Is the sky falling or is that a piece of concrete from a crumbling prison ceiling?
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a prisoner proceeding pro se in an Eighth Amendment violation case this week, finding that the prisoner failed to make his case that the prisoner officers acted with deliberate indifference to the allegedly shoddy construction of the prison.
If you're going to get arrested, try to make sure it happens in one of the six states within the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals' jurisdiction.
Not that it's ever a good idea to have a run-in with the law, but at least the Tenth Circuit states aren't required to hand over your federal mugshot at the drop of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
This week, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to address whether turning a password over to the authorities amounts to self-incrimination because it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
That means that Ramona Fricosu must comply with U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn's order to turn over an unencrypted version of her hard drive that requires a password for investigators to examine documents, according to the Huffington Post.
Fricosu has until Monday to obey the order.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on the Stolen Valor Act on Friday, less than a month before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in U.S. v. Alvarez.
In a lengthy, split decision, the Denver-based court upheld the Act, which criminalizes false claims about military honors.
Political corruption claims are all-too-common. Usually, such claims are resolved when the politician either winds up with jail time, or beats the charges.
Today, however, we have a case in which a political corruption “victim” pushed a case all the way to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the politicians -- former New Mexico State Treasurer Robert Vigil and his deputy, Ann Marie Gallegos -- violated the victim’s civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Tenth Circuit judges weren’t sympathetic to the victim’s plight.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reluctantly sided with a registered sex offender this week in a facial challenge to an Albuquerque law that prohibited registered sex offenders from entering the City's public libraries.
Because the City failed to present any evidence as to the reasons or justification for its ban, the court had no choice but to affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of John Doe, the sex-offender appellee.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a district court did not err in enjoining an anti-Sharia state constitutional amendment that prevents Oklahoma state courts from considering or using Sharia law in decisions.
Not only did the appellate court find the measure discriminatory, and unlikely to survive a constitutional challenge under the Larson test, it also noted that there is no evidence that U.S. courts are influenced by Muslim legal precepts in the Sharia, reports The Christian Science Monitor.
Oklahoma voters approved a “Save our State” constitutional amendment in November 2010. The law was written to prohibit judges from using international laws as a basis for decisions, and specifically banned the use of Sharia law.
The Montana Supreme Court may have defied the U.S. Supreme Court last month in its Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General decision, but the federal courts are falling in line with the Nine when it comes to campaign finance laws.
Last week, U.S. District Judge William Johnson struck down provisions of the New Mexico Campaign Reporting Act that limited financial contributions to be used in federal campaigns and for independent expenditures in state races, reports NMPolitics.net.
Last month, the Supreme Court declined to review the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Utah highway cross decision. As the Tenth Circuit previously held that cross memorials honoring fallen troopers on Utah highways were unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause, the crosses were set to be removed.
In a last-ditch effort to save the crosses last month, the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) removed its logo from each of the 14 crosses, and added signs stating that the crosses are private memorials and do not endorse religion.
But is it enough?
The Supreme Court denied cert this week in the Utah Highway Cross Cases out of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals: Utah Highway Patrol Association v. American Atheists, Inc., and Davenport, et al., v. American Atheists.
The Tenth Circuit, relying on the Lemon/endorsement test, ruled in both cases last year that cross memorials honoring fallen troopers on Utah highways were unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a 19-page dissenting opinion to the Court’s decision to deny cert, noting that the appellate court had relied on its own precedent, instead of a Supreme Court decision, when deciding the case because the Supreme Court was “sharply divided” on First Amendment Establishment Clause cases.
