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Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate defends blog posts
Court Watch |
2019/02/01 11:33
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Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn is defending blog posts he wrote more than a decade ago where he said a landmark gay rights court ruling could lead to legalized bestiality and labeled Planned Parenthood a “wicked organization.”
Hagedorn spoke Monday about the blogs to conservative talk radio host John Muir on WTAQ-AM. He wrote the blogs while in law school in 2005 and 2006.
He is an evangelical Christian and says he can separate his personal opinion from the law. Hagedorn faces liberal-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Lisa Neubauer in the April 2 election.
Neubauer is chief judge on the state appeals court where Hagedorn is also a judge.
Neubauer campaign manager Tyler Hendricks says Hagedorn would bring a “personal, extreme and radical agenda to the Supreme Court.” |
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North Carolina Supreme Court to examine Smithfield payments
Court Watch |
2019/01/29 11:40
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North Carolina's highest court will weigh in on whether money paid by the world's largest pork producer for environmental restoration projects should go to public schools instead.
The state Supreme Court announced Friday it would hear appeals in a lawsuit involving a 2000 agreement between Smithfield Foods and then-Attorney General Mike Easley. Smithfield has paid $2 million annually for 25 years. Easley's successors enforce the agreement and distribute funds.
A conservative activist and later the New Hanover County school board sued, contending Smithfield's payments are civil penalties for past environmental violations, so the state constitution requires they go to schools.
A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit, but the Court of Appeals resurrected it last September. Current Attorney General Josh Stein and other parties asked the justices to step in. |
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India's top court paves way for bars with dancers to reopen
Court Watch |
2019/01/15 23:16
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India's Supreme Court on Thursday paved the way for the reopening of Mumbai's dance bars, which had been a nightlife staple in the country's entertainment capital until they were outlawed six years ago.
The court ruled that the bars featuring young women paid to wear sexy clothing and dance to Bollywood music no longer need to be more than a kilometer (half a mile) from religious sites, schools and colleges. It also scrapped plans to force the bars to have security cameras and a partition between bar rooms and dance floors.
There were some 700 dance bars in Mumbai and another 650 in other parts of Maharashtra state, employing 75,000 dancers, before the state government ordered them closed in 2012 on the grounds they corrupted young people.
The state government framed a new law in 2016 imposing stiff restrictions, but the hotel and restaurant owners found them to be unacceptable and petitioned the top court.
The court, however, accepted the state government's plea that the dance bars be allowed to stay open in Maharashtra state between 6:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. every day and not until 1:30 a.m. as demanded by the Bar Owners Association.
People at these bars can tip the dancers, but can't throw money at them as in the past, the court ruled.
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Court orders mediation in Maryland desegregation case
Court Watch |
2019/01/06 16:57
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A federal appeals court has ordered a fourth attempt at mediation in a long-running dispute over the state of Maryland’s treatment of its historically black colleges.
The black colleges say the state has underfunded them while developing programs at traditionally white schools that directly compete with them and drain prospective students away.
In 2013, a judge found that the state had maintained an unconstitutional “dual and segregated education system.” The judge said the state allowed traditionally white schools to replicate programs at historically black institutions, thereby undermining the success of the black schools.
Despite three previous tries at mediation, the two sides have been unable to agree on a solution.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Maryland’s higher education commission and the coalition to begin mediation again to try to settle the 12-year-old lawsuit.
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Low-key days at Supreme Court may be ending soon
Court Watch |
2018/12/31 01:12
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The Supreme Court began its term with the tumultuous confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, followed by a studied avoidance of drama on the high court bench — especially anything that would divide the five conservatives and four liberals.
The justices have been unusually solicitous of each other in the courtroom since Kavanaugh's confirmation, and several have voiced concern that the public perceives the court as merely a political institution. Chief Justice John Roberts seems determined to lead the one Washington institution that stays above the political fray. Even Roberts' rebuke of President Donald Trump, after the president criticized a federal judge, was in defense of an independent, apolitical judiciary.
The next few weeks will test whether the calm can last. When they gather in private on Jan. 4 to consider new cases for arguments in April and into next term, the justices will confront a raft of high-profile appeals.
Abortion restrictions, workplace discrimination against LGBT people and partisan gerrymandering are on the agenda. Close behind are appeals from the Trump administration seeking to have the court allow it to end an Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation and to put in place restrictive rules for transgender troops. |
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