#A three-member bench of the Supreme Court

[mariacallous]

Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio questioned last week why older women care so much about abortion rights, saying it was a “little crazy” that some voters cited reproductive rights as their prime issue heading into the November election.

“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said during a town hall event Friday in Warren County, video of which was obtained by WCMH-TV in Columbus, an NBC affiliate. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’”

“It’s a little crazy, by the way, but ― especially for women that are like past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you,’” he said.

Moreno, 57, is running against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The race will be one of the most-watched during the election as Republicans hope to win back the Senate, and it is already the most expensive of the election cycle thus far. Polling shows a close race with just over a month to go until voters head to the polls.

Brown posted footage of Moreno’s remarks on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, noting that his opponent thought it was “crazy” to think women wanted to “make their own healthcare decisions.”

Moreno’s campaign cast his remarks as a joke in a statement to WCMH-TV, saying they were meant to target Brown and “members of the left-wing media” that like to “pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion.”

“Bernie’s view is that women voters care just as much about the economy, rising prices, crime and our open southern border as male voters do, and it’s disgusting that Democrats and their friends in the left-wing media constantly treat all women as if they’re automatically single issue voters on abortion who don’t have other concerns that they vote on,” Reagan McCarthy, a spokesperson for Moreno’s campaign, said in a statement.

About two-thirds of voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, listed abortion rights as “very important” to their vote in a Pew Research survey earlier this month, while just over one-third of those backing former President Donald Trump said the same.

Other issues were more pressing to a wider swath of Americans, namely the economy, access to health care and appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump has continued to tout his appointment of three conservatives to the nation’s highest bench, including three of the justices who joined to end the longstanding national right to an abortion when they struck down Roe v. Wade.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

The Supreme Court should have been center stage in the 2016 election. It wasn’t, but the ensuing havoc that the court—packed with three young justices appointed by Donald Trump—has wreaked on our democracy demands it take center stage in 2024, especially in light of a CNN report published on Wednesday. The report, part of a series on the recent inside workings of the court, focuses on the marginalization of Justice Samuel Alito and the “internal opposition” to his hard-line views this session. “[T]he frustration of the 74-year-old justice has grown increasingly palpable in the courtroom,” CNN writes.

But the article drops this bombshell at the end: “While Alito is still relatively young as far as justices go (most in recent years haven’t left the bench until their 80s), he has reflected in private about retirement.”  If Trump wins this year’s presidential election, Alito may very well step down and go home to fly whatever flags he and his wife want, secure in the knowledge that Trump would install someone just as extreme—and a lot younger—in his seat. That goes for Justice Clarence Thomas as well. At 75, he’s the both the oldest and the most senior member of the court, having been appointed in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush. If Trump wins, Thomas may very well decide it’s time to enjoy his $493,700 motorhome, also knowing his seat would go to a like-minded hack. There’s been rampant speculation that he’ll step down if Trump wins.

The Supreme Court is at stake this election, as a Trump win would mean that at least 1 or 2 of Thomas, Alito, and/or Roberts could step down and be replaced by hard-right MAGA judicial activists.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Pedro X. Molina :: @newcounterpoint :: @pxmolina

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 1, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 02, 2024

On Tuesday, March 26, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference case, put Trump under a gag order to stop his attacks on court staff, prosecutors, jurors, and witnesses. On Wednesday, Trump renewed his attacks on the judge and the judge’s daughter. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton took the unusual step of talking publicly about what threats of violence meant to the rule of law. Walton, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, told Kaitlan Collins of CNN that threats, especially threats to a judge’s family, undermine the ability of judges to carry out their duties. 

“I think it’s important in order to preserve our democracy that we maintain the rule of law,” Walton said. “And the rule of law can only be maintained if we have independent judicial officers who are able to do their job and ensure that the laws are, in fact, enforced and that the laws are applied equally to everybody who appears in our courthouse.” 

On Friday, former president Trump shared on social media a video of a truck with a decal showing President Joe Biden tied up and seemingly in the bed of the truck, in a position suggesting he was being kidnapped. 

A threat of violence has always been part of Trump’s political performance. In 2016 he urged rallygoers to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and they did. They also turned on people who weren’t protesters. Political scientists Ayal Feinberg, Regina Branton, and Valerie Martinez-Ebers studied the effects of Trump’s 2016 campaign rhetoric against marginalized Americans and found that counties where Trump held rallies had a significant increase in hate incidents in the month after that rally. 

Trump’s stoking of violence became an embrace when he declared there were “very fine people, on both sides,” after protesters stood up against racists, antisemites, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, and other alt-right groups met in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they shouted Nazi slogans and left 19 people injured and one protester, Heather Heyer, dead. 

In October 2020, Trump refused to denounce the far-right Proud Boys organization, instead telling its members to “stand back and stand by.” The Proud Boys turned out for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, where they helped to lead those rioters fired up by Trump’s speech at The Ellipse, where he told them: “You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing…. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump’s appeals to violence have gotten even more overt since the events of January 6. 

And yet, on Meet the Press yesterday, Kristen Welker seemed to suggest that there is a general problem in U.S. politics when she described Trump’s attacks on Judge Merchan as “a reminder that we are covering this election against the backdrop of a deeply divided nation.”  

But are the American people deeply divided? Or have Trump and his MAGA supporters driven the Republican Party off the rails?

One of the major issues of the 2024 election—perhaps THE major issue—is reproductive rights. But Americans are not really divided on that issue: on Friday, a new Axios-Ipsos poll found that 81% of Americans agree that “abortion issues should be managed between a woman and her doctor, not the government.” That number includes 65% of Republicans, as well as 82% of Independents and 97% of Democrats. The idea that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor was the language of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, overturned in 2022 with the help of the three extremist justices appointed by Trump. 

Last week, the Congressional Management Foundation, which works with Congress to make it more efficient and accountable, released its study of the state of Congress in 2024. It found that senior congressional staffers overwhelmingly think that Congress is not functioning “as a democratic legislature should.” Eighty percent of them think it is not “an effective forum for debate on questions of public concern.” 

