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Liberals eye 2020 takeover of Wisconsin Supreme Court
Court News |
2019/02/11 13:39
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Wisconsin liberals hope to take a key step this spring toward breaking a long conservative stranglehold on the state's Supreme Court, in an election that could also serve as a barometer of the political mood in a key presidential swing state.
If the liberal-backed candidate wins the April 2 state Supreme Court race, liberals would be in prime position to take over the court when the next seat comes up in 2020 — during a presidential primary when Democrats expect to benefit from strong turnout.
The bitterly partisan court, which conservatives have controlled since 2008, has upheld several polarizing Republican-backed laws, none more so than former GOP Gov. Scott Walker's law that essentially eliminated collective bargaining for public workers.
If liberals can win in April and again in 2020, they would have the majority until at least 2025.
"It is absolutely critical we win this race," liberal attorney Tim Burns, who lost a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in 2018, said of the April election. "It does set us up for next year to get a court that's likely to look very differently on issues of the day like voters' rights and gerrymandering."
The court could face big decisions on several partisan issues in the coming years, including on the next round of redistricting that follows the 2020 Census, lawsuits challenging the massive Foxconn Technology Group project backed by President Donald Trump, and attempts to undo laws that Republicans passed during a recent lame-duck session to weaken the incoming Democratic governor before he took office.
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Russian court sends Jehovah’s Witness to prison for 6 years
Court News |
2019/02/08 13:40
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A regional court in western Russia on Wednesday sentenced a Danish Jehovah’s Witness to six years in prison, in arguably the most severe crackdown on religious freedom in Russia in recent years.
The court in Oryol found Dennis Christensen guilty of extremism, making him the first Jehovah’s Witness in Russia to be sent to prison.
Christensen was detained during a police raid on a local prayer meeting he was leading in May 2017.
“I do not agree with this judgment, it’s a big mistake,” Christensen told reporters after the sentencing in the city of Oryol. His wife Irina Christensen added: “I’m really sad that such a thing is happening in Russia, very sad. The same thing could happen to any of us.”
The verdict was met with consternation around the world including from the U.S. Embassy, which expressed its concern and urged Russia to respect individual’s religious freedom.
Russia in recent years has used its vaguely worded extremism laws to go after dissenters, opposition activists and most recently religious minorities. Russia officially banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017 and declared the religious group an extremist organization.
Nearly 100 members of the group face charges in Russia, and more than 20 of them are in jail awaiting trial. Before the ban, the world headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed about 170,000 adherents in Russia. |
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Missouri death row inmate asks US Supreme Court to intervene
Court News |
2019/01/01 00:18
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A Missouri death row inmate who lost substantial brain tissue during a surgery plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, saying his planned execution by lethal injection could subject him to severe pain.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reported Thursday that Ernest Lee Johnson plans to argue that the loss of brain tissue could mean he has seizures and severe pain in reaction to Missouri’s execution drug.
Johnson was sentenced to death for killing three convenience store workers during a Columbia robbery in 1994.
Johnson’s appeal is moving through lower courts. But Johnson’s attorneys plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene because the high court is currently considering a similar case of another Missouri death row inmate with a rare medical condition that causes blood-filled tumors.
Both argue complications with their conditions and the execution drug could lead to cruel and unusual punishment. |
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Cunningham to step down from Kentucky Supreme Court
Court News |
2018/12/27 01:19
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Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Bill Cunningham has announced that he will retire from the bench early next year.
News outlets report Cunningham, who is 74, announced on Thursday that his last day will be Feb. 1. He was first elected in 2006 to represent the First Supreme Court District, which encompasses 24 counties in western Kentucky.
Cunningham told The Paducah Sun that it was time to move on because "you stay too long and after a while you've seen too many tortured and battered children, too many dysfunctional families, too much crime, too much misery, too much human suffering."
Before being elected to the Supreme Court, Cunningham was a circuit judge and a commonwealth's attorney. He says he'd like to find a way to continue serving people in western Kentucky. |
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Colorado baker returns to court over 2nd LGBT bias allegation
Court News |
2018/12/17 10:37
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Attorneys for a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple on religious grounds — a stand partially upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — argued in federal court Tuesday that the state is punishing him again over his refusal to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.
Lawyers for Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver, are suing to try to stop the state from taking action against him over the new discrimination allegation. They say the state is treating Phillips with hostility because of his Christian faith and pressing a complaint that they call an "obvious setup."
"At this point, he's just a guy who is trying to get back to life. The problem is the state of Colorado won't let him," Jim Campbell, an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said after the hearing. The conservative Christian nonprofit law firm is representing Phillips.
State officials argued for the case to be dismissed, but the judge said he was inclined to let the case move forward and would issue a written ruling later.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission said Phillips discriminated against Denver attorney Autumn Scardina because she's transgender. Phillips' shop refused to make a cake last year that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside after Scardina revealed she wanted it to celebrate her transition from male to female.
She asked for the cake on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would consider Phillips' appeal of the previous commission ruling against him. In that 2012 case, he refused to make a wedding cake for same-sex couple Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the Colorado commission showed anti-religious bias when it sanctioned Phillips for refusing to make the cake, voting 7-2 that it violated Phillips' First Amendment rights. |
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