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A federal court decision approving mandatory public school instruction for children as young as kindergarten in how to be homosexual is being allowed to stand, drawing a description of "despicable" from the parent who unsuccessfully challenged his school district's "gay" advocacy agenda. The U.S. Supreme Court without comment has refused to intervene in a case prompted by the actions of officials at Estabrook Elementary school in Lexington, Mass., who not only were teaching homosexuality to young children, but specifically refused to allow Christian parents to opt their children out of the indoctrination. The case on which WND has reported previously...

Less than a week before its October term is set to begin, the US Supreme Court became a spectacle of sound and fury on Wednesday over a landmark decision handed down three months ago declaring that the death penalty for child rapists is cruel and unusual punishment. At issue was whether the high court would revisit the landmark 5-to-4 decision after revelations last summer that contradicted the majority justices' conclusion that a "national consensus" had emerged against the death penalty for the rape of a child. The June 25 decision said only six states had laws authorizing capital punishment for...

“Thanks W!” proclaims the lapel button some delegates to the Republican convention are sporting this week in St. Paul. Smiling from that button: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. A group of conservative activists and GOP delegates got together in Minneapolis Tuesday on the sidelines of the convention to focus on the election’s highest stakes — as in the highest court in the land. “Elections do have consequences,” said ex-senator Mike DeWine from Ohio, who was booted from his Senate seat in 2006. Yes, it was a humdrum truism. But the defeated DeWine himself exemplified the fact...

Studying the Supremes Emily Miller, July 14, 2008 The media is quick to paint Chief Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court into an ideological corner, tagging it conservative or liberal, minimalist or imperialist, unified or deeply fractured. But these overarching broad analyses reported by the press are often inaccurate, says Dahlia Lithwick, scrutinizing the Supreme Court’s 2007-8 term in a panel discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Anyone who attempts to make broad conclusions about the Court’s political leaning, or predicts which way the justices will vote, does so in the way of an “optical illusion.” Lithwick explains that it involves...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday embraced the long-disputed view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for personal use, ruling 5 to 4 that there is a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense. The landmark ruling overturned the District of Columbia ban on handguns, the strictest gun-control law in the country, and appeared certain to usher in a new round of litigation over gun rights throughout the country. The court rejected the view that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” applied to...

By E. J. Dionne WASHINGTON -- In knocking down the District of Columbia's 32-year ban on handgun possession, the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have shown again their willingness to abandon precedent in order to do whatever is necessary to further the agenda of the contemporary political right. The court's five most conservative members have demonstrated that for all of Justice Antonin Scalia's talk about "originalism" as a coherent constitutional doctrine, the judicial right regularly succumbs to the temptation to legislate from the bench. They fall in line behind whatever fashions political conservatism is promoting. Conservative justices claim that...

Our Constitution works best when its custodians--the president, Congress, and the judiciary--behave well. In the matter of suspected "enemy combatants," all three have behaved badly. That's why the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has been such a running sore. Even if Guantanamo ends up being closed, the human-rights and public-relations debacles that it symbolizes will continue until a new president and Congress take a grown-up approach to some extremely thorny problems. Problems such as: What should we do with a Guantanamo detainee who, the best available evidence suggests, is probably a jihadist bent on mass murder but who cannot be convicted...

The Supreme Court's decision that detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to challenge their imprisonment before a judge revealed in vivid detail the justices' deep divide over the role of the judiciary in wartime As a practical matter, the 5 to 4 decision returns to the spotlight Washington's federal district judges, who are now conferring to develop a framework for handling about 200 cases filed by those the government suspects of terrorism held at the island naval base. It is a role that practically consumed the court until Congress, at the behest of the Bush administration, stripped...

Of all of Antonin Scalia's fellow justices, ultra liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is his best friend. That’s the surprising admission of Scalia, a target of liberals who all but worship Ginsburg. He revealed his closeness to her Friday during an appearance on the "Laura Ingraham Show" where he spoke about his new book “The Art of Persuading Judges.” “I consider myself a good friend of every one of my colleagues, both past and present,” Scalia told Laura. “Some more than others. My best friend on the Court is and has been for many years, Ruth Ginsburg. Her basic approach...

