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The Important Supreme Court Decision You Didn't Hear About Last Week
By Andrew Cohen - Politics DailyIf you think Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church made out well last week before the U.S. Supreme Court, consider the case of Jason Pepper. The confessed former methamphetamine dealer won his own case last week at the high court -- and may not have to go back to prison for his old crime (he was released pending the appeal). More significantly, the court's ruling struck yet another blow against sentencing guidelines. The reason you probably haven't heard much about Pepper is because the decision in his case, Pepper v. United States, came out last Wednesday just a few minutes before the ...
Supreme Court's 8-1 Westboro Ruling -- and Alito's Passionate Dissent
By Andrew Cohen - Politics DailyU.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito likely spoke for millions of Americans Wednesday when he decried the strategy, tactics and motives of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church zealots, who picket military funerals to express their virulent anti-gay views. But on the Court, Justice Alito spoke alone. Related Stories Supreme Court Upholds Westboro Baptist Church's Right to Military Funeral Protests Westboro Church Protestors -- Ignore Them Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Funeral of 9-Year-Old Arizona Shooting Victim Bill Would Ban ...
Dissenting Justice: Westboro Ruling Goes Too Far
By Joseph Schuman - AOL NewsWhere should the nation draw the line on free speech? For Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the defense of First Amendment rights expressed by today's majority ruling in the Westboro Baptist Church case goes too far. The 8-1 decision found that the fringe church's hate-filled picketing at the funeral of a Marine corporal killed in Iraq qualified as public discourse protected by the First Amendment. Church members claim soldiers' deaths are God's punishment for U.S. tolerance of homosexuality. Kris Connor, Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was the lone ...
Westboro's 'Church of Hate' Leader Once Championed Civil Rights
By Mara Gay - AOL NewsFred Phelps has been testing America's laws -- and patience -- for years, long before the Supreme Court today gave his anti-gay church group the OK to protest its gospel of hate at military funerals. But in the beginning, Phelps, now the 80-year-old pastor of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, had a very different cause -- civil rights. Before the bombastic, Kansas-based preacher began picketing high-profile funerals with signs like, "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," he was a prominent civil-rights attorney known for waging successful anti-discrimination suits in ...
Westboro Court Decision Pits Free Speech Against Common Decency
By Andrea Stone - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church may have won their case in the U.S. Supreme Court today, but not even the most ardent advocates of free speech are rejoicing. "On a personal level, I can't imagine a single person in this country who doesn't feel the pain of this father" whose Marine son's funeral was picketed by the hate-spewing church, said Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center. "But a free and open marketplace of ideas requires us to hear positions and views that we don't like and which deeply offend us." The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that ...
Supreme Court Sides With Westboro Baptist Church; Twitter Reluctantly Agrees
By Torie Bosch - AOL NewsWho ever said that free speech would be easy? Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, a small group, made up mostly of members of the Phelps family, that stages protests at military funerals (and other places). The case, Snyder v. Phelps, was filed by the father of a fallen soldier, whose funeral was protested by Westboro. "Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," ...
Why We Care About the Academy Awards
By James Grady - Politics DailyThe Academy Awards shone bright lights in my family's night sky well before 2007, when I stood in a Santa Monica street hugging my black-gowned and borrowed-diamonds daughter Rachel and not crying, I did not cry, I did not! as she climbed into the black limo that whisked her and her co-director/producer Heidi to the Oscars where they would lose Best Documentary to Al Gore. And why yes: it is way cool just to be nominated. The Academy Awards had me long before that night. Way back in America's black & white Cold War daze, my father managed movie theaters on our home turf of Montana prairie ...
Judge Rules Loughner Search Warrant Will Stay Private For Now
By Andrew Cohen - Politics DailyA federal trial judge Friday afternoon refused for now to order the release of search warrant information about Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in the Jan. 8 Tucson shooting that left six dead, including Arizona Chief U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, and 14 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). However, U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns refused a defense request to block the public release of Loughner's official mug shots. Instead, Burns ruled that the U.S. Marshal's Service, which took and now holds the photographs, must determine under its own procedures whether they can ...
Florida Homeless Advocates Claim 1st Amendment Right to Meet, Eat in Park
By Mark I. Pinsky - Politics DailyORLANDO, Fla. – The U.S. Supreme Court, in its controversial 2010 Citizens United decision, ruled that corporations enjoy the same free speech rights as individuals when it comes to political advertising. With the Court's 5-4 imprimatur, businesses, billionaires and groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce poured piles of cash into last year's mid-term elections, resulting in significant gains for Republican candidates. This week, a federal appeals court in Atlanta is considering this issue from the other end of the socio-economic spectrum: Does the First Amendment extend to ...
Legal Battle Over Tucson Defendant Jared Loughner's 'Real' Mug Shot
By Andrew Cohen - Politics DailyWe've all seen the photograph by now -- those of us who wanted to, anyway. In it, Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson shooting suspect, stares directly into the camera, head shaved clean, eyes wide open, with a slight smirk that is, at best, unsettling. If the photo were ever introduced at trial -- which is unlikely-- federal prosecutors might say it shows the ubiquitous "face of terror." Defense attorneys, on the other hand, likely would counter that it's some visible proof of their client's unbalanced mental state in the hours following his alleged crimes. Either way, the picture, released to ...
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