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Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

CITY PRAYER POLICY UPHELD Fredericksburg Free Lance - Star Fredericksburg Virginia http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/072008/07242008/397448 Date published: 7/24/2008 BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE Fredericksburg City Council can keep Jesus Christ out of its prayers. The 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the city's right to start its meetings with nonsectarian prayers. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sat on the three-judge panel hearing the case and wrote the opinion. "She didn't feel my rights were being violated, but my rights are definitely being violated," said City Councilman Hashmel Turner, who filed the case. "It removed an opportunity for me to pray...

NEW YORK — Sandra Day O'Connor is developing a free interactive Web program for middle schoolers on the U.S. court system. The program will be called Our Courts and allow students to participate in realistic government simulations and investigate and argue actual cases. Arizona State and Georgetown universities are helping the retired Supreme Court justice develop the program. Arizona State professor James Paul Gee says the program will teach children the importance of free and independent courts in a democracy. The Web site will be launched this fall. O'Connor is the first woman to have served on the nation's highest...

Her spouse's Alzheimer's has exacted a toll her, and the country feels it, too.From Arizona last week came the sad news that John O'Connor, husband of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has grown romantically attached to another patient in an Alzheimer's facility where both live. For Justice O'Connor, the pain of watching her husband drift away must at some level be balanced by the notion that his new relationship brings him some measure of happiness andpeace. Their son reported she was gratified that her husband "was relaxed and happy and comfortable living here." John O'Connor's fading connection stands...

The retired Supreme Court justice's spouse, John O'Connor, has had Alzheimer's disease for 17 years, and after moving into an assisted-living center in Phoenix, he began a romance with a fellow patient also suffering from the mind-debilitating ailment. But the justice isn't jealous - the O'Connor family believes the love has given John, 77, a new lease on life. "Mom was thrilled that dad was relaxed and happy and comfortable living here and wasn't complaining," their son Scott O'Connor, 50, told Phoenix's KPNX-TV. Scott said that when his father recently arrived at the Huger Mercy Living Center, he was depressed....

The husband of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has struck up a romance with a woman who is a fellow Alzheimer's patient and lives at the same assisted living center as him, according to a television news report. The retired justice isn't jealous about the relationship and is pleased that her husband is comfortable at the center, the couple's son, Scott O'Connor, told KPNX in Phoenix in a broadcast that aired Thursday. "Mom was thrilled that dad was relaxed and happy," Scott O'Connor said. An effort by The Associated Press to reach Scott O'Connor on Tuesday morning was...

Hubert O'Connor, the disgraced Roman Catholic bishop, has died of a heart attack in Toronto. He was 79. His death was announced by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. He resigned as bishop of the British Columbia diocese of Prince George after being charged with sex crimes in 1991. He was convicted in 1996 of committing rape and indecent assault on two young aboriginal women during the 1960s when he was a priest. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by Mr. Justice Wally Oppal, who is now British Columbia's attorney general. After serving six months, the disgraced...

Undoubtedly, the most significant aspect of the Supreme Court's April decision in Gonzales v. Carhart was that it narrowly upheld Congress' "partial-birth abortion" ban. That said, Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion may affect America more for what it said about abortion than what it decreed about the law of abortion. The case appears to have opened up a new phase in abortion jurisprudence -- one in which abortion is largely permitted though disdained. This is not surprising, because Carhart represents the first recent occasion on which Kennedy set our national abortion policy. What may be surprising is how greatly both sides...

Most people remember Sinéad O'Connor one of two ways: as that angelic, lovelorn figure in the video of her smash "Nothing Compares 2 U," or for tearing up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live. Her 20-year career has been marked with pop stardom and accolades, but also with controversy and misunderstanding. Even as she takes the stage at Joe's Pub in New York, one can sense the polarity. The venue only seats 150, enough to house a handful of fans and some of the biggest papers in town. But O'Connor, 40, isn't there to impress anyone. Her...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Sandra Day O'Connor is no longer on the Supreme Court but that doesn't mean the pro-abortion judge can't use her influence to try to shape its decisions. In an interview with Fox News, the ex-justice offered a hidden rebuke to the Supreme Court members for their recent decision upholding the federal partial-birth abortion ban. The high court's decision overturned her opinion in a similar 2000 case regarding a Nebraska partial-birth abortion ban. In the 2000 case, O'Connor wrote for the 5-4 majority saying the state's ban on the three-day-long abortion procedure was unconstitutional because it lacked...

