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High Court Rules for Texas Inmate Who Wants DNA Testing
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday gave a glimmer of hope to a death row inmate in Texas who wants to test crime-scene evidence that he says may show he is innocent. The court's narrow, 6-3 ruling means that Hank Skinner, who was about an hour away from execution when the Supreme Court intervened last year, will not be put to death soon while his legal case continues. Michael Graczyk, AP Hank Skinner, here in December 2009, is on death row in Texas for triple slaying in on New Year's Even 1993. But the decision will not necessarily result in Skinner winning the right to ...
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 ...
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," ...
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Military Funeral Protesters
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount anti-gay protests outside military funerals, despite the pain they cause grieving families. The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral. Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas church known for its vehement anti-gay ...
Obama's State of the Union Speech: Memorable Moments From Past Addresses
By Steven Hoffer - AOL NewsPresident Barack Obama's State of the Union address will surely touch on the year's accomplishments, bipartisanship efforts and domestic policy, but history tells us that tonight's most memorable moments will also be the most unpredictable. For all the careful planning, there's no telling who will come up with a creative and timely approach to landing in history alongside the Obama as he delivers the second State of the Union address of his presidency. (The 2009 speech on health care was technically not a State of the Union because Obama was only one month into his term.) Surge Desk rounds ...
Opinion: Hope, and Change, Ahead for Obama
By Bob Lehrman - AOL News
(Dec. 1) -- "Be upbeat," said Al Gore's likable chief of staff, Jack Quinn, to us staffers as we got up from the enormous table in Old Executive Office Building's Ceremonial Room and headed to our offices. "If you have your private predictions, keep them to yourself." It was Election Day 1994. He seemed embarrassed -- awkward -- about saying something so obvious. But 16 years later, I don't think he'll mind my sharing what I recorded in my journal back then, to answer this month's water-cooler question: Will 2012 be like 1996? Can Barack Obama come back the way Bill Clinton did? That was ...
Bachmann Caucus to Start Offering Classes
By Andrea Stone - AOL News
WASHINGTON (Nov. 10) -- Is Glenn Beck University opening a satellite campus on Capitol Hill? If tea party darling Michele Bachmann gets her way, conservative broadcaster Sean Hannity, Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano and David Barton, a Christian evangelist who has said church-state separation is "a myth," will make up the faculty roster when the first classes of her new constitutional conservative caucus convene in the next Congress. The Minnesota Republican recently spoke on Beck's radio show about a new academic counterpart to the tea party caucus she founded earlier this year. Role ...
Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Calif. Video Game Law
By Hugh Collins - AOL News(Nov. 2) -- Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court today questioned the legality of a California law that seeks to control the sale of violent video games. The justices invoked James Madison, 1990s video game "Mortal Kombat" and the Grimm brothers' fairy tales as they heard arguments from the state of California and representatives of the $20 billion-a-year gaming industry. At issue are games such as "Postal 2," in which gamers control a crazed protagonist as he murders and mutilates his way through everyday situations. Gamers can make the protagonist -- known as "Postal Dude " -- shoot, ...
Kagan's First Vote Not Enough to Stop Execution
By David Knowles - AOL News
(Oct. 27)--Welcome to the U.S. Supreme Court, where decisions are final. Elena Kagan cast her first vote Tuesday night as the newest member of the court. Unfortunately for convicted killer Jeffrey Landrigan, Kagan cast her vote with the minority of justices, who failed to stay Landrigan's execution by lethal injection. The 5-4 ruling -- which was not signed, but received backing from Justices John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- overturned decisions by a Phoenix judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to stay ...
Elena Kagan's First Day: Fast Start, Early Out
By David Knowles - AOL News
(Oct. 4) -- The Kagan has been released! Elena Kagan, the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, waited approximately 15 minutes into her first case as an active jurist today before asking a question. The case, Ransom v. MBNA, involves bankruptcy law and marks Kagan's entry onto the ideologically divided Supreme Court bench. Following questions from Justices Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, Kagan waded into her new career by asking a lawyer for Jason Ransom why his client, who owed $82,000 in credit card debt, should be allowed to shield his monthly ...
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