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WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider reinstating part of the conviction of the man who planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, case the government says will greatly affect terrorism prosecutions. Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2005 after being convicted on nine counts for plotting to bomb the airport around Jan. 1, 2000. Customs agents in Port Angeles caught him with explosives in the trunk of his rental car when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia in December 1999. The ensuing scare prompted the cancellation of...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years. The justices' decision to hear the case could make the divisive debate over guns an issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. The government of Washington, D.C., is asking the court to uphold its 31-year ban on handgun ownership in the face of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second Amendment....

After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.” Not since 1939 has the Court heard a case directly testing the Amendment’s scope — and there is a debate about whether it actually decided anything in that earlier ruling. In a sense, the Court may well be writing on a clean slate if it, in the end, decides the ultimate question: does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have...

Breaking on MSNBC... Supreme Court to take up DC gun ban case

Aug 15, 2006 By Staff Baptist Press WASHINGTON (BP)--The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Nov. 8 on the constitutionality of a federal ban on the grisly procedure known as partial-birth abortion. The high court announced Aug. 14 it would hear arguments in two cases involving the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act the day after the general election. The justices will consider in back-to-back proceedings Gonzales v. Carhart, an appeal from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, out of the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court, which will open its next term Oct. 2, is expected to...

On June 26, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review a federal appeals court case involving the federal regulation of greenhouse gas pollutants, which cause global warming. In March, a coalition of 12 states, led by Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly, asked the court to review a decision issued last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. EPA. That ruling let stand the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The Supreme Court agreed to grant a hearing in the case. "For too long,...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming, setting up what could be one of the court's most important decisions on the environment. The decision means the court will address whether the administration's decision to rely on voluntary measures to combat climate change are legal under federal clean air laws. "This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants," said David Bookbinder, an attorney...

From a report filed by Tony Mauro in the Legal Times, commenting on yesterday’s announcement in the Rapanos case: On a day that foreshadowed politically charged battles ahead, the Supreme Court on Monday divided sharply on the scope of the Clean Water Act while also agreeing to widen its review of the federal partial-birth abortion ban next fall. … Also on view was a dispirited liberal wing of the Court. Though Stevens, 86, read from his dissent vigorously, the justices who joined him — Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — appeared gloomy and fatigued.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 19, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court is set to revisit a second Bush Administration appeal that seeks to reinstate a ban on partial birth abortion, reports the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). The ACLJ, which specializes in constitutional law, said it is pleased the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, which involves the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion. “The Supreme Court took a significant step today that clearly puts the issue of partial-birth abortion front-and-center,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which litigates pro-life issues. “By taking...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has shown a surprising degree of unanimity and harmony since Chief Justice John Roberts took over last fall. But recent signs of tension and a rush to finish the court's work by month's end could fray the justices' tenuous show of unity. "I feel at this point like the fellow who jumped off the Empire State Building, passed the 50th floor and said, 'So far, so good,'" Roberts said recently to a group of lawyers. "But the hard part is coming up." The "hard part" will include issuing rulings in about 31 cases dealing...

  Controversial license plate. The constitutionality of "Choose Life" license plates could be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court after yesterday's ruling in favor of the anti-abortion inscription. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati ruled a Tennessee law allowing the plates does not violate the Constitution. The challenge to the law was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. "Pro-life speech is not second class speech," said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which backed the state in the case. "The Tennessee Legislature has the constitutional right...

Pro-life Americans are cheering the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear an important abortion case. The Court announced it would hear the appeal in Gonzales v. Carhart, which involves a challenge to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (PABA). The significant part of this news is that the Court's new makeup – influenced by President Bush's two nominees (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito) – offers fresh hope to supporters of life. The federal partial-birth abortion law, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2003, has been the target of a stream of court challenges...

details soon...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights. The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York. The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a...

Future of nation's rivers, wetlands hinges on 2 key cases. Samuel Alito will make his Supreme Court debut with a splash this week when the justices hear two cases that could determine the future of the Clean Water Act. The cases, both from Michigan and scheduled for hearing on Tuesday, could have an enormous impact. For property-rights advocates, an unfavorable ruling could spread the shadow of federal regulation over every tiny stream and rivulet in America, stifling development. Federal authority would extend to "virtually every body of water in the nation -- every brook and pond, every dry wash --...

Editor's note: The Supreme Court announced Feb. 17 that it would again hear arguments in the free-speech case of a whistleblower, apparently so that Justice Samuel Alito can break a tie. That case is Garcetti v. Ceballos. WASHINGTON — New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was sworn in Jan. 31, giving him five months to serve during the Court’s current term. But during that period, Alito will likely have only one chance to show his First Amendment stripes. That chance will be in an important one, and it begins Feb. 28, when the Court hears a trio of First...

The Supreme Court said Friday that it will again hear arguments in the free-speech case of a whistleblower, apparently so that the new justice can break a tie. The appeal was among about 20 that were heard, but not resolved, before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. The Bush administration wants the court to use the case to make it harder for government whistleblowers to win lawsuits claiming retaliation. Justices had seemed conflicted last October when they took up the appeal involving Los Angeles County prosecutor Richard Ceballos, who asserted he was...

With three federal appellate courts now ruling the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2004 unconstitutional, the issue likely will be decided by the newly configured Supreme Court, with two conservative justices recently appointed by President Bush. Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the public-interest legal group Alliance Defense Fund, told WND he believes it's probable that one of the three cases will be heard by the high court his fall, with a decision coming in June 2007. A ruling last year by the 8th Circuit already has been appealed. On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and the...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused Monday to decide whether states can restrict candidates for judgeships from participating in political party activities and soliciting campaign contributions. By doing so, the justices let stand a controversial lower court decision that voided rules that Minnesota and 30 other states have adopted to keep elections nonpartisan. Four years ago, the high court split 5-4 in striking down another provision of Minnesota's judicial election rules that prohibited a candidate from revealing his or her legal or political views. The justices said then that Minnesota's "announce clause" violated the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech....

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday, without dissent, that it has not barred all challenges to actual operation in practice of federal campaign finance restrictions. It ordered a lower court to reconsider an "as-applied" challenge by an anti-abortion group, Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. The unsigned opinion, only two and a half pages in length, was announced by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (...) In other decisions: No. 04-885, Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, affirmed 5-4, in an opinion written by Justice Stevens, declining to apply the Seminole Tribe sovereign immunity doctrine to claims brought under the Bankruptcy...