But there is a significant difference in the parties’ perception of what’s wrong. While 61% of Republican staffers are satisfied that Congress members and staff feel safe doing their jobs, only 21% of Democratic staffers agree, and Democratic staffers are significantly more likely to fear for their and others’ safety. Women and longer-tenured staffers are more likely to be questioning whether to stay in Congress due to safety concerns. Eighty-four percent of Democratic staffers think that agreed-upon rules and codes of conduct for senators and representatives are not sufficient to “hold them accountable for their words and deeds,” while only 44% of Republicans say the same.

Republicans themselves seem split about the direction of their party. Republican staffers were far more likely than Democrats to be “questioning whether I should stay in Congress due to heated rhetoric from my party”: 59% to 16%. “The way the House is ‘functioning,’ is frustrating many members,” wrote one House Republican deputy chief of staff. “We have to placate [certain] members and in my nearly ten years of working here I have never felt more like we’re on the wrong track.” 

One Republican Senate communications director blamed extremist political rhetoric for the dysfunction. “[W]ith the nation being in a self-sort mode, it is easy to never hear a dissenting opinion in many areas of the country. People in DC, who work in the Capitol, generally have a collegiate approach to each other. The American people don’t get to see that—at all. From the outside it appears to be a Royal Rumble and bloodsport. It’s reflected in the [way] people, regular citizens, now view one another.” 

A Republican House staff director wrote that Congress is “a representative body and a reflection of the people writ large. When they demand something different of their leaders, their leaders will respond (or they will elect different leaders).”

Burgess Everett and Olivia Beavers of Politico reported yesterday that nearly 20 Republican lawmakers and aides have told them they would like Trump to calm down his rhetoric. They appear to think such violent commentary is unpopular and that it will hurt those running in downballot races if they have to answer for it.

It seems unlikely Trump will willingly temper his comments, since threatening violence seems to be all he has left to combat the legal cases bearing down on him. Over the course of Easter morning, he posted more than 70 times on social media, attacking his opponents and declaring himself to be “The Chosen One.”

Tonight, Trump posted a $175 million appeals bond in the New York civil fraud case. He was unable to secure a bond for the full amount of the judgment, but an appeals court lowered the amount. Posting the bond will let him appeal the judge’s decision. If he wins on appeal, he will avoid paying the judgment. If he loses, the bond is designed to guarantee that Trump will pay the entire amount the judge determined he owes to the people of New York: more than $454 million. 

Trump and his campaign are short of cash, and there were glimmers last week that the public launch of his media network would produce significant money if he could only hold off judgments until he could sell the stock—six months, according to the current agreement—or use his shares as collateral for a bond. The company’s public launch raised the stock price by billions of dollars. 

But this morning the company released its 2023 financial information, showing revenues of $4.1 million last year and a net loss of $58.2 million. The stock plunged about 20%, wiping out about $1 billion of the money that Trump had, on paper anyway, made. The company said it has not made any changes to the provision prohibiting early sales or using shares as collateral. 

Tonight, Judge Merchan expanded the previous gag order on Trump to stop attacks on the judge’s family members. Trump has a right “to speak to the American voters freely and to defend himself publicly,” but “[i]t is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings,” Merchan wrote. “The threat is very real.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[longwindedbore]

What fresh (Catholic) Hell has the oblivious or brain-dead (Protestant) Evangelical leadership cabal delivered themselves and the rest of us into?

I ask as an ex-Catholic - are you punch-drunk fools aware that you have engineered the take over of the Supreme Court by Opus Dei, a secretive world-wide Catholic organization?

Apparently you thought you were using the Catholic Church to increase YOUR political power.

Maybe you Evangelicals should re-evaluate who used who.

YOUR local pro-White Evangelical Patriarchy State GOP politicians are bankrupt and facing being swept from office in a tidal wave backlash that has already begun.

Trump GAVE Opus Dei a majority on SCOTUS potentially for decades. While you and Faux News watched.

It’s one thing to co-opt the “Catholic issue” of abortion to use it for the White Christian Nationalist & Patriarchal code language “secret” goal of “overturning Affirmative Action and getting women and minorities out of the White man’s workplace.” That’s political. Ugly. But political.

But doesn’t it defeat all your plans to hand the supreme court over judges indebted - in all senses of the word - to Opus Dei, an organization that reports directly to, and only to, the Pope in Rome?

As an ex-Catholic I see that we now have six very very alt-right to fanatical lunatic fringe of Catholicism Supreme Court Justices: Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. It terrifies me. But you’re OK with it?

These aren’t the Biden or Pelosi Catholics who will be excommunicated for fulfilling their oaths to the Public.

Three of the Catholic SCROTUS were nominated by your Evangelical “New Cyrus”, Trump. Then shoved through by McConnell and the GOP Senators elected by Evangelicals.

Opus Dei is a secular Catholic organization of economic elites operating worldwide.

Organized like SPECTRE (meeting in Rome) in the Bond movie of the same name.

Was used as the NAME of the sinister organization in “The DaVinci Code”.

Opus Dei has its origin and philosophy in the Spanish Fascist regime of Francisco Franco. Heir to the inquisition and Armada.

Currently the Pope is liberal and ecumenical. So unlikely to exploit SCOTUS other than try to persuade.

But the papal pendulum can swing in a heart beat followed by a puff of white smoke.

Also, the ‘explosive growth of new evangelical churches in Latin America’ you crow about results from ‘poaching’ members from the Catholic Church. The current Pope is, after all, South American. So not an admirer of Evangelicals.

What we’re you thinking? Assuming you thought.

Opus Dei doesn’t publish a list of members but influential secular Catholics, like Leonard Leo of the Heritage Foundation, have been instrumental in the nominations of five of the six current Judges. As well as many in lower benches.

[Opus Dei doesn’t publish a list of members for the same reasons that are typically expressed by the KKK and the marching virgins of the Patriotic Front.]

Trumped effed us all on this one by handing over control of the Court - at best - to a fringe group of devotees. Or - at worst - to an international theocratic cabal.

Maybe he did so because, like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, the Vatican City micro-county does not have an extradition treaty with the US?

In any event nothing good has ever come from the far far far right of the Catholic spectrum. Devotees who are, still today, big fans of hair shirts, daily attendance at mass, self-flagellation, and sleeping on wood boards.