Not many Supreme Court justices become famous, but Antonin Scalia is one of the few. Known as "Nino" to his friends and colleagues, he is one of the most brilliant and combative justices ever to sit on the court and one of the most prominent legal thinkers of his generation. He first agreed to talk to 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl about a new book he's written on how lawyers should address the court. But over the course of several conversations, our story grew into a full-fledged profile - his first major television interview - including discussions about abortion and...

Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday characterized himself as a social conservative and "a law-and-order guy" whose views do not impact his interpretation of the Constitution. In an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes," Scalia addressed issues from abortion to flag-burning. Were he to approach his job differently, Scalia said, he would adopt the position of abortion opponents who interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion. But the authors of the Constitution did not write about abortion, so he does not support the approach favored by abortion opponents, said the justice, who is promoting a new book, "Making...

The Constitution doesn't prohibit abortion any more than it allows it, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says in a television news interview to be broadcast Sunday. Scalia told CBS News'"60 Minutes" that he may be conservative, but he is not biased on issues that come before the court. "I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases," Scalia said in excerpts released Thursday. "On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were ... trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I...

WASHINGTON - All five Roman Catholic justices on the Supreme Court were invited to Wednesday night's splashy White House dinner in honor of Pope Benedict XVI. Republican presidential contender John McCain will be there, too. But Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who had a nationally broadcast debate scheduled Wednesday night, were not invited. About 250 guests were to attend the dinner. Benedict will not be there because he will be attending an evening prayer service with U.S. bishops. The guests include former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball manager Tommy Lasorda, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John...

Supreme Court Confronts the ‘Right to Bear Arms’  by Stephen P. Halbrook   | View comments |  Print This Post The D.C. gun ban is in big trouble. “That would be an odd ‘right of the people’ if limited to militias,” commented Chief Justice John Roberts in the Supreme Court hearing March 18 in District of Columbia v. Heller. The case concerns whether the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Referring to the American Revolution, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that “tyrants...

The Supreme Court Stands Alone by Thomas P. Kilgannon Dulles, Virginia -- The World Court got a whoopin last week when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Medellin v. Texas, which involves Jose Medellin, a death row inmate convicted of rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1993. Writing the 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts informed the wig-wearing jurists at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Texas courts are under no obligation to obey the ICJ’s ruling to give Medellin a new hearing. Medellin is a gang member and a Mexican...

SCOTUS Tells Foreign Court to Butt Out by Ted Cruz Over the past few years many Americans have become deeply concerned that judges have begun relying more and more on foreign law to decide questions of U.S. constitutional law. One doesn’t have to be a constitutional scholar to object to foreign laws and foreign courts -- laws that are not enacted by our democratic government and judges who are not selected as our Constitution provides -- ruling on Americans’ rights and the powers of American government. These concerns are largely well founded, and reflect the increasing degree to which modern...

On New Year's Day, Chief Justice John Roberts, pursuant to his duty to report annually on the condition of the federal judiciary, issued a short and persuasive plea. It was lost in the cacophony of political news. Besides, why worry about the judiciary? We have Alexander Hamilton's assurances, from Federalist 78, that the judiciary is "the least dangerous" branch of government. Having "neither force nor will, but merely judgment," it "has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever."...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans have a right to own guns, Supreme Court justices declared Tuesday in a historic and lively debate that could lead to the most significant interpretation of the Second Amendment since its ratification two centuries ago. Governments have a right to regulate those firearms, a majority of justices seemed to agree. But there was less apparent agreement on the case they were arguing: whether Washington's ban on handguns goes too far. The justices dug deeply into arguments on one of the Constitution's most hotly debated provisions as demonstrators shouted slogans outside. Guns are an American right, argued...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Chief Justice John Roberts urged Congress to raise the pay of federal judges in a year-end report that emphasized improving communications with Capitol Hill and the White House. "The separate branches may not always agree," the chief justice wrote, adding that each should strive "to know and appreciate where the others stand." Roberts' report on the federal judiciary comes at a critical time, with important cases on the court's docket likely to affect the 2008 election and the Bush administration's tactics in the war on terror. Roberts struck a conciliatory tone with Congress, where legislation to raise...

