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Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin parents’ challenge to school guidance
Court News |
2024/12/11 10:11
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin parents who wanted to challenge a school district’s guidance for supporting transgender students.
The justices, acting in a case from Eau Claire, left in place an appellate ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit.
Three justices, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, would have heard the case. That’s one short of what is needed for full review by the Supreme Court.
Parents with children in Eau Claire public schools argued in a lawsuit that the school district’s policy violates constitutional protections for parental rights and religious freedom.
Sixteen Republican-led states had urged the court to take up the parents’ case.
Lower courts had found that the parents lacked the legal right, or standing. Among other reasons, the courts said no parent presented evidence that the policy affected them or their children.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals included two judges Republican Donald Trump appointed during his first term.
But Alito described the case as presenting “a question of great and growing national importance,” whether public school districts violate parents’ rights when they encourage students to transition or assist in the process without parental consent or knowledge.
“Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” encourages transgender students to reach out to staff members with concerns and instructs employees to be careful who they talk to about a student’s gender identity, since not all students are “out” to their families. |
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Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after ‘alarming blood test,’ attorney says
Court News |
2024/12/01 12:03
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Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday following an “alarming blood test,” his attorney said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious jail complex.
Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for an “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention,” his attorney, Imran Ansari, said in a statement.
“It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilizes,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional rights.”
A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.
Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction in the state. The case is set to be retried in 2025. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.
In a legal filing last week, Weinstein’s attorneys accused the city of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical afflictions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IV’s, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear — hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Ansari said in a statement that likened Rikers Island to a “gulag.”
The troubled jail complex, located on an island in New York City’s East River, has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover of the jail system, finding the city had placed its incarcerated population in “unconstitutional danger.”
A publicist for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, echoed the allegation in a statement Monday.
“Mr. Weinstein, who is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not,” he said. “In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
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PA high court orders counties not to count disputed ballots in US Senate race
Court News |
2024/11/20 15:42
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Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.
The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions while election workers are sorting through thousands of provisional ballots.
McCormick’s campaign called it a “massive setback” for Casey.
The Democratic-majority high court’s order reiterates the position it took previously that the ballots shouldn’t be counted in the election, a decision that Republicans say several Democratic-controlled counties nevertheless challenged.
In a statement, Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said a lack of legal clarity had surrounded the ballots, putting county officials in a position where they were “damned if they did and damned if they didn’t — likely facing legal action no matter which decision they made on counting.”
It comes amid a gust of fresh litigation in recent days filed by both campaigns, contesting the decisions of about a dozen counties over whether or not to count thousands of provisional ballots.
Casey’s campaign says the provisional ballots shouldn’t be rejected for garden-variety errors, like a polling place worker forgetting to sign it. Republicans say the law is clear that the ballots must be discarded.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots with wrong or missing dates on the return envelope could be in the thousands.
Republicans last week asked the court to bar counties from counting the ballots, saying those decisions violate both the court’s recent orders and its precedent in upholding the requirement in state law that a voter write the date on their mail-in ballot’s return envelope. |
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Court overturns actor Jussie Smollett's 2019 conviction in hate crime hoax case
Court News |
2024/11/17 15:45
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The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned actor Jussie Smollett's conviction on allegations that he staged a racist and homophobic attack against himself in downtown Chicago in 2019 and lied to police.
Smollett's appeal argued that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene after the Cook County state's attorney initially dropped charges. The state's highest court heard arguments in September.
Smollett, who is Black and gay, claimed two men assaulted him, spouted racial and homophobic slurs and tossed a noose around his neck, leading to a massive search for suspects by Chicago police detectives and kicking up an international uproar. Smollett was on the television drama "Empire," which filmed in Chicago, and prosecutors alleged he staged the attack because he was unhappy with the studio's response to hate mail he received.
A jury convicted him of five counts of disorderly conduct in 2021. Smollett has maintained his innocence.
His attorneys have argued that the case was over when the Cook County state's attorney's office dropped an initial 16 counts of disorderly conduct after Smollett performed community service and forfeited a $10,000 bond. intervene after the Cook County state's attorney initially dropped charges.
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned actor Jussie Smollett's conviction on allegations that he staged a racist and homophobic attack against himself in downtown Chicago in 2019 and lied to police.
Smollett's appeal argued that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene after the Cook County state's attorney initially dropped charges. The state's highest court heard arguments in September.
Smollett, who is Black and gay, claimed two men assaulted him, spouted racial and homophobic slurs and tossed a noose around his neck, leading to a massive search for suspects by Chicago police detectives and kicking up an international uproar. Smollett was on the television drama "Empire," which filmed in Chicago, and prosecutors alleged he staged the attack because he was unhappy with the studio's response to hate mail he received.
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A jury convicted him of five counts of disorderly conduct in 2021. Smollett has maintained his innocence.
His attorneys have argued that the case was over when the Cook County state's attorney's office dropped an initial 16 counts of disorderly conduct after Smollett performed community service and forfeited a $10,000 bond.
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