Hoping all you Evangelicals know the properly tonal response to “Dóminus vobíscum”

[lboogie1906]

Judge Oscar William Adams, Jr. (February 7, 1925 – February 15, 1997) was the first African American Supreme Court Justice appointed in Alabama and when he stood for election to a full term, the first African American elected to a statewide constitutional office. He litigated many civil rights cases in his career as a lawyer and was part of the first African American law firm established in the state.

He was born in Birmingham to Oscar William Adams and Ella Virginia Adams; he was the older brother of Frank E. Adams. He graduated from Talladega College with a BA in Philosophy. He attended Howard University School of Law and graduated. He was admitted to the Alabama State Bar and began his legal career that would span five decades. He married Willa Ingersoll Adams (1949-82) and they had three children. He married Anne-Marie Bradford.

He litigated many civil rights and labor cases, and his clients included Martin Luther King Jr., the SCLC, Fred Shuttleworth’s Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, and the NAACP. The firm handled school desegregation and discrimination cases, as well as voting rights cases. Notable cases included Armstrong v. Birmingham Board of Education (1964), Terry v. Elmwood Cemetery (1969), and Pettway v. ACIPCO (1974).

On July 8, 1966, he became the first African American member of the Birmingham Bar Association. He ran his law office until 1967 when he went into practice with white attorney Harvey Burg, creating the state’s first integrated law practice. In 1969 he and James Baker became Adams and Baker Law Firm, were joined by U.W. Clemon, and the firm became known as Adams, Baker & Clemon.

He retired from the bench on October 31, 1993, after retirement, he worked with the Birmingham law firm of White, Dunn & Booker and served as co-chairman of the Second Citizens’ Conference on Judicial Elections and Campaigns.

He was inducted posthumously into the Alabama Lawyers’ Hall of Fame (2005) and the Birmingham Gallery of Distinguished Citizens (2008). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[waitmyturtles]

In 2015, at the age of 24, Kanata Kimoto had the uterus and ovaries he was born with removed at a Thai hospital.

Back then, the Osaka Prefecture native didn’t even question his move, despite the huge cost and potential health risks involved. Sterilization is one of several conditions that all transgender individuals are required to meet if they want to have their gender changed on official papers in Japan. Living with a gender that didn’t match his identity was unbearable for Kimoto.

“It was a choice between undergoing surgery so I could change my gender, and dying,” Kimoto, 31, recalled. “Even if the surgery failed and if I died as a result, I didn’t care. I was that desperate.”

Kimoto, however, now wonders whether such an invasive and costly procedure was necessary, given all the sacrifices he had to make. Kimoto and a growing number of human rights advocates in Japan are campaigning for the abolition of a clause in a special law on gender dysphoria enacted in 2003 that requires transgender individuals to undergo sterilization surgery to change their official gender status.

The law sets out five requirements for the status change through family court proceedings — in addition to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria by at least two specialist doctors. The requirements include the person needing to be age 18 or older, unmarried and with no underage children. The age of adulthood in Japan is 18.

Currently at issue are the remaining two conditions, which say the individual should “have no reproductive glands” or their reproductive glands should have “permanently” lost their function, and that they should have “a body that resembles the genitals of those of the opposite gender.” Between 2004 and 2022, a total of 11,919 people had their gender changed through the law.

The advocates’ campaign comes amid heightened attention and tensions over LGBTQ issues.

On the one hand, Japanese courts appear to be pivoting toward invalidating the surgery requirement as unconstitutional, on the back of recent moves by United Nations agencies and international medical groups to regard unwanted gender-affirming surgery as cruel and inhumane. Earlier this month, the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court approved a request by Gen Suzuki, a 48-year-old transgender man, to be listed as male in his family registry. Suzuki has undergone hormone therapy and surgically removed his breast tissue, but has not had his reproductive organs removed for fear of physical and mental health risks.

In a first in Japan, the family court said that forcing such “grave and irreversible” operations on people violates their human rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

The Supreme Court may also rule in favor of a transgender woman who has appealed lower court decisions that denied her gender status change. The woman has not had her penis surgically removed but argues that she has been rendered infertile due to years of hormonal treatment. The 15-member Grand Bench held an oral hearing last month, and a decision on the case is expected on Wednesday. The fact that the Grand Bench convened is seen as a sign that the nation’s top court could reverse its own precedent set in 2019, when it deemed the surgery clause constitutional.

On the other hand, some conservative corners of parliament are turning more vocal in their opposition to the clause’s abolition. A lawmakers’ group, whose goal is to “protect all women’s safety and security and fairness of women’s sports,” was formed in June following the enactment of a new law to promote LGBTQ understanding, and now counts over 100 members.

Headed by three veteran female members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party — Eriko Yamatani, Satsuki Katayama and Seiko Hashimoto — the group recently submitted a petition calling on the government to maintain the surgery clause.

Then on Tuesday, another group made up of transgender individuals and others submitted a petition requesting the Supreme Court maintain the requirement, arguing that its abandonment would lead to women feeling threatened in women-only spaces.

Many other trans activists, however, say most transgender people are extremely discreet when it comes to the use of public baths or toilets, going out of their way to avoid trouble with other users.

Anguish over gender identity

Switching gender is a time-consuming process and a decision many make only after years of anguish over their identity. Kimoto said he had felt incompatible with his sex assigned at birth since he was a toddler. At day care, he resisted wearing skirts and things colored pink.

Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he was unable to confide in anyone about his gender incongruence as there was nobody around him who had come out as a sexual minority, and LGBTQ issues were never taught in school. As menstruation began and his breasts grew, he slouched forward so as not to emphasize his breasts. He also joined the softball club in an effort to be forgiven for looking and acting boyish.

In high school, he heard the term gender identity disorder, now called gender incongruence, for the first time. One of the characters in a popular TV drama at that time was depicted as having it.

His friends were fascinated by the drama series and talked about it week after week. One day, a classmate casually asked if he had the same issue as the drama’s character and said “it would be scary" if he did. Kimoto remembers vehemently denying it, to avoid being “outed” in front of all his other classmates.

In college, where he studied video production, he felt free for the first time in his life, as his friends had no prejudice against sexual minorities. But as graduation loomed, he started agonizing over having to apply for jobs as his officially registered gender.

“Although I received a job offer and was about to start my career, I felt like I would have a mental breakdown,” he recalled. “That’s when I decided to undergo surgery, forgoing a career.”