Today the U.S. Supreme Court begins its second full term since President Bush’s appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Given the complaints made by many on the left and in the press about the Court’s alleged “radical turn to the right” last year, now is a good time to consider how the Court ought to decide its constitutional cases. This question is made all the more urgent by the fact that on Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine current justices will be over the age of 70, an age at which many people either...

The division of Supreme Court justices into rigid blocs is unfortunate, because it makes the court seem more like a political body than a legal one.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Supreme Court's most recent term was a difficult one, Justice Stephen Breyer said Saturday, because he found himself on the losing end of several key cases. "I was in dissent quite a lot and I wasn't happy," Breyer said at the American Bar Association's annual meeting. Breyer was one of four liberal justices who dissented in cases involving abortion rights, school integration and pay discrimination. In the school case, in which the court struck down student assignment plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, his frustration bubbled over in a lengthy dissent that was twice as long...

Led by Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Democrats are trying to bamboozle the American public into believing that Bush appointees to the Supreme Court are dangerous radicals. Senator Schumer's suggestion and Justice Beyer's unusual and inappropriate complaint to Senator Specter that the newest members of the Supreme Court -- Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito -- are ignoring and overruling established precedent is of a piece with the mandarinate's general and untrue response to the Administration: the Mongols have taken over. I have reviewed the law on stare decisis (the doctrine that judges should rule in accord with past precedent to...

The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is "the most conservative in memory," and the Senate should not confirm another nominee to the bench from President Bush "except in extraordinary circumstances," in the view of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Addressing the fifth annual American Constitution Society convention Friday, Schumer said the Senate had been misled by the "charm of nominee Roberts and the erudition of nominee [Samuel] Alito." "Our fears were more than justified from the ultra-conservative record of [those] two men," said Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Schumer's comments coincided with a new ABC...

"About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" in the two years since President Bush began nominating justices, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Nearly a third of the public -- 31 percent -- thinks the court is too far to the right, a noticeable jump since the question was last asked in July 2005. That's when Bush nominated John G. Roberts Jr. to the court and, in the six-month period that followed, the Senate approved Roberts as...

Democrat charges U.S. justices "duped" Senate By Thomas Ferraro1 hour, 17 minutes ago U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito "duped" the U.S. Senate into confirming them, a top Democratic lawmaker charged on Friday, days after a key Republican questioned if they had lived up to their promises. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Judiciary Committee that held hearings on the two, said they staked out moderate positions in congressional testimony but became part of a conservative bloc that issued restrictive rulings on issues from free speech to civil rights. Schumer, in...

WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the “political thicket,” it may require a political solution to set it straight. The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues. When the court overreaches, the Constitution provides checks and balances. In 1805, after persistent political activity...

Because I'm convinced that, come November of 2008, Hillary Clinton will be the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, so I think it's particularly important that the Republicans nominate Rudy Giuliani. I will admit that I have been waiting to see if Fred Thompson was going to toss his hat in the ring, but I finally got sick and tired of waiting. The guy's about 6-foot-5 and probably weighs 280; which doesn't hurt when he's portraying a New York City D.A., but he's simply not cut out to play a coquette. There are other attractive candidates in the GOP, but...

Helen Thomas: This meaner U.S. Supreme Court sets back the country Helen Thomas Article Last Updated: 07/04/2007 04:02:47 PM MDT WASHINGTON - The new Supreme Court is more conservative than it has been in decades. It's also meaner. It is a dream come true for Republican presidencies dating back to the ''strict constructionist'' court aspirations of President Richard Nixon and now made possible by the conservative George W. Bush. Before closing down for the summer last month, the high court tossed out a flurry of decisions that overturned or reinterpreted long-standing liberal precedents.

The Court’s liberal critics are especially exercised by Justice Alito, who in a few cases voted differently than the justice he replaced, Sandra Day O’Connor. These critics say that the rule of law is eroded when the outcome of a case depends on who’s sitting on the bench. This critique comes a little late in the seasons of our experience. We don’t recall any of the legal experts who are condemning Alito having urged Ruth Bader Ginsburg to follow the example of the justice she replaced, Byron White, who dissented from the liberal constitutional agenda on abortion and gay rights.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts pledged in his confirmation hearing to seek agreement among the Supreme Court's nine justices. And like President Bush's second nominee to the court, Samuel Alito, Roberts said he would respect legal precedents set by previous courts. So much for confirmation promises. As it wraps up its second term, the Roberts court is sharply divided, with justices on the losing end of a string of 5-4 rulings expressing their frustrations from the bench. Roberts, Alito and their conservative brethren have overturned legal precedents without so much as an explanation. The result, made clear in rulings handed...

