Constitutional Law

Teen Smoking Suit Extinguished

Joe Camel has made it through the eye of a needle. The California Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit against four tobacco companies targeting ads that appeal to youths, the Recorder reports. The suit claimed the companies encouraged youths to start smoking through ads that featured icons such as Joe…

Aug 3, 2007 11:42 AM CDT

Canada to Review Polygamy Ban?

In a case that could have an effect on United States law enforcement, a prominent Canadian criminal attorney serving as a special prosecutor has recommended that his country reconsider its ban on polygamy. Appointed in a British Columbia case involving a U.S.-based splinter Mormon group that has reportedly openly practiced…

Aug 1, 2007 11:47 PM CDT

Observers Differ Over Gonzales’ Future

As 15 Democratic members of Congress piled onto the controversy over Albert Gonzales by calling yesterday for a investigation of whether “sufficient grounds” to impeach him exist, observers are split about the U.S. attorney general’s future. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, it gets worse,” Douglas Kmiec,…

Aug 1, 2007 8:25 PM CDT

Pakistan Prez, Top Judge Reconciling?

Four months after he sought to remove Pakistan’s top judge from the bench, the country’s president is now trying to get back on his good side. After a July 20 decision by the Pakistan Supreme Court that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry had been improperly suspended in March and must…

Aug 1, 2007 6:31 PM CDT

Broad Secret Spy Program Confirmed

The director of national intelligence revealed yesterday that President Bush issued an executive order after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks authorizing a wide range of secret surveillance activities. The letter makes clear that a warrantless terrorism surveillance program was just one aspect of the government’s surveillance activities, the Washington Post…

Aug 1, 2007 2:52 PM CDT

Mexico City Jails OK Gay Conjugal Visits

Accepting the recommendation of a human rights commission, Mexico City has begun to allow conjugal visits between gay inmates. Such visits are commonly allowed for opposite-sex couples, even when they are not married, and a 2003 Mexico law bans discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, reports the British Broadcasting…

Jul 30, 2007 7:10 PM CDT

Raids Dividing Immigrant Families

As federal authorities amp up their efforts to enforce immigration laws, some immigrant families are facing a tough choice. Children born in this country are U.S. citizens and have a right to live here. But if their non-citizen parents are here illegally, the adults have to decide whether to leave…

Jul 30, 2007 6:17 PM CDT

More Suits Target Gangs

Cities are fighting gangs with lawsuits, raising the ire of critics who say minority youths are being singled out. The latest cities to file suit include Fort Worth and San Francisco, the Associated Press reports. The complaints often seek injunctions that bar specific youths or targeted gangs from congregating, displaying…

Jul 30, 2007 2:46 PM CDT

NRA Had High Court Misgivings

The National Rifle Association may be a reluctant Supreme Court suitor in a Washington, D.C., case that challenges the district’s handgun ban. The lawyer who won a federal appeals court ruling striking down the ban says the NRA has joined him “ever so grudgingly” in the case, Legal Times reports.…

Jul 30, 2007 1:12 PM CDT

Curbs on Condo Signs Upheld

Legal observers were taken aback last year when a New Jersey appellate court extended the state constitution’s free-speech requirements to a private homeowners’ association. Frank Askin, a law professor at Rutgers-Newark, told the ABA Journal eReport in February 2006 that the decision was the first of its kind at the…

Jul 27, 2007 4:43 PM CDT

NY PI Lawyers Ready New Ads

Don’t blame a New York State Bar Association task force for the advertising rules struck down by a federal judge. None of the overturned rules had been proposed by the task force, the New York Law Journal reports. Instead, they were all additions by four presiding justices of New York…

Jul 27, 2007 12:57 PM CDT

Judge Voids Hazleton Immigration Law

In a ruling with national implications, a federal judge in Pennsylvania today struck down a controversial Hazleton municipal ordinance that would have imposed hefty fines on businesses for hiring illegal immigrants and landlords for renting to them. The ordinance was unconstitutional, ruled U.S. District Judge James M. Munley, because it…

Jul 26, 2007 9:38 PM CDT

Record $100 Million for Unjust Conviction

A federal judge in Boston has awarded $100 million to four men unjustly convicted of murder in Massachusetts state court in 1968, reportedly the largest such judgment ever made. Ruling today, U.S. Dist. Judge Nancy Gertner found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had suppressed evidence that four men convicted…

Jul 26, 2007 8:06 PM CDT

GOP Sets Stage for Spitzer Probe

Two top aides to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer have refused to be interviewed in an investigation of an attempt by his office to gather negative information about a political rival. Republicans highlighted the refusal to cooperate as they were setting the stage for a probe that could lead to…

Jul 26, 2007 4:31 PM CDT

Ohio Domestic Violence Law Upheld

In 2004 Ohio voters adopted a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage despite warnings that it could undermine domestic violence laws. That argument has proven unwarranted. Yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court held the same-sex marriage ban does not conflict with laws barring domestic violence between unmarried couples, the Toledo Blade reports.…

Jul 26, 2007 3:59 PM CDT