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A former high school teacher facing sexual assault charges says his arrest on suspicion of having sexual relations with a student violates a fundamental right guaranteed by both the state and federal constitutions. Matthew Glasser, a former music teacher at Northwest Catholic High School, was arrested last year under a provision of the state's criminal code that makes having sex with students a crime, even if the student has reached 16 - the age of consent. But in a motion filed in Superior Court in Hartford, Glasser claims the statute infringes on his constitutional right to privacy, which, he argues,...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A Baton Rouge hospital, hoping to get to the bottom of an office prank, is ordering 25 employees to undergo DNA testing or be terminated. Leaders at Woman's Hospital say a man who works in Building Operations returned from several weeks off to find that someone had placed urine in his toolbox. After hearing of the incident, hospital administrators sent a memo to 25 employees who also work there telling them that DNA testing would be done unless someone came forward admitting guilt. Since no one came forward, the hospital said the DNA testing will...

Privacy is the great American assumption. Even though the word is absent from the U.S. Constitution, lawyers find its spirit in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and 14th amendments. No less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court has insisted the Constitution brims with the right to privacy. Yet doubters say a right to privacy can¡¯t be discovered in the document merely by wishing it were there. So when justice nominee Harriet Miers submits to her grilling on Capitol Hill, senators will be particularly curious about what she thinks of privacy ¡ª especially whether it guarantees women the right...

It's tough to be a parent. In fact, raising your child these days to develop into a healthy, happy, responsible adult has never been harder. Violence and sex saturates television and movies, popular music is filled with profanity and rage – even video games often focus on the darkest edges of human behavior. It is bad enough that the culture seems at war with parents. But more disturbing are the actions of courts to damage the link between parent and child. And no group has done more to inflict damage on parental rights though the courts than the American Civil...

The FBI investigated incidents last week where members of an animal rights group protested outside the Piedmont home of an attorney who works for a health-care company that performs animal testing. Piedmont police responded to the Greenbank Avenue home of Pamela Ostroff on Thursday morning after she reported that six animal rights protesters were at her door calling for her to come outside and refusing to leave her property. Ostroff is employed by Roche Molecular Systems, Inc. The protesters had already left by the time the first police unit arrived about two minutes later, according to Piedmont police Capt. John...

It is, everyone agrees, a beautiful picture. The subject, Erno Nussenzweig, is an 84-year-old retired diamond merchant who lives on a quiet block in Union City and spends his days reading the Torah. The photographer, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, has filled some of the world's top galleries with his work and also has published several books. Four years ago, their worlds unwittingly collided in Times Square, when diCorcia discreetly photographed Nussenzweig, who was wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat and buttoned overcoat. It is a simple but haunting picture. The photo went into a book that has since sold out, and diCorcia has...

The 1973 Supreme Court abortion decision Roe vs. Wade was decided by a 7-2 margin, legalizing abortion throughout pregnancy. One of the two dissenters from that decision was the current Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, who has served on the Supreme Court since 1971, and as Chief Justice since 1986. His dissent from Roe is less than 1500 words, and points out several of the many errors and weaknesses of what is, beyond doubt, the most damaging decision the Court has ever issued. Justice Rehnquist objected both to the conclusions of the majority and to the methods they used to reach...

Top talk radio host Rush Limbaugh called on DNC chief Howard Dean to release his medical records yesterday, after Dean said he was standing by his false allegation that Limbaugh was a cocaine addict. "It might be helpful if we could see his medical records," the radio host told his audience. "It might be helpful if we could get Dean's medical records and plaster them all over CNN because we won't really know the truth about anything until we get these medical records." Citing an interview last year where Dean admitted he had a drinking problem during his college days,...

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is under fire once again for upholding traditional morality. And, once again, his detractors are citing the "right to privacy" to attack him. State law in Florida requires that the Department of Children and Families not consent to "sterilization, abortion or termination of life support." Yet on Monday, May 2, a circuit court judge in Florida, Ronald Alvarez, ruled that a pregnant 13-year-old girl in state custody had a right to an abortion despite the state's objections. The girl ran away from her state home in January, became pregnant and asked her caseworker to schedule...

(CNSNews.com) - The family of Terri Schindler Schiavo says the judge who ordered her starvation and dehydration -- a process that will begin on March 18 unless a higher court intervenes -- is "afraid of the truth," and is denying Terri's due process rights under state and federal law. "Never in my life have I seen a judge so afraid of the truth," said Pamela Hennessy, media representative for the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation in a statement Tuesday morning. "Why is it that admitted criminals are protected to every reasonable measure of the law," Hennessy asked, "while our disabled and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A ragged fence and a canyon called Smugglers Gulch mark the westernmost stretch of the California-Mexico border, a favorite crossing point for illegal immigrants and drug runners.