After graduating from college, he devoted all of his time to juggling odd jobs to save the ¥2 million needed for a course of medical treatment including surgery. He also started receiving hormone injections at a clinic.

The male hormones brought some desired effects, such as lowering his voice, making him hairier and making it easier for him to gain muscles, but he struggled with sudden breakouts of acne on his face and his back. During this transition phase, it was a huge pain for him to visit a doctor, because his appearance was male but his health insurance card still listed him as female.

“Receptionists at clinics would always return my insurance card, asking me to submit ‘mine’ instead,’’ he said. “Every time I had to disclose my gender identity and explain that I was going through hormone therapy.”

Experiences like these make many transgender individuals avoid seeking health care in general, as a 2019 survey by Yasuharu Hidaka, a professor at Takarazuka University's School of Nursing, found. The survey, commissioned by Lifenet Insurance and covering 10,000 transgender individuals in Japan, found that 51.2％ of trans women and 38.8％ of trans men had avoided a hospital visit even when they felt ill.

Then, after getting a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a doctor in Tokyo, Kimoto checked into a Bangkok hospital for about a week to get his womb and ovaries removed. Many trans people in Japan get such surgery in Thailand due to the long wait at Japanese hospitals, he said, noting that at that time, he was told he would have to wait for four years for surgery in Japan.

When he finally got a letter from a family court approving his family registry change, which is something he had fought so hard for, he was struck by a sense of futility, he says.

“I had thought I would feel happier,” Kimoto said. “But when I got the notice, which was just two sheets of paper, I felt so empty. I wondered, ‘Is this what I strove and sacrificed so much for?’’’

Quality of care

Mikiya Nakatsuka, a professor at Okayama University’s Graduate School of Health Sciences who runs a gender clinic there, says that many transgender individuals visiting the clinic have mental health issues. A survey of some 1,150 people visiting the university clinic between its opening in 1999 and 2009 found that 60% had experienced suicidal thoughts and 30% had actually attempted suicide. Nearly 30% were truant from school.

The quality of transgender health care is another concern. The Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder, for which Nakatsuka serves as president, has accredited eight institutions offering specialized care. But that’s far from enough to keep up with demand, which means many people must wait for months or even years before surgery. At present, around 80% of people seeking surgery in Japan look overseas, where there is little wait, Nakatsuka says.

“Of course, some complete the procedure overseas and return with no trouble,” he said. “But there are also others who rush to our clinic saying that they can’t stop their urine from leaking out, or worse, who have their bladder fully swollen because they cannot urinate, and who are denied follow-up care (abroad).”

Furthermore, gender-affirmation treatment is out of reach for many due to its cost, which is not covered by national health insurance and can easily top ¥1 million. While Nakatsuka and other specialist doctors successfully lobbied for surgery to be insured, hormonal treatments remain uninsured. Due to the Japanese government policy of not allowing people to mix insured and uninsured treatments, transgender health care, including surgical operations, remains uninsured in most cases.

While many are eager to undergo surgery and are happy to have done so, others feel compelled to do so because of the legal requirement, Nakatsuka said.

“The important thing is that people are given the options,” he said.

Kimoto currently runs a popular YouTube channel, where he answers questions about his life as a trans man and shares exchanges with friends and family. He says there’s a world of difference between choosing to undergo surgery and being forced to do so in order to gain legal recognition for the gender people identify with.

“Had there been no sterilization requirement and had I been able to change my family registry without it, I would not have gone through surgery, because my life was at stake,” he said. “I don’t want to see the future of younger people ruined by the lack of choices.”

By Tomoko Otake. If you click through the link, there are some great photos!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a Christian graphic artist from Colorado who does not want to design wedding websites for same-sex couples, finding the First Amendment prohibits the state from forcing the designer to express messages that are contrary to her closely held religious beliefs.

The Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the designer, Lorie Smith. All six conservative Justices sided with the designer, while the Court's three liberals dissented. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the majority opinion.

"The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands," Gorsuch wrote.

"If she wishes to speak, she must either speak as the State demands or face sanctions for expressing her own beliefs, sanctions that may include compulsory participation in 'remedial . . . training,' filing periodic compliance reports as officials deem necessary, and paying monetary fines," he said. "Under our precedents, that 'is enough,' more than enough, to represent an impermissible abridgment of the First Amendment's right to speak freely."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, from the bench — the second time she has done so this term.

"Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class," Sotomayor wrote.

The decision from the Justices is the latest in a string of successes for religious organizations and individuals who have sought relief from the high court and its conservative majority. It also resolves a lingering question, left unanswered since 2018, of whether states can compel artists to express messages that go against their religious beliefs in applying their public-accommodation laws.

The Supreme Court has now said states cannot, as forcing artists to create speech would violate their free speech rights.

SMITH'S RELIGIOUS OBJECTION TO SAME-SEX WEDDINGS

The case was brought by Smith, who said her Christian beliefs prevent her from creating custom websites for same-sex weddings. Smith started her web design business, 303 Creative, roughly a decade ago, and wants to expand to create websites for weddings. In addition to wanting to design websites to express God's "design for marriage as a long-long union between one man and one woman," Smith also wants to post a message explaining why she cannot make custom websites for same-sex weddings, which states that doing so compromises her Christian beliefs and tells "a story about marriage that contradicts God's true story of marriage."

But refusing to design custom websites for a same-sex wedding, and detailing why she plans to do so, could violate Colorado's public-accommodation law.

The state's law prohibits businesses open to the public from refusing service because of sexual orientation and announcing their intent to do so. Smith has not yet created any wedding websites or been asked to do so for a same-sex wedding, but argues Colorado's law violates her free speech rights since the state is forcing her to express a message she disagrees with.

Smith filed a lawsuit against the state, but lost in the lower courts. A federal appeals court said that while her wedding websites are "pure speech," the state had a compelling interest in ensuring access to her services.

Smith appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Justices considered during oral arguments in December whether states like Colorado can, in applying their anti-discrimination laws, compel an artist to express a message they disagree with.

THE LATEST SUPREME COURT DISPUTE OVER LGBTQ RIGHTS

The dispute was one of several to land before the Justices in the wake of its 2015 landmark decision establishing the right to same-sex marriage that raised the question of whether a business owner can refuse service to LGBTQ customers because of their religious beliefs.

