Recently in Civil Rights Law Category

Despite the horrible events that happened to Plaintiff Misti Lee Schneider, the proof still was not enough to sustain a § 1983 action. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants earlier this month and said just that.

Plaintiff Schneider had made a 911 call about a serious altercation with her teenage son. Officer Glenn Coyce of the Grand Junction Police Department (GJPD) not only took her call, but raped her the next night. Coyne was arrested days later, and subsequently committed suicide.

Schneider fought to allege a § 1983 violation of her substantive due process rights on a few counts -- the relevant one being that the GJPD were deliberately indifferent to the risk that the rape would occur.

There are very stringent standards when it comes to municipal liability. Unfortunately for Plaintiff Amanda Bailey, a former detainee at the Pittsburg County jail, this is all she learned when attempting to sue Sheriff Kerns. In the end, a summary judgment was granted for Kerns, and all Bailey was left with was one arm.

Initially, Bailey brought a civil action for deprivation of rights under 42 U.S.C. §1983, in district court asserting deliberate-indifference claims against several individual defendants — mostly jail medical staff and personnel. In a nutshell, most of these claims were dismissed except for a claim against Sheriff Kerns, which is then what the Tenth Circuit was left with.

A federal prison inmate’s appeal on a medical malpractice claim was rejected by the Tenth Circuit. The court also rejected the inmate’s right to counsel argument in his case against the hospital and doctor who treated him.

Louis Darryl Tarantola sustained injuries to his head and face in a prison altercation. He was then treated by Dr. George Speer at Cushing Memorial Hospital, but Tarantola claims that the doctor knowingly and deliberately provided him substandard medical care leading to disfigurement and permanent scars.

Arts and crafts chain, Hobby Lobby, will be anxiously waiting to hear the upcoming Tenth Circuit ruling on their challenge. The Oklahoma chain store challenges Obama’s health care laws requiring employers to offer free contraception coverage in employee health care plans. The court heard their oral arguments last week and should be deciding any time now on the case.

Hobby Lobby contends that President Obama’s 2010 healthcare reform infringes on their right to religious freedom. Hobby Lobby is a private business owner who would be affected by the contraceptive mandate requirements of the new health care laws. Hobby Lobby’s owners, the Green family, also have a sister company, Mardel Inc., a Christian bookseller.

What will the special of the day today, you ask? Probably something of the meat and potatoes variety, but this was not acceptable to Eric Watkins, former federal prisoner.

Watkins was a participant of a Common Fare religious diet program, but he was not given his religious meal. A vegetarian prison meal would have suited him just fine, but he did not get that either. That evening, he ate nothing.

Relentless is a religious youth group in Roswell, New Mexico which is affiliated with a local religious institution. Youth group members routinely engage in religious expression at school, including prayer, religious outreach, and abortion discussions with fellow students.

One such campaign began in 2009, when the students, led by Pastor Tim Aguilar, distributed gifts of McDonald's chicken salad sandwiches, hot chocolate, candy canes with religious messages, and "affirmation rocks," which had spiritual references painted on one side.

Of course, none of their handouts compared to the day that they distributed rubber fetuses.

This could get ugly.

In the days before Christmas, Holly Lobby was given neither 2 turtle doves, nor 11 pipers piping. Instead, the self-described "evangelical Christian" owners were given something far less desirable: a rejection of their request for an injunction against enforcement of the Affordable Care Act's birth control provisions.

The Crosettos are the grandparents of two minors, BIC and CSC. Their son, the father of the children, lived with a methamphetamine-addicted girlfriend. When the grandparents began to notice signs of abuse, they contacted social services. The school also took notice, and reported its suspicions. Even the babysitter contacted the child services hotline after noticing a busted lip with stitches, a black eye, and random bruising on BIC.

Linda Gillen was the social worker assigned to the case. She had history with the family, including negative events that happened in the early-1980s, when the Crosettos adopted their daughter Angela. Gillen allegedly ignored the problem, dismissed the grandparents' complaints by stating that this was a "police matter," and generally did nothing whatsoever to help the children. Over the following year, there were even more attempts to force action by Gillen, but alas, her inaction continued.

The Tenth Circuit’s ruling in Peterson v. Martinez that the right to bear arms does not extend to concealed carry places it squarely in conflict with the Seventh Circuit, who released an update to their own concealed carry decision last week as well.

As a national trend, concealed carry permits have gone from heavily restricted to extremely permissive (Illinois was the last “no issue” state standing until the 7th Circuit intervened). As the number of states with loosening laws have exploded, and moderate “may issue” laws have been challenged in New York and Maryland, with varying results, the Circuit Courts themselves have come to conflicting conclusions.

It’s all pointing to one thing: Supreme Court Showdown.

In the case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) challenge that won't die, new voices are now jumping into the legal fray. Eleven Republican Congressmen, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, submitted an amicus brief in support of Hobby Lobby's challenge of Obamacare in the name of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

We've covered a few of Hobby Lobby's crafty exploits here, but up to this point, they've had little success in fighting the health care mandate and its related birth control provisions.