Immigration Bill Could Settle Fight Over California-Mexico Border FenceBy Erica Werner Associated Press Writer Published: Feb 5, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - A ragged fence and a canyon called Smugglers Gulch mark the westernmost stretch of the California-Mexico border, a favorite crossing point for illegal immigrants and drug runners. The federal government and a powerful local Republican congressman have been pushing for years to fortify the 3 1/2-mile stretch of border just north of Tijuana, Mexico. Their plan is opposed by California coastal regulators and environmentalists who say it could harm a fragile Pacific estuary. Now supporters may be getting closer...

H.R.418 Title: To establish and rapidly implement regulations for State driver's license and identification document security standards, to prevent terrorists from abusing the asylum laws of the United States, to unify terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility and removal, and to ensure expeditious construction of the San Diego border fence. Sponsor: Rep Sensenbrenner, F. James, Jr. [WI-5] (introduced 1/26/2005) Cosponsors (125) Latest Major Action: 1/26/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Homeland Security, and Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case...

Criminals can demand that their DNA samples be destroyed after they complete their prison sentences, a state judge ruled yesterday. The ruling by Superior Court Judge Jack Sabatino, who sits in Mercer County, severely limits a 2003 law that requires everyone convicted of a crime to submit a DNA sample. "Once a felon has paid his or her debt to society and has fully resumed civilian life, the state's right to maintain that person's DNA sample withers," Sabatino wrote. Attorney General Peter Harvey said he will "immediately" appeal the ruling, saying it undermines the whole purpose of maintaining a DNA...

A couple who placed an anti-abortion sign on their Dauphin County home are refusing to heed borough officials' demand to remove the sign or risk a $500 fine and up to two months in jail. Paxtang officials say the sign violates the borough ordinance that permits "signs for public, religious and charitable institutions and uses such as parks, schools, churches and similar uses." Colman and Frances Wessel attached the sign to their front porch three weeks ago. "We're just exercising our freedom of speech and religion," said Colman Wessel said. "Is it the pro-life words or the picture of Jesus...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - (KRT) - What sort of potentially toxic chemicals are floating around in your body? Four parts per billion of pentachloronitrobenzene, perhaps? Trace amounts of dibutyl phthalate? And can they make you sick? Scientists aren't at all clear on the last question yet. But California lawmakers are considering a bill that wades deep into the national debate over biomonitoring - and asks chemical manufacturers and distributors to pay for it. Biomonitoring is an emerging science that analyzes human blood, breast milk and urine for trace amounts of pollutants, from lead and mercury to a host of industrial...

Charlotte Attorney Ray Warren hopes the Mecklenburg County court system doesn't turn his client into a local crimes against nature poster boy. But he's willing to go there if that's what it takes. Warren spent the weekend putting together a brief he plans to send to District Attorney Peter Gilchrist and State Attorney General Roy Cooper this week. The brief argues that soliciting a crime against nature charges against his client, a gay male, should be dropped because they're unconstitutional. Warren plans to argue that a ruling by the US Supreme Court two weeks ago that struck down a Texas...

Conservatives are presently demoralized by the "judicial activism" of the Supreme Court.Specifically, the recent reliance on a "Right to Privacy" is decried as a concoction of the court that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. This right is said to not be explicitly spelled out in the Constitution's text, just as other "rights" that the Supreme Court has manufactured out of thin air. The supposed 1973 "right to abortion" that Rush Limbaugh reminds us of in the Roe v. Wade decision is offered as an example of this activist manufacturing.My question is this: While we hear the Tenth...

The controversy last week over Senator Rick Santorum's remarks about the slippery slope of the Supreme Court finding a right to any kind of consensual sex based on a "right to privacy" in the penumbra of the Constitution, has had one benefit: A well- known liberal commentator on political issues has conceded his naivete about which rights are in the Constitution. On Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, Maher admitted: "This has been a learning experience for me. I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution. I have learned from this when...

Anyone else see Fred Thompson's comments on the so called "right to privacy" in tonites Law & Order episode?He said it did't exist in the constitution, to which one of the other lawyers replied "you can argue that when you get appointed to the supreme court"I said to my buddy, "you know, he could be"He does have a law degree from VanderbiltAny Comments?