In 2018, the high court sided with a Colorado baker who was sued after he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, but did not address whether a business can deny services to LGBTQ peple. Instead, the Supreme Court said the state's Civil Rights Commission was hostile to baker Jack Phillips' religious beliefs in violation of the First Amendment.

In the years after, the Supreme Court declined to clarify whether states could force religious business owners to create messages that violate their conscience. But the court's rightward shift, solidified by former President Donald Trump's appointment of three justices, raised concerns that the Supreme Court would erode LGBTQ rights by allowing businesses to deny services to LGBTQ customers.

[tomorrowusa]

It's no mystery how the GOP got a majority on the US Supreme Court.

The most immediate explanation for the earthquake is the weight of three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate during his term. Trump was able to fill more seats in a single term than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. But that is far from the whole story. The current supermajority on the court exists because of major political factors that have favored Republicans in the postwar era and historic circumstances that were windows of opportunity for all six conservatives to be appointed and confirmed.

The longest-serving member of the current court, Clarence Thomas, was confirmed in 1991. At the time, Republicans had won the popular vote for president in seven of the previous ten election cycles (1952 - 1988). But in the eight presidential elections since then, Republicans have won the popular vote only once. Two Republicans who lost the popular vote reached the Oval Office by prevailing in the Electoral College. Those two — George W. Bush and Donald Trump — would eventually appoint the five justices who, with Thomas, make up the current 6-3 conservative supermajority. (Democrats also had five appointees in this period, but one died and one retired and both were replaced by Republicans.)

The biggest contributor on this score was Trump's 2016 win in the Electoral College against Hillary Clinton. George W. Bush also came to the presidency initially via the Electoral College after losing the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000. (Bush did win the popular vote in his reelection year, before he appointed any justices.) Republicans have also had far more luck in having Supreme Court vacancies occur when they controlled the White House and a working majority in the Senate.

Republicans have better understood and appreciated the power of the federal courts in the long term. They even have scouts for the federal bench in the form of the Federalist Society.

Thomas was the first new justice on the court who had been associated with the Federalist Society, a campus gathering of conservative law students and faculty at Yale, the University of Chicago and other schools. Rising up in the wake of Roe, the group was formally founded in 1982. Their animating idea was that federal judges were arrogating too much power to themselves and playing fast and loose with the Constitution to accommodate their own policy preferences. Many of the rulings of the Supreme Court under Chief Warren Burger and his predecessor Earl Warren were regarded as egregious examples of "activist judges" run amok. Since then, the Society has grown and prospered in numbers, influence and fundraising prowess. Succeeding perhaps beyond its dreams, it now counts the six conservative members of the Supreme Court among its current or former members. It has had no small role in their elevation, aggressively recruiting and promoting candidates for the bench and supporting conservative Republican candidates for president.

Read the entire excellent article by Ron Elving via the link at the top of the post.

One thing Mr. Elving doesn't get into is how Trump and G.W. Bush, who appointed five current justices between them, came to power in the first place.

In 2016 Donald Trump won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by margins smaller in those three states than number of votes in each cast for Green Party candidate (and onetime Putin dinner companion) Jill Stein. If Hillary had taken those states she would have had 273 electoral votes instead of 227.

In 2000 G.W. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes. Ralph Nader got 97,488 votes in the state. If Gore had won Florida he would have had 291 electoral votes instead of 266.

On Election Night 2016 Rachel Maddow told viewers at MSNBC...

"If you vote for somebody who can’t win for president, it means that you don’t care who wins for president."

And I'd add that when you vote for president you are implicitly also casting a vote for SCOTUS.

[drmaqazi]

The Problem With the Implementation of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Verdicts

in so-caled Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which is neither Islamic nor Republic, 

UNFORTUNATELY 

The recent ruling fixing a date for the Punjab provincial assembly elections is deeply controversial as it lays bare the apex court’s partisan bias.

Recent rulings by the Pakistan Supreme Court have thrust it into the middle of the ongoing political crisis in the country. These decisions, often made by partisan judges, are eroding the stature of and public confidence in Pakistan’s judiciary.

For over a year now, Pakistan’s political parties have been wrangling over the holding of elections. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been pushing for elections to the National Assembly (NA) to be advanced and for the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly elections to be held before general elections. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)- led government prefers the elections to be held at the same time. Elections to the NA are due later this year.

Amid this political wrangling, Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial has come under scrutiny for his suo motu action on the Punjab assembly elections. Earlier this month, a three-member bench led by Bandial fixed May 14 as the new date for elections to the Punjab assembly. In doing so, he quashed a decision by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to defer polls in the province from April 10 to October 8.

This Supreme Court ruling is a major setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government, which has been trying to defer elections to the Punjab assembly, which was dissolved on January 13. The ruling PML-N-Pakistan People’s Party alliance is opposed to holding assembly elections in Punjab ahead of national elections.

As per the rules, elections are to be held under a caretaker government. With an elected government in place in Punjab, especially should that be led by the opposition PTI, the chances of victory for the ruling combine in Pakistan’s most populous and electorally crucial province in the general election could be undermined.

Sharif’s government has openly objected to the Supreme Court order to hold assembly elections in Punjab on May 14, saying that this is meant to facilitate victory by the PTI. The PTI, which enjoys immense popularity in Pakistan, believes it can win the upcoming election in Punjab, which will give it an upper hand administratively in the province when the NA elections take place subsequently across Pakistan.

Chief Justice Bandial’s authority and neutrality have been further eroded following revelations that the Supreme Court judges objected to the initiation of proceedings under Article 184(3) of the Constitution on the PTI’s petition regarding polls in Punjab.

When Bandial ruled in favor of early elections in Punjab, a number of top judges ruled that PTI’s suo motu request was dismissed on the ground of maintainability. The objection from the judges was based on their understanding that such action should not be taken without consulting all members of the court, and that the issue was pending in provincial courts and didn’t qualify as an issue of public interest.

The ruling coalition is in no mood to implement the top court’s rulings, which it believes may undermine its electoral prospects in the upcoming general elections.

Meanwhile, the ECP has complained that its constitutional authority has been undermined by the Supreme Court as the latter issued a date for Punjab assembly elections without its consent.

