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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Anna Nicole Smith Case Skip directly to the full story. By Gina Holland Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 27, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith is going to the Supreme Court. Justices said Tuesday they would consider Smith's appeal over the fortune of her 90-year-old late husband. The stripper-turned-reality television star stands to win as much as $474 million that a bankruptcy judge initially said she was entitled to. She has not gotten any money from the estate of J. Howard Marshall II, an oil tycoon who married her in 1994...

The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a ban on a procedure that critics call "partial birth" abortions, setting up a showdown that could be decided by the president's new choice for the court. The appeal, which had been expected, follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the federal law. An appeals court in St. Louis said this summer that the ban on late term abortion is unconstitutional because it makes no exception for the health of the woman. The Supreme Court has already scheduled arguments in November in another abortion case, involving New Hampshire's parental notification...

WASHINGTON - Abortion, assisted suicide, gay rights, the death penalty. Some of the toughest issues in the land confront the Supreme Court in its new term in the fall. A new lineup of justices — assuming the successor to influential Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is on the bench — makes the outcome of these cases more unpredictable than usual. The high court has not had a new member since 1994, a modern-era record. That stability has made it easier to gauge what issues the court will take on and how they will be decided.On major ones, the court frequently splits...

WASHINGTON -- Highly anticipated decisions on medical marijuana, Ten Commandments displays and Internet sharing of movies and music are still to come in the final weeks of the Supreme Court term. And then there's perhaps the biggest story of all — whether the court gets its first opening in a decade. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, has been the focus of retirement speculation since he announced in October that he had thyroid cancer. Rehnquist has been working full-time and has given no indication of his plans, though most court watchers believe he will step down. His departure likely would...

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases this week dealing with the Ten Commandments. The issue before the court is to uphold the Ten Commandments as the foundation of our legal history, and thus as acceptable in public places, or to rule their display an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. The cases McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky and Van Orden v. Perry will be heard back to back tomorrow, March 2. Both seek reversals of lower court decisions. In Van Orden the public display of the Ten Commandments was held not to violate the First Amendment by making...

(LifeSiteNews.com) The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that it will review a lower court decision upholding Oregon's assisted-suicide law. Last May, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals narrowly upheld Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, after U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft challenged the law. The Department of Justice argued that the prescribing of lethal medications by doctors was in contravention of the federal Controlled Substances Act. Two of three state judges disagreed, arguing that the regulation of medical practice is outside the jurisdiction of the federal government. David Stevens, M.D., executive director of the 17,000-member Christian Medical Association, said, "The...

Should the nation's 4,000-odd Ten Commandments displays be removed from the courthouses, civic buildings and parks where they're installed? Beyond that, must public property be stripped of all references to religion? On March 2, the US Supreme Court, whose own building features four artworks showing the sacred tablets - minus the biblical text - hears arguments on this emotional matter. The cases involve a large monument on the Texas Capitol grounds and a wall posting alongside secular documents in a Kentucky courthouse. Religion's cultural and legal status in America could be affected by the results, yet the nation's major Christian...

ASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - The United States Supreme Court announced today that it would hear arguments on Oregon's law authorizing doctors to help their terminally ill patients commit suicide, the only such state law in the country.The justices will hear arguments in the court term that begins this October. They will decide whether to overturn a ruling last May by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the law. The Bush administration has tried to overturn the law in the courts.Oregon is one of the few places in the world where people are allowed to...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court returns next week for the second half of its term with some of the biggest issues yet to be decided: the juvenile death penalty, Ten Commandments displays and the future of its ailing leader. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, has been working mainly from home since October, when he announced he had thyroid cancer. Since then, his only public appearance was to swear in President Bush last month. Advertisement Little is known about Rehnquist's condition, though he appeared frail. The court has not said whether he will return even part-time to the bench when...

Scalia I thought has a policy against the media recording him, so this is interesting.

WASHINGTON – Less than two years after handing down an important decision expanding the rights of gays and lesbians and helping to kindle a national debate over gay marriage, the US Supreme Court has declined to take up a case challenging the State of Florida's ban on adoption by homosexuals. Instead, the nation's highest court Monday let stand a January 2004 opinion by a federal appeals court in Atlanta that upholds the Florida law. The announcement marks a setback for gay rights activists who were hopeful that the legal landscape may have shifted in a fundamental way in the wake...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- The Supreme Court declined today to hear a challenge to Florida's ban on adoption by gay people, the only such state law in the country. The justices refused without comment to consider an appeal by four Florida men who had argued that the 1977 law violated their rights to equal protection under the United States Constitution, and that it was irrational because it automatically excluded potential adoptive parents for abandoned children. The case, Lofton v. Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, 04-478, had been closely watched as a possible test case. But with...

Some of the major issues to be decided by the Supreme Court next year: PRISON SENTENCES: Are federal sentencing guidelines constitutional? (United States v. Booker, 04-104 and United States v. Fanfan, 04-105.) Argument heard Oct. 4. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: Can the government prosecute sick people who grow marijuana and use it on the advice of a doctor? (Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.) Argument heard Nov. 29. DEATH PENALTY: Is it unconstitutionally cruel to execute juvenile killers? (Roper v. Simmons, 03-633.) Argument heard Oct. 13. And may the United States try and sentence to death foreign nationals without notifying their government, in violation...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his job after defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument. Moore has become a high-profile crusader for Ten Commandment monuments as a result of the dispute over his own 2 1/2-ton granite display in the state courthouse. A federal judge ruled that Moore violated the Constitution's ban on government promotion of religion when he placed the monument in the rotunda of the judicial building in the middle of the night in 2001. The display was moved last year over...

[snip] Rather than the spectacular cases that have marked the court's last few terms, and those that may lie a year or two ahead, the 2004-05 term seems likely to be devoted to nuts-and-bolts issues of government and society with which the court is most familiar: crime and punishment; federal versus state authority, in the context of California's medical marijuana law; economic regulation; and juveniles on death row. [snip] The court will also consider several challenges to government business and economic regulations. One tests the power of local governments to condemn homes and businesses to clear the way for private...