It was the Supreme Court that conservatives had long yearned for and that liberals feared. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Graphic Major 5-4 Decisions of the Term By the time the Roberts court ended its first full term on Thursday, the picture was clear. This was a more conservative court, sometimes muscularly so, sometimes more tentatively, its majority sometimes differing on methodology but agreeing on the outcome in cases big and small. As a result, the court upheld a federal anti-abortion law, cut back on the free-speech rights of public school students, strictly enforced procedural requirements for bringing and appealing...

The next president is likely to appoint 1 to 3 justices, tilting the Supreme Court for decades. Hear from conservative commentators William Kristol, Bay Buchannan and Tony Perkins, who keep their eyes on one of 2008's biggest prizes. Created by Robin & John Productions. Music by Nik Phelps. John Grimes. Fizzdom.com See here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QIAXb2MS_Q

The Supreme Court's decision overturning school desegregation policies in two U.S. cities yesterday culminates a fractious term in which the new Roberts court moved the law significantly to the right, legal analysts said. In a series of 5 to 4 decisions this term, the court also upheld a federal ban on a late-term abortion procedure and gutted a key provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Along with yesterday's schools case, each of these decisions left open the possibility of more change in areas of the law on which the court had seemingly ruled definitively within the past decade. "Conservatives...

Just say no. The Senate's Democratic majority -- joined by all Republicans who purport to be moderate -- must tell President Bush that this will be their answer to any controversial nominee to the Supreme Court or the appellate courts. The Senate should refuse even to hold hearings on Bush's next Supreme Court choice, should a vacancy occur, unless the president reaches agreement with the Senate majority on a mutually acceptable list of nominees. And no Bush nominee to a lower court deserves any deference now that we learn that U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh may have misled the...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday abandoned a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting price floors for products. In a 5-4 decision, the court said that agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition. The ruling means that accusations of minimum pricing pacts will be evaluated case by case.............. "The only safe predictions to make about today's decision are that it will likely raise the price of goods at retail," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in dissent......... Joining Kennedy in the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. With...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer shook his head. He rolled his eyes. He even grimaced once or twice as he listened to Chief Justice John Roberts read the majority opinion in the school diversity case on Thursday. As the high court ended its term, Breyer showed obvious disappointment with the opinion. For liberal members of the court, it was not the only time this year their emotions surfaced during normally placid readings of the court's opinions.

High court's new majority is a downright mean bunch Monday, June 25, 2007 3:25 AM By Robyn Blumner Often you can sum up the collective actions of the Supreme Court under a particular chief justice with one word. The Warren Court always will be remembered as liberal, the Burger Court as pragmatic and the Rehnquist Court as conservative. The Roberts Court in its short tenure has already earned the moniker mean. The addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to the heartless duo of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas has cemented a plurality for cruelty. If...

Legal and political conservatives hit for the cycle Monday morning when they "won" four long-awaited rulings from the United States Supreme Court. The Justices further chipped away at the wall that separates church and state, took some of the steam out of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, neutered federal regulators in environmental cases to the benefit of developers and slammed a high school kid who had the temerity to put up a silly sign near his high school. Each of these decisions help establish the true conservative bona fides of this Court. It is more conservative than it was last...

Conservative court watchers have viewed the end of the Supreme Court term with a mixture of hope and dread. The most important decisions are often held over until the very end of the term, as the Justices pore over every word and try to bring more Justices around to their view of the law. And more often than not, it has been conservatives’ feelings of dread that have proved justified. Consider the last two weeks of the 2002 Term, when the Court overruled a 20-year-old precedent and found a constitutional right to engage in sodomy, while also allowing state affirmative...