To find a way out of the situation, the parliament has tried to enact legislation to curtail the powers of the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) with regard to unilaterally taking suo motu actions. However, earlier this month Bandial ruled that the bill curtailing the CJP’s powers will remain ineffective even if it becomes law. The ruling virtually undermines the legislature’s ability to do its work.

The situation has gotten to a point where the state seems to be in a revolt against the top judge’s orders over the elections. The State Bank of Pakistan has refused to obey the chief justice’s order to directly allocate funds to the ECP without the parliament’s approval. The Defense Ministry has made it clear that it cannot allocate security personnel as they are busy with military operations across the country. Meanwhile, the government has refused to enter into negotiations with PTI leadership under pressure from the Supreme Court.

This is not the first time that the apex court’s chief justices have tried to intervene in matters that are beyond their remit, undermining the judiciary’s legitimacy and harming Pakistan’s interests at home and abroad.

Rulings by Supreme Court judges have in fact left Pakistan weaker and caused trouble for policymakers and concerns for international investors. One of the most notable examples in this regard is the verdict handed out by former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary in the Reko Diq deal in 2013. The ruling damaged Pakistan’s reputation among investors and cost it financially too.

During his term at the helm, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar gave several controversial verdicts that were beyond his constitutional authority. Not only was Nisar behind the scandalous initiative of establishing a fund to collect donations for the construction of a dam but also, he repeatedly interfered in daily administrative affairs by using suo motu authority of his office to an unprecedented extent.

The Supreme Court is tasked with providing a fair and impartial interpretation of the law. However, its recent decisions have created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the country as citizens are unsure of how these decisions will be implemented. It is now up to the Supreme Court to prove that it can remain impartial and make decisions as per the Constitution rather than politics. Only then can it restore public trust in the judiciary and prevent further damage to the institution and the country.

REFERENCES:

Wikipedia

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Diplomat

[smqazi]

The Problem With the Implementation of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Verdicts 

The recent ruling fixing a date for the Punjab provincial assembly elections is deeply controversial as it lays bare the apex court’s partisan bias.

Recent rulings by the Pakistan Supreme Court have thrust it into the middle of the ongoing political crisis in the country. These decisions, often made by partisan judges, are eroding the stature of and public confidence in Pakistan’s judiciary.

For over a year now, Pakistan’s political parties have been wrangling over the holding of elections. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been pushing for elections to the National Assembly (NA) to be advanced and for the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly elections to be held before general elections. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)- led government prefers the elections to be held at the same time. Elections to the NA are due later this year.

Amid this political wrangling, Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial has come under scrutiny for his suo motu action on the Punjab assembly elections. Earlier this month, a three-member bench led by Bandial fixed May 14 as the new date for elections to the Punjab assembly. In doing so, he quashed a decision by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to defer polls in the province from April 10 to October 8.

This Supreme Court ruling is a major setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government, which has been trying to defer elections to the Punjab assembly, which was dissolved on January 13. The ruling PML-N-Pakistan People’s Party alliance is opposed to holding assembly elections in Punjab ahead of national elections.

As per the rules, elections are to be held under a caretaker government. With an elected government in place in Punjab, especially should that be led by the opposition PTI, the chances of victory for the ruling combine in Pakistan’s most populous and electorally crucial province in the general election could be undermined.

Sharif’s government has openly objected to the Supreme Court order to hold assembly elections in Punjab on May 14, saying that this is meant to facilitate victory by the PTI. The PTI, which enjoys immense popularity in Pakistan, believes it can win the upcoming election in Punjab, which will give it an upper hand administratively in the province when the NA elections take place subsequently across Pakistan.

Chief Justice Bandial’s authority and neutrality have been further eroded following revelations that the Supreme Court judges objected to the initiation of proceedings under Article 184(3) of the Constitution on the PTI’s petition regarding polls in Punjab.

REFERENCES:

Wikipedia

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/06/23/politics-at-bench-pakistani...

The Diplomat

[xtruss]

Sheikh Zayed Towers, Which Were Destroyed By The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, Liar, Conspirator and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-helli Attacks in Gaza City, seen on June 4, 2024. Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images

A Federal Judge Visited “The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, Liar, Conspirator and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-hell” On A Junket Designed To Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing A Gaza Case.

Activists Suing The Biden Administration Over Gaza Policy Are Demanding The Judge Recuse Himself Over The Sponsored Trip.

— Shawn Musgrave | June 5 2024

Plaintiffs Suing The Biden Administration Over Gaza Policy have asked a federal appellate judge to recuse himself because of a trip he took to Israel in March. The World Jewish Congress, which sponsored the junket for 14 federal judges, framed the delegation as part of Israel’s “fight in the international court of public opinion.”

In an emergency motion filed Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued they were “ethically compelled” to ask Judge Ryan Nelson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to recuse himself because the WJC trip was “explicitly designed to influence U.S. judicial opinion regarding the legality of ongoing Israeli military action against Palestinians.”

The plaintiffs are a mix of Palestinian human rights organizations and individual Palestinians, including Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, who has written about his experiences working in the decimated health infrastructure in Gaza. In November, they filed a complaint in federal court against President Joe Biden and other top officials, seeking “an injunction requiring the United States to fulfill its international law duty to prevent and cease being complicit — through unconditional financial and diplomatic support — in the unfolding genocide in Gaza.”

The district court dismissed the case in late January but urged the administration “to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.” The plaintiffs appealed to the 9th Circuit, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments next week. Nelson’s selection for the three-judge argument panel was announced on Monday.

In March, Nelson joined 13 colleagues from the federal bench on the WJC-sponsored trip. Like Nelson, many of the judges on the trip were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

According to a disclosure about the trip, the judges met with high-ranking members of the Israel Defense Forces about “Operation Swords of Iron” — what Israel calls its current military operation in Gaza — and the application of international humanitarian law during war. The trip also included sessions with one of the attorneys defending Israel before the International Court of Justice, Tal Becker; former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin; and members of Israel’s Supreme Court and Knesset, the disclosure shows.

The judges met with a high-ranking official at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, to get the “American perspective,” one judge told the Jerusalem Post. State Department Secretary Antony Blinken is one of the defendants in the case before the 9th Circuit.

In a LinkedIn post summarizing lessons from the trip, Judge Matthew Solomson of the Federal Court of Claims, who helped organized the delegation, wrote, “Israel’s military culture is very attuned to international law; commanders consult lawyers at every step and the lawyers have veto power. We watched many video clips of Israeli military lawyers stopping strikes based on proportionality and collateral damage assessments. Their enemy doesn’t play by such rules.”

