The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in three cases today, two of which deal with juveniles who were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses.  The other case involves limits that the Federal Circuit has imposed on patents for certain types of business methods.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on two cases related to criminal prosecutions today.  The first, Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, examines whether prosecutors are subject to a civil trial and potential damages for wrongful conviction and incarceration when the criminal defendant alleges that the prosecutor encouraged a witness to lie during the criminal investigation and then presented that testimony during the criminal trial.

The Court's other argument today, Wood v. Allen, deals with several questions that have arisen during a capital punishment case.  Most of the questions concern the ways that the courts and attorneys handled the defendant's mental impairments, but there's also a Batson jury/evidence question thrown in for good measure.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of James Ford Seale, the ex-Ku Klu Klan member, former Mississippi policeman and sheriff's deputy who was indicted and convicted for his role in the kidnappings and brutal murders of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore in the summer of 1964.

According to a report in the Jackson Free Press, "the FBI investigation of the Dee-Moore case yielded more than 1,000 pages of files, including informant accounts." In November 1964, then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson's Special Assistant Bill Moyers, that Seale and fellow Klansman Charles Marcus Edwards ""willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and with malice aforethought [for] killing" Dee and Moore.

Seale was never charged until more than forty years later. 

Those people hoping for a showdown before the US Supreme Court over the issue of gay marriage got one step closer to their wish today.

Judge Vaughn Walker, the chief judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California, refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, California's ballot initiative that amended the state's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.

In a ruling delivered from the bench in San Francisco, Judge Walker stated that the case raised factual issues that required a trial, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.  Supporters of Prop. 8 had asked the judge to dismiss the suit, claiming that US Supreme Court precedent did not extend the right to marriage to homosexuals. 

Judge Walker rejected this argument, however, and stated that the Supreme Court had not limited the right to marry to certain groups.

This sets the stage for a showdown at trial, and then throughout the appellate process.  Neither side seems likely to back down, so you can expect them to take this one all the way to the top - assuming that the Supreme Court agrees to take the case.

See Also:
More Posts on Prop. 8 Lawsuits (CourtSide)

Delta Air Lines hacked e-mails of airline passenger rights advocate Kathleen 'Kate' Hanni, USA Today reporter Gary Stoller, and freelance travel writer and reporter Susan Stellin, according to an affidavit in a new lawsuit filed today by Hanni, the founder of Coalition for An Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights a/k/a Flyersrights.org.

Why was Delta accused of hacking into e-mails, and who is the source of the information about the alleged hacks -- a potential criminal offense?

New York City violated the Americans with Disabilities Act's integration mandate that requires the city to help people with mental illness "receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs,"

After an 18-day trial and six years of litigation, the court issued a 210-page opinion, finding that the State's for-profit licensed homes for mentally ill patients:

"have a motive to be unhelpful to residents seeking to move: the Adult Homes are for-profit enterprises that lose revenue with each resident who secures alternative housing."

What does the ADA's 'Integration mandate' say, and how are people with mental illness helped, in this case, by the ADA's provisions?

You know it's an interesting case when attorneys for the United States badmouth the very law they're trying to defend in their motion to dismiss a lawsuit. 

It becomes even more interesting when the motion is successful, and the judge dismisses the case.

It becomes downright intriguing when the judge dismisses the case on an obscure jurisdictional technicality and all but dares the plaintiffs to bring the suit again.

Right on the heels of the New York Times' article on how Bush's Solicitor General, Ted Olson, came to represent the plaintiffs in the constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, the judge in the case made some rulings and set the date for the start of the trial.

The order by Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California turned down requests to intervene in the suit by groups on both sides of the issue (he did let the City of San Francisco join the suit, though).  The timing of that ruling is slightly ironic when considered next to the Times article (which detailed how Olson became involved in a case that most conservatives strongly oppose) since the pro-gay-marriage groups came late to the party after expressing skepticism about Olson's motives and the strategic wisdom of bringing the suit now. 

I have to admit: based on my own personal political leanings and my memories of the arguments that Ted Olson made in front of the Supreme Court as Solicitor General during the Bush II years and as Bush's counsel for Bush v. Gore, I was pretty sure when I first heard of the Olson-Boies Prop 8 lawsuit that he had only signed on to somehow sabotage the whole affair at just the right moment.

I wasn't the only one.  Many gay rights groups kept out of the lawsuit until they were certain that the odd-couple pair of lawyers running the show wasn't up to anything, only to meet with resistance when they finally did try to intervene.

Now, the NYTimes has a good article out that explores this seeming contradiction between Olson's image as the Bush administration's legal defender and his decision to champion a lawsuit that gives the vast majority of Bush supporters the heebie-jeebies. 

DOJ Lawyers Call the Defense of Marriage Act "Discriminatory," Say It Should Be Repealed

The Obama administration has received heated criticism from supporters of gay rights over its perceived inaction on issues central to the gay rights debate, such as don't-ask-don't-tell.  This has been particularly damaging for the administration since most members of the gay community were vociferous Obama supporters during the 2008 election.

One of the administration's moves that has angered gay rights activists is its motion to dismiss a case, Smelt v. US, challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.  Aware of the political dangers inherent in the suit, the administration has made a conciliatory gesture to gay rights groups in its latest filing in the case, although the move is entirely symbolic and the administration is still pushing to have the case dismissed.