WASHINGTON - Iraq remains chaotic and immigration overhaul faces an uncertain fate. But if President Bush wants to sing the old tune, “They can’t take that away from me” he can turn to the Supreme Court where his appointees Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito sit. As the high court nears the end of its 2006-2007 term, the impact of Bush’s appointees is becoming clearer. In high profile-decisions, Roberts and Alito have bolstered the conservative wing, which includes Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and occasionally Justice Anthony Kennedy. Former Reagan administration Justice Department official Doug Kmiec,...

WASHINGTON — It has been two decades in the making, but this is the year Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's most outspoken dissenter, could emerge as a leader of a new conservative majority. Between now and late June, the court is set to hand down decisions in four areas of law — race, religion, abortion regulation and campaign finance — where Scalia's views may now represent the majority. In each of those areas, the retirement of centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her replacement with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. figure to tip the court to the right. That...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — If Year 1 was the transition for the new Roberts court, Year 2 is likely to be the test. During the first term under the leadership of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the justices were able to find common ground with some regularity by agreeing not to decide much. By the time the term ended in late June, the extent to which the members of the newly configured court were prepared to confront either precedent or one another remained unclear. Chances are high that the new term, which begins on Monday, will be different. The...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a move that could have abortion implications, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has selected a former colleague and government attorney Jeffrey Minear as his chief of staff. Minear has participated in briefs and written papers on behalf of the White House arguing against abortion. Minear is a longtime attorney in the solicitor general's office and was an attorney there during the Bush administration from 1989-1992. The two collaborated on several cases including the 1991 Supreme Court case of Rust v. Sullivan. The case was significant in that the high court said the government could...

On July 1st, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) finished its term until October. The history books may refer to the present court as the “Roberts Court,” named so after current Chief Justice John Roberts, but many analysts are talking about Justice Kennedy. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of Justice Kennedy,” Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News told the audience at the Heritage Foundation last Thursday. A panel of journalists, including Mr. Stohr, Charles Lane of The Washington Post, and Stephen Henderson of McClatchy Newspapers, focused most of their remarks on “Justice Kennedy’s Hamlet moment,” as Mr....

Young conservatives in DC apparently like intellectual stimulation in a lecture format, but then again the free beer might have been on more than a few minds. Last Wednesday night, more than 80 young conservative intellectuals crowded into a back room of The Brickskeller on 22nd St, NW to listen to a professor talk about vocation, to eat and drink, and to meet their peers and colleagues. It was the first meeting of “Conservatism on Tap” presented by the ISI (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) Young Alumni group of DC founded by Princeton graduate Evan Baehr. The event was a success, with...

At the confirmation hearings for John Roberts, there were two theories about what kind of a chief justice he would be. His critics maintained that he was an extreme conservative whose politics would drive his legal rulings. Judge Roberts, on the other hand, insisted that he was "not an ideologue," and that his judicial philosophy was to be "modest," which he defined as recognizing that judges should "decide the cases before them" and not try to legislate or "execute the laws." Judicial modesty is an intriguing idea, with appeal across the political spectrum. For all the talk of liberal activist...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Last October, liberal standard-bearer John Paul Stevens welcomed conservative Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court by wishing him "a long and happy career in our common calling." In February, it was Roberts' turn to welcome fellow conservative Samuel Alito with exactly the same collegial greeting. Yet for all the talk of consensus and harmony on the new court, plenty of trees had to die to provide enough paper for the justices' fractured rulings on some of the most contentious cases of the court's term. And all sides are betting that this transitional year --...

President Bush finally got to reshape the Supreme Court during its just-completed 2005-06 term, appointing its first two new members in more than a decade. But he didn't have much immediate success in changing its direction. Bush's appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, lived up to expectations that they would ally with the court's conservative faction. The administration's hopes for a rightward shift on an already-conservative court were largely checked, however, by the pivotal figure of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy's role was illustrated most dramatically Thursday, the final day of the court's term, when he joined a...

WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday in a ruling that affirmed a state death penalty law and also revealed the court's deep divisions over capital punishment. ADVERTISEMENT Justices split 5-4 in the term's oldest case, which was argued in December before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. The justices are in the final week of their term and handling some of the most contentious and important cases. They meet again Wednesday to announce more decisions. The Kansas case was unique. The state law says juries should impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime's...