In late March, Nelson and Solomson spoke about the trip at a lunch talk hosted by Harvard Law School’s chapters of the Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association. Their remarks were not made public, but Solomson wrote in a LinkedIn post that Nelson “expressed his inspiring faith in God and, concomitantly, an optimistic view of the future.”

Kath Hochul’s Trip of “The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, Liar, Conspirator and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-hell” Bankrolled By Group Funding Illegal Settlements! New York Disgusting Governor Kathy Hochul Visits “The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, Liar, Conspirator and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-hell” on October 19, 2023. Photo: Shlomi Amsalem/Office of Gov. Kathy Hochul

UJA-Federation of New York, A Tax-Exempt Nonprofit, Has Sent More Than Half a Million Dollars to Groups Supporting “The Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid, Liar, Conspirator and the Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Isra-helli” Settlements.

“The UJA Has Helped Destroy Any Semblance of a ‘Peace Process’ or Possibility of a Two State Solution.”

In their recusal motion, the plaintiffs highlight coverage of the trip in the Israeli press, particularly by the English-language ILTV. “This invaluable experience allowed them to delve deeper into the legality of Israel’s conduct in the operation,” ILTV said of the trip in an Instagram post.

“At this time, when Israel is facing so much in the court of public opinion and in the courts around the world,” WJC’s chief marketing officer, Sara Friedman, told ILTV in March, “it’s so important for people who understand the judicial system, who understand the laws of war, to come here.”

“The World Jewish Congress is sending a message by bringing these groups that we are supporting the state of Israel,” Friedman told ILTV. “By bringing these groups here and showing them the truth about what is going on, it’s the best diplomacy we can do.”

Friedman did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment about the trip. The Intercept also asked WJC for copies of materials given to the judges during the trip.

An anonymous statement by federal judicial clerks last month criticized the Israel trip.

Peter Joy, who studies legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis, said it is often difficult to predict how judges will rule on recusal.

“They make a strong case for the judge to step down,” said Joy. “Here’s somebody who went on a trip, the explicit purpose of which was to try to get Israel’s point of view across.���

Cassandra Burke Robertson, director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, did not think it was a clear-cut case for recusal.

“The closest issue here is that it sounds like officials on the trip may have been providing specific information about the legality of the operation,” Robertson said. “But if the information was more general, then I don’t think it would be disqualifying.”

“Although Judge Nelson certainly COULD recuse, I don’t think recusal is required under the statute or Judicial Canons,” Rory Little, a professor at UC Law San Francisco, told The Intercept in an email. “He might recuse; it’s not a clear case in either direction.”

Arguments are scheduled for June 10, and the plaintiffs asked the 9th Circuit to rule on their emergency recusal motion by Thursday. A spokesperson for the 9th Circuit said the panel will address the motion, “presumably before Monday.”

The Justice Department, which did not oppose the recusal motion, declined to discuss the case.

[college-girl199328]

A case with the potential to disrupt Donald Trump’s drive to return to the White House is putting the Supreme Court uncomfortably at the center of the 2024 presidential campaign.

In arguments Thursday, the justices will, for the first time, wrestle with a constitutional provision adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from reclaiming power.

The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively delivered the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush. It comes to a court that has been buffeted by criticism over ethics, which led the justices to adopt their first code of conduct in November, and at a time when public approval of the court is diminished, at near-record lows in surveys.

The dispute stems from the push by Republican and independent voters in Colorado to kick Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Colorado’s highest court determined that Trump incited the riot in the nation’s capital and is ineligible to be president again as a result and should not be on the ballot for the state’s primary on March 5.

A victory for the Colorado voters would amount to a declaration from the justices, who include three appointed by Trump when he was president, that he did engage in insurrection and is barred by the 14th Amendment from holding office again. That would allow states to keep him off the ballot and imperil his campaign.

A definitive ruling for Trump would end efforts in Colorado, Maine, and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.

The justices could opt for a less conclusive outcome, but with the knowledge that the issue could return to them, perhaps after the general election in November and in a full-blown constitutional crisis.

The court has signaled it will try to act quickly, dramatically shortening the period in which it receives written briefing and holds arguments in the courtroom.

Trump is separately appealing to the state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine Secretary of State’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out.

The former president is not expected to attend the Supreme Court session this coming week, though he has shown up for court proceedings in the civil lawsuits and criminal charges he is fighting.

Whatever the justices decide, they see more of Trump, whose criminal charges related to Jan. 6 and other issues. Other election-related litigation was possible.

In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the court and the parties were divided over whether the justices should intervene.

The conservative-driven 5-4 decision has been heavily criticized ever since, especially given that the court cautioned against using the case as precedent when the unsigned majority opinion declared that “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances.”

Trump’s campaign declined to make anyone available for this story, but his lawyers urged the justices not to delay.

Donald Sherman, the top lawyer at the group behind the ballot challenge, said voters and election officials need to have an answer quickly.

Justice Clarence Thomas is the only sitting member of the court who was on the bench for Bush v. Gore. He was part of that majority.

But three other justices joined the legal fight on Bush’s side: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Bush eventually put Roberts on a federal appeals court and appointed him chief justice. Bush hired Kavanaugh to White House jobs before making him an appellate judge.

Kavanaugh and Barrett were elevated to the Supreme Court, which appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Thomas has ignored calls by some Democratic lawmakers and ethics professors to step aside from the current case. They note that his wife, Ginni Thomas, supported Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Ginni Thomas repeatedly texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after that election, once referring to it as a “heist,” and she attended the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Nearly two years later, she told the congressional committee investigating the attack that she regretted sending the texts.

Trump lost 60 different court challenges to his false claims that there was massive voter fraud that would have changed the results of that election.

The Supreme Court ruled repeatedly ruled against Trump and his allies in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.

But the conservative majority Trump’s appointees cemented has produced decisions that overturned the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights, and struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is just one among several matters related to the former president or Jan. 6 that have reached the high court. The justices declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to rule swiftly on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, though the issue could be back before the court soon, depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court.

In April, the court will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.

