical to our democratic system, in combating corruption and its appearance,” Roberts wrote. “We have, however, held that this interest must be limited to a specific kind of corruption — quid pro quo corruption — in order to ensure that the government’s efforts do not have the effect of restricting the First Amendment right of citizens to choose who shall govern them.”

The decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which came nearly six months after it was argued at the beginning of the court’s term in October, marks the latest round in the bitter national debate over the role of money in American politics.

More immediately, it alters the political landscape ahead of November’s midterm elections and could transform state contests as well. Legal experts said the ruling also erodes aggregate contribution limits imposed by the District of Columbia and 12 states, ranging from Connecticut to Wyoming.

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Hidden Camera Footage Surfaces of Supreme Court Debate

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Hidden camera footage of what appeared to be Supreme Court proceedings from earlier this week surfaced on Thursday, offering one the of the first public recordings of the High Court’s proceedings.

A video posted on YouTube and recorded by 99 Rise, a group that supports tougher campaign finance laws, shows proceedings leading up to and during a rare protest that took place in the court Wednesday.

Noah Kai Newkirk, a leader of the group, is seen in the video standing up and calling on the court to overturn the 2010 Citizens United ruling that opened the door to corporate political donations and led to the creation of super-PACs.

“I rise on behalf of the vast majority of American people who believe that money is not speech, corporations are not people, and our democracy should not be for sale to the highest bidder,” Newkirk shouts during Wednesday’s oral arguments.

The beginning of the video appears to show the oral arguments from 2013 dealing with an undecided campaign finance case known as McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission, which asks whether the cap on the total amount of money a person can donate to candidates and party committees during an election cycle is constitutional.

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Conservative Legal Activist, Who Succeeded at Trial Court, Asks Supreme Court to Hear NSA Case

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Photo Credit: APThe conservative legal activist who won the first court ruling questioning the legality of the National Security Agency’s massive phone-call tracking database is asking the Supreme Court to short circuit the normal appeals process and take up the case directly.

Attorney Larry Klayman said he sent the unusual petition to the high court on Monday.

“We went to the Supreme Court because, unlike the government, we’re not dragging our feet. We want a quick decision here,” Klayman said in a brief phone interview Monday afternoon.

A Justice Department spokesman had no immediate comment on the submission

The filing, known as a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment, is granted exceesingly rarely by the court. Usually, the justices prefer for cases to have full appellate review and in many cases review by appeals courts from more than one circuit.

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Victim Goes after Each Viewer of Child Pornography

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

The Supreme Court will delve into the sordid world of child pornography this week with a case that could break legal ground in the fight to curb juvenile porn — whether victims can seek full damages not only from their abusers but also from the people who produce, distribute and possess the illegal images.

The case, which the high court will hear Wednesday, has the potential to rock the secretive world of child pornography. Few people’s fortunes could withstand rulings that require multimillion-dollar payouts to dozens, even hundreds, of victims.

Forcing offenders to pay full restitution to a victim “does nothing but good,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough is Enough, one of the anti-pornography advocates closely watching the case. It is well-known, she said, that every time child pornography is viewed, “the victim is re-victimized.”

But most federal courts have ruled that a defendant can be held responsible only for specific harms caused by his or her specific conduct, greatly limiting the liability of many of those who must pay damages.

The case centers on “Amy Unknown,” an unidentified woman who is seeking $3.36 million in lifetime restitution from Doyle R. Paroline, a Texas man who was caught with two of Amy’s images in his child pornography collection.

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Supreme Court To Hear Case To Determine If Pres. Obama Violated the Constitution

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Photo Credit: The Hill

Photo Credit: The Hill

Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.

Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.

If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.

Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.

“Rulings like this have implications that last for centuries,” said Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute.

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Redress Sought After Supreme Court Takes Away Law License of State Attny Gen Who Took on Abortion Industry

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A Kansas Supreme Court that recommended former Attorney General Phill Kline’s law license be suspended indefinitely for his investigation of alleged criminal activity on the part of abortionists is being petitioned to correct its own ruling.

The fight over the abortion industry in the state, which included Wichita late-term abortionist George Tiller as well as Planned Parenthood, the American abortion industry’s biggest player, has gone on for years, pitting Kline, in his office as attorney general and then in the position as Johnson County district attorney, against the whole of the abortion industry including state officials who ardently supported abortion.

Among those was Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now Health and Human Services secretary, who went way beyond being pro-abortion to being “pro-death,” according to attorneys who worked on the brief. The petition was filed by attorneys working with the Life Legal Defense Fund, and seeks a rehearing or modification in Kline’s case, in which the suspension of his license was recommended over issues such as his alleged failure to make certain grand jurors understood state law after he explained it to them.

The brief makes it clear that Kline is facing an uphill fight in the Kansas court system, providing a background for the dispute:

“It is doubtful any criminal suspect in the history of this nation has ever so successfully used a high court to thwart legitimate investigations while persuading the judicial branch of government to put the prosecutor on trial. While the executive branch of the Kansas government ran cover for two abortion providers by (in one instance) shredding evidence of crimes and (in the other instance) conducting a sham prosecution that did everything but stipulate to the abortion provider’s innocence, the judicial branch pursued a two count, multi-charge disciplinary proceeding against Mr. Kline for alleged ethics violations.”

Read more from this story HERE.