A civil servant who leaked a secret memo about George W. Bush wanted it to be seen by US presidential candidate John Kerry, the Old Bailey heard. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, is said to have passed a highly sensitive document detailing talks between Mr. Bush and Tony Blair to Leo O'Connor. Mr. Keogh told jurors the contents of the memo had preyed on his mind. Mr. Keogh and Mr. O'Connor, 44, also of Northampton, deny three charges under the Official Secrets Act. Mr. Keogh had been asked to copy out the memo for distribution to high-ranking UK officials. The...

A civil servant and an MP's researcher have been found guilty of leaking a secret memo about talks between George Bush and Tony Blair. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, has been found guilty of two offences under the Official Secrets Act. MP's researcher Leo O'Connor was found guilty of one Official Secrets offence. It recorded Oval Office talks between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about Iraq in 2004, the Old Bailey was told. Sentencing was adjourned for reports........

Just seven years ago, Justice O’Connor voted with the court’s liberals to strike down a similar Nebraska law banning the procedure, known medically as intact dilation and extraction. It involves removing an intact fetus rather than dismembering the fetus in the uterus. The decision recast the court’s approach to abortion, shifting its emphasis toward fetal life and away from deference to medical judgments about women’s health. The decision last week brought into focus the greatest hopes of conservatives and the worst fears of liberals. Is the court about to make sweeping changes in important areas of constitutional law, including in...

Justice O'Connor continued to defend her original position. She lamented statistics that showed that as a result of California's Proposition 209 (passed in 1996) only 2.2% of UCLA freshmen were black, and a fifth of those were on athletic scholarships. (California's overall population is 6.1% black.) She seemed strangely unaware, however, of the growing evidence that racial preferences might have actually decreased the likelihood that blacks and Hispanics will graduate from college. Put differently, if the body of evidence is correct, the whole affirmative action enterprise has been deeply and tragically flawed from the beginning, failing to achieve its most...

WASHINGTON - Three of the five Supreme Court justices who handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 say they had no choice but to intervene in the Florida recount. Comments from Justice Anthony Kennedy and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are in a new book that was published this week. Justice Antonin Scalia made his remarks Tuesday at Iona College in New York. Scalia, answering questions after a speech, also said that critics of the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore need to move on six years after the electoral drama of December 2000, when it seemed the...

The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor. Addressing a legal conference in Texas, the former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had some second thoughts about her opinion in Minnesota v. White back in 2002, which struck down that state's restrictions on judges' expressing their political views in campaigns for the bench. The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now...

The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor. Addressing a legal conference in Texas, the former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had some second thoughts about her opinion in Minnesota v. White back in 2002, which struck down that state's restrictions on judges' expressing their political views in campaigns for the bench. The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now...

As a Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor exasperated critics by balancing on a reed-thin beam without planting her feet firmly on either side. But in retirement, she doesn't equivocate in defense of judicial independence. She has crossed the country warning that "spurious" attacks on the judiciary -- by politicians and other talking heads -- threaten judges' doing their jobs without fear or favor. When federal appellate Judge Danny Boggs said at a Friday legal conference at Las Colinas that physical assaults aimed at judges have come mainly from "the deranged," O'Connor underscored the safety concerns. "Every member of the...

Latest deaths illustrates 'the evil' Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan, PM says Mike Blanchfield CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen Tuesday, September 19, 2006 OTTAWA - The suicide bombing deaths of four Canadian soldiers Monday while trying to give candy to Afghan children illustrates the "evil" they are fighting and the nobility of their cause, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. "Nothing more than this incident illustrates the evil that they are fighting and the goodwill and the nobleness of the cause that they are taking to the Afghan people," Harper told the Commons as his government confronted its toughest political...

PITTSBURGH -- On a day when this city experienced the confluence of grieving and glory, burying a popular mayor in the morning and then having to turn out to support its beloved Super Bowl champions just a few hours later, it was left to a Pittsburgh Guy to turn tears into cheers. OK, so Steelers backup Charlie Batch isn't really from Pittsburgh. But Homestead, Pa., just a short drive across his city's locally well-known High Level Bridge, a span that once carried thousands of steel workers to their sooty jobs in the blast furnaces and to a livelihood in a...