[head-post]

Pakistan’s former PM released on bail over state secrets case

Pakistani former Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted bail on Friday over a high-profile state secrets case as the court declared him “innocent.”

The Supreme Court also granted bail to his party colleague and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi over the case, also known as “the cipher case.”

The case was heard by a three-member bench headed by Sardar Tariq Masood, acting chief justice. Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah raised questions about the cipher and the inclusion of sections relating to the death sentence in the first information report against the former prime minister and foreign minister.

The former prime minister has not been found guilty; he is innocent. [There was] no proof that his statement benefited any other country.

Khan was accused of divulging state secrets when he waved a confidential diplomatic letter at a rally last year. He and Qureshi, members of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party, have twice been charged in the case.

Read more HERE

[lboogie1906]

Judge Ernest Adolphus Finney, Jr. (March 23, 1931 - December 3, 2017) was the first African American elected to the South Carolina General Assembly, the first African American Circuit Court Judge in South Carolina, and the first chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court. He was born in Smithfield, Virginia, the son of Ernest A., Sr. and Colleen (Godwin) Finney. His mother died ten days after giving birth to him. His father, an educator, moved to the DC area after her death. They moved to South Carolina where Finney, Sr. became the dean at Claflin College.

He received a BA from Claflin College. He graduated from South Carolina State University School of Law with a JD. He had a difficult time finding work in the legal field. He was forced to teach in the public schools in Horry County, South Carolina, and to wait tables at the Ocean Forest Hotel.

He married Frances Davenport (1955). They had three children. The family moved to Sumter, South Carolina. He opened the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Law Office and served in private practice. He and Reuben L. Gray formed the Finney and Gray Law Office. He worked defending the Freedom Riders and civil rights demonstrators. One of his most notable defenses was on behalf of the nine students who staged one of the first sit-ins in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961. He lost almost every case that went to trial, he won all except two in the appellate courts.

He was appointed chairman of the South Carolina Advisory Commission on Civil Rights. He was elected as an Associate Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court. He was elected the first African American Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, serving for five years. In 2000, he retired from the bench. He served as president of South Carolina State University for a brief term.

He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and received many honors and awards for his public service, including several honorary doctorates.

He was survived by his wife and children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[massispost]

New Post has been published on https://massispost.com/2023/12/the-european-court-of-human-rights-rejected-appeal-filed-by-dismissed-former-president-of-the-armenian-supreme-court-and-three-judges/

The European Court of Human Rights Rejected Appeal Filed by Dismissed Former President of the Armenian Supreme Court and Three Judges

STRASBOURG  — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dismissed an appeal filed more than three years ago by the former chairman and three other members of Armenia’s Constitutional Court against their dismissal in 2020. A constitutional reform amendments passed by the parliament extended a 12-year term limit to all nine members of the Constitutional Court, thereby mandating the immediate dismissal of three court justices who had taken the bench in the 1990s. They also required Hrayr Tovmasyan to quit as court chairman while allowing him to remain a judge. Tovmasyan and the three ousted judges — Alvina Gyulumyan,…

[newspaper12]

Kheda Flogging Case: Four Gujarat policemen sent to 14 days in jail by HC for flogging of Muslim men | Ahmedabad News - Times of India

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court on Thursday punished four cops with 14 days of simple imprisonment for committing contempt of the court by flogging members of the Muslim community after tying them with a pole in full public view at Undhela village in Gujarat's Kheda district on October 4, 2022, after detaining them on charges of pelting stones on a garba event. After citing Mother Teresa's example of human rights, the bench of Justice A S Suhia and Justice Gita Gopu handed down the sentence to police inspector A V Parmar, PSI D B Kumawat, head constable K L Dabhi and constable Raju Dabhi “to protect the unflinching faith of people in the judiciary”. The court made it clear that punishing the cops is not the sole objective, but it is “to instill people’s faith in the majesty of justice” and that it is “duty-bound to punish to uphold the rule of law”. The HC, however, stayed the sentence for three months after the policemen’s request to allow them time to appeal before the apex court. The court rejected their contention that giving stick blows on the buttocks of the complainants was custodial torture. The court also rejected their request to let them off by paying a fine or keeping them on probation looking at their long unblemished service records and social conditions. Following the incident of flogging in front of a cheering crowd, the victims registered complaints with a magisterial court. Five people, including a woman, approached the HC alleging contempt of the court. Their advocate I H Syed established that the public flogging took place a day after the detention of the accused and therefore it was a case of custodial torture and hence the violation of the Supreme Court’s DK Basu’s judgment. The complaint was against 13 cops. However, Kheda’s chief judicial magistrate confirmed the identity of four cops in the videos and photographs circulated on social media. The HC framed charges against the four cops on October 4 and held them guilty and punished them with two weeks’ simple imprisonment and payment of Rs 2,000 fine. Holding the cops guilty of contempt of court, the HC said, “The Supreme Court’s directions have fallen on deaf ears and there seems to be no improvement on the state of affairs. The guidelines are blatantly violated and ignored, perhaps with the expectations of gaining the Yellow Pages fame and with self-assurance and self-security of being immune to legal consequences.” The court refused to accept an unconditional apology from the cops and said that the apology “cannot wipe out the scars from the psyche of the complainants”. The bench also observed, “The feeling of getting humiliated to the extent that it obliterates the sense of being human is legally not acceptable. The acceptance of apology will send a wrong message to society at large. And everybody who has committed such an inhuman act will cultivate a feeling of being pardoned by the court of law, and who has yet not engaged in such an act, would be encouraged to do so.” The court further said, “It is apparent that the respondents (police officials) meted out the complainants with merciless and humiliating treatment. Accepting their apology will be a travesty of justice. The inhuman acts committed are beyond the contours of forgiveness.” The HC was critical of videography “the barbarous act” by the cops and its circulation on social media. The act committed with “horrific purpose” was not confined to the public chawk of Undhela village, but has travelled beyond. #Kheda #Flogging #Case #Gujarat #policemen #days #jail #flogging #Muslim #men #Ahmedabad #News #Times #India Kheda Flogging Case: Four Gujarat policemen sent to 14 days in jail by HC for flogging of Muslim men | Ahmedabad News - Times of India https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/msid-104549649,width-1070,height-580,imgsize-21004,resizemode-75,overlay-toi_sw,pt-32,y_pad-40/photo.jpg Read the full article