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Constitutional Law

First Amendment Center

News related to the first amendment of the US Constitution and freedom of speech issues.
By First Amendment Center

Post Frequency: 38.7/day

Last Entry: March 29, 2011 at 21:00:00

N.H. justices: Expunged criminal records fair game in political race

Posted on February 23, 2011
CONCORD, N.H. — Even expunged criminal records are fair game during a campaign for public office, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The court unanimously rejected the invasion-of-privacy complaint filed by David Lovejoy against his opponent in the 2009 Rockingham County Sheriff?s race, incumbent Dan Linehan, and deputy sheriff Mark Peirce...

Tenn. bill equates Islamic law with treason

Posted on February 23, 2011
NASHVILLE ? Republican state lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony punishable by 15 years in jail. First Amendment Center senior scholar Charles Haynes told The Tennessean that the bill was based on a complete misunderstanding of Shariah, which he described as a set of voluntary religious rules similar to Jewish religious law...

NYPD ordered to turn over shooting reports

Posted on February 22, 2011
NEW YORK ? The New York Police Department must hand over more than a decade's worth of internal reports on shootings that include details from witnesses and the officers' first-hand accounts, according to a trial court ruling made public yesterday...

Federal judge dismisses religious-liberty challenge to Obama health plan

Posted on February 22, 2011
WASHINGTON ? A federal judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit claiming that President Barack Obama's requirement that all Americans have health insurance violates the religious freedom of those who rely on God to protect them. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, on behalf of five Americans who can afford health insurance but have chosen for years not to buy it...

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Va. school district removes Ten Commandments displays

Posted on February 22, 2011
RICHMOND, Va. ? A southwest Virginia school system has again removed all displays of the Ten Commandments, a month after reposting them despite concerns that doing so was unconstitutional. The Giles County School Board called a special meeting yesterday and voted to remove the framed, 4-foot-tall, biblical texts, said Amanda Tickle, the board?s clerk...

Obama administration replaces 'conscience' rule for health workers

Posted on February 21, 2011
WASHINGTON The government has replaced a Bush-era rule that became a flash point in the debate over abortions, but has kept a provision stating that doctors and nurses have a right not to participate in the procedures. Federal laws for years have forbidden discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or sterilizations, or to provide referrals for them on religious or moral grounds...

Justices turn away challenge to Nev. ban on brothel ads

Posted on February 21, 2011
WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court has turned away an effort to invalidate Nevada laws banning newspaper advertisements identifying places where prostitution is legal. The Court today refused to hear an appeal from two newspaper companies, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Shady Lady Ranch, a Nye County brothel...

High court won't revisit Ky. commandments case

Posted on February 21, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has passed up a chance to take another look at a six-year-old ruling that struck down the display of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses. McCreary and Pulaski counties had appealed recent lower court rulings barring them from posting the commandments, despite changes to the displays to include multiple religious and government documents...

Supreme Court turns down campaign-disclosure challenge

Posted on February 21, 2011
WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal challenging campaign disclosure-laws in Washington state. The Court today let stand without comment a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the state's disclosure requirements. Human Life of Washington challenged the requirements as a violation of the First Amendment...

Ohio high court rejects open-records lawsuit

Posted on February 20, 2011
CLEVELAND ? The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that volunteer committees that created recommendations for Cuyahoga County's charter government are not subject to the state's open-records laws. The court sided with the county, rejecting a lawsuit filed by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union...

King Co. doesn't have to put anti-Israeli ads on buses

Posted on February 20, 2011
SEATTLE ? A federal judge says it is reasonable for King County officials to refuse to place advertisements critical of the Israeli government on Metro buses. On Feb. 18, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones refused to grant a preliminary injunction sought by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign that would have ordered the county to run the ads reading, "Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work...

Court won't unseal search-warrant records in Ariz. shooting

Posted on February 20, 2011
SAN DIEGO — News organizations failed to persuade a federal judge late last week to release search-warrant records involving the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, among others...

Univ. pulls controversial definition of religious bias from website

Posted on February 19, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO ? The University of California at Davis has eliminated from its website a definition of religious discrimination that offended more than two dozen Christian students. The wording that the students objected to defined religious discrimination in the United States as "institutionalized oppressions toward those who are not Christian...

Campaign-ethics panel exonerates Maine newspaper

Posted on February 18, 2011
AUGUSTA, Maine ? A Maine newspaper that provided free advertising that advocated electing Portland mayors by popular vote has been cleared of wrongdoing by the state's election-ethics panel. Former Portland Charter Commission member Thomas Valleau contended that The Portland Press Herald violated campaign-finance laws by failing to disclose the ads as campaign donations...

4th Circuit concurs Md. strip-club law too broad

Posted on February 17, 2011
RICHMOND, Va. ? A federal appeals court has ruled that a Maryland law restricting the attire and conduct of performers in strip clubs is unconstitutional. In an opinion issued yesterday by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges upheld a lower court's permanent injunction issued in April 2009...

Temporary extension of Patriot Act provisions sent to president

Posted on February 17, 2011
WASHINGTON ? Congress yesterday gave itself three more months to consider changing provisions of anti-terrorism law that have been valuable in tracking security threats but have drawn fire from defenders of privacy rights. The House voted 279-143 to renew for another 90 days the three provisions, including two that were part of the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept...

House Republicans move to block net-neutrality rules

Posted on February 17, 2011
WASHINGTON ? House Republicans yesterday moved to block the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing new rules that prohibit broadband providers from interfering with Internet traffic on their networks. With a 244-181 vote, Republican leaders succeeded in attaching an amendment to a sweeping spending bill that would bar the FCC from using government money to implement its new ?network neutrality? regulations...

College of William and Mary Law School wins top honors

Posted on February 17, 2011
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? The team from the College of William and Mary Law School in Virginia won the 21st Annual National First Amendment Moot Court Competition today at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Winning team members were Stephen P...

Pa. teacher strikes nerve with 'lazy whiners' blog post

Posted on February 16, 2011
FEASTERVILLE, Pa. — A high school English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was suspended for a profanity-laced blog in which she called her young charges "disengaged, lazy whiners" is driving a debate by daring to ask: Why are today's students unmotivated — and what's wrong with calling them out? As she fights to keep her job at Central Bucks East High School, 30-year-old Natalie Munroe says she had no interest in becoming any sort of educational icon...

Righthaven sues dozens over unauthorized use of pat-down photo

Posted on February 16, 2011
DENVER — A law firm that targets the unauthorized use of news content on the Internet has filed 32 lawsuits in federal court in Colorado seeking to stop the use of a Denver Post photograph showing an airport pat-down. The lawsuits are being closely watched by news companies struggling to protect content as more people rely on the Web for news, and traditional ad revenue in printed newspapers dwindles...

Asked about WikiLeaks, Breyer gives away little

Posted on February 16, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tantalized a Florida audience with his comments yesterday about the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but gave away little about his legal stance. Appearing at a joint gathering of the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches and the Palm Beach County Bar Association, Breyer took a question from a high school student who asked about the legality of whistleblowing as seen on WikiLeaks...

Patriot Act extension clears Senate

Posted on February 15, 2011
WASHINGTON ? The Senate voted yesterday to extend for 90 days the legal life of three post-Sept. 11 terrorism-fighting measures, including the use of roving wiretaps, which are set to expire at the end of the month. The short-term extension gives lawmakers a chance to review the measures that critics from both the right and left say are unconstitutional infringements on personal liberties...

6th Circuit OKs church-state challenge to outsourced education

Posted on February 15, 2011
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ? A federal appeals court has ruled that two East Tennessee teachers can sue their school board over its decision to outsource its alternative-education program to a Christian-based academy. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that David Kucera and Vickie F...

2nd Circuit upholds Vt. cop's action on loud preacher

Posted on February 15, 2011
MONTPELIER, Vt. ? An appellate court has upheld a Vermont ruling dismissing a First Amendment challenge by a sidewalk preacher who was given a warning by Burlington police for being too loud. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New York, ruled Feb...

Government defends tactics in WikiLeaks probe

Posted on February 15, 2011
ALEXANDRIA, Va. ? Federal prosecutors yesterday defended as routine their efforts to obtain information on the accounts of at least four Twitter users as part of a criminal investigation into the release of secret documents by the WikiLeaks website. Lawyers for three of the account holders, including a member of Iceland's parliament, asked a federal magistrate to vacate an order she issued late last year requiring Twitter to turn over detailed information on the accounts in question...

Teams to tackle case of off-campus, online student speech

Posted on February 15, 2011
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? The 21st annual National First Amendment Moot Court competition, sponsored by the First Amendment Center and Vanderbilt University Law School, will be conducted Feb. 17-18. Recognized as one of the nation?s finest constitutional-law competitions, it attracts many of the nation?s top law schools...

House votes to extend key provisions of Patriot Act

Posted on February 14, 2011
WASHINGTON ? The House agreed yesterday to a 10-month extension of three key law enforcement powers in the fight against terrorism that some privacy advocates from both the right and left regard as infringements on civil liberties. The House measure, H...

Ousted USDA employee sues blogger

Posted on February 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — A former Agriculture Department employee who was shown in an edited video making what appeared to be racist remarks has sued the conservative blogger who posted the video that led to her dismissal. Shirley Sherrod said yesterday that she was ?still reeling? from being ousted in a racial firestorm last July...

Iowa chain fights Subway over 'footlong'

Posted on February 14, 2011
DES MOINES, Iowa ? An Iowa-based convenience store has asked a federal judge to rule that the word "footlong" is part of the general English language and not the special property of the Subway restaurant chain. Ankeny-based Casey's General Stores Inc...

Wash. high school student suspended for going off-script

Posted on February 14, 2011
EDMONDS, Wash. — An Edmonds high school student running for student government has been suspended for swapping a school-approved speech for one that had not been seen by school administrators. When sophomore Pascal Cloutier went live on the school?s television channel Feb...

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