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Tennessee can enforce ban on transgender care for minors, court says
Headline Legal News |
2023/07/08 18:09
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Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth can go into effect — at least for now — after a federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily reversed a lower court ruling.
Last month, a district court judge in Tennessee found that the state’s new law banning transgender therapies like hormone blockers and surgeries for transgender youth was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of sex. The judge blocked large swaths of the law from taking effect.
On Saturday, however, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati granted an emergency appeal from Tennessee. In a 2-1 ruling, the majority wrote that decisions on emerging policy issues like transgender care are generally better left to legislatures rather than judges.
“Given the high stakes of these nascent policy deliberations — the long-term health of children facing gender dysphoria — sound government usually benefits from more rather than less debate,” wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush.
Tennessee’s attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, praised the ruling, saying the ban can now be fully enforced. “The case is far from over, but this is a big win,” he said in a statement.
The ruling is preliminary, and remains in force only until the appeals court conducts a full review of the appeal. Sutton wrote that the appeal process will be expedited, with a goal of resolving the case by Sept. 30.
Tennessee is one of at least 20 states across the country that have recently enacted bans or restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Federal judges in Indiana and Kentucky have blocked those laws from taking effect, while a judge in Arkansas struck down that state’s law.
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Judge limits Biden administration in working with social media companies
Legal Topics |
2023/07/05 16:19
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A judge on Tuesday prohibited several federal agencies and officials of the Biden administration from working with social media companies about “protected speech,” a decision called “a blow to censorship” by one of the Republican officials whose lawsuit prompted the ruling.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted the injunction in response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Their lawsuit alleged that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections.
Doughty cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ ”
Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the injunction prevents the administration “from censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media. |
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Judge allows North Carolina’s revised 12-week abortion law to take effect
Legal Topics |
2023/07/02 09:01
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A federal judge ruled on Friday that nearly all of North Carolina’s revised 12-week abortion law scheduled to begin this weekend can take effect, while temporarily blocking one rule that doctors feared could expose them to criminal penalties.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles sets aside that rule but allows the law’s remaining provisions to begin on Saturday while litigation continues.
Abortion providers had last week requested a blanket order halting all of the July 1 restrictions pending their court challenge. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician said several sections in the newly revised law were so vague and seemingly contradictory that doctors could unintentionally break the law, leaving them unable to care for women seeking legal abortions.
But the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed legislation this week revising or repealing nearly all of the challenged provisions, making arguments against most of them moot. Among other things, the lawmakers clarified that medication abortions will be legal in nearly all cases through 12 weeks, and that a lawful abortion remains an exception to North Carolina’s fetal homicide statute.
Eagles, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, had said in court that it would be overly broad to block enforcement of the entire law. Instead, she directed that for at least the next two weeks, the state cannot enforce a rule saying doctors must document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus before conducting a medication abortion.
The abortion providers’ lawyers argued that the language raised questions about whether abortion pills can be dispensed when it’s too early in a pregnancy to locate an embryo using an ultrasound — subjecting a provider to potentially violating the law.
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Supreme Court rules for nursing home patient’s family
Legal Topics |
2023/06/28 15:28
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The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for the family of a nursing home resident with dementia that had sued over his care, declining to use the case to broadly limit the right to sue government workers.
The man’s family went to court alleging that he was given drugs to keep him easier to manage in violation of his rights. The justices had been asked to use his case to limit the ability of people to use a federal law to sue for civil rights violations. That outcome could have left tens of millions of people participating in federal programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, without an avenue to go to court to enforce their rights.
The Supreme Court has previously said that a section of federal law — “Section 1983” — broadly gives people the right to sue state and local governments when their employees violate rights created by any federal statute.
The court by a 7-2 vote reiterated that Thursday, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing that Section 1983 “can presumptively be used to enforce unambiguously conferred federal individual rights.” Both liberal and conservative justices joined her majority opinion while conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The court had been asked to say that when Congress creates a federal spending program — giving states money to provide services such as Medicare and Medicaid — they shouldn’t face lawsuits from individuals under Section 1983. The court rejected that invitation.
The specific case the justices heard involves the interaction of Section 1983 and the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, a 1987 law that outlines requirements for nursing homes that accept federal Medicare and Medicaid funds. The court was being asked to answer whether a person can use Section 1983 to go to court with claims their rights under the nursing home act are violated. The answer is yes, the court said. |
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Court sides with Jack Daniel’s in dispute with makers of dog toy
Legal Business |
2023/06/25 22:28
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The Supreme Court on Thursday gave whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s reason to raise a glass, handing the company a new chance to win a trademark dispute with the makers of the Bad Spaniels dog toy.
In announcing the decision for a unanimous court, Justice Elena Kagan was in an unusually playful mood. At one point while reading a summary of the opinion in the courtroom Kagan held up the toy, which squeaks and mimics the whiskey’s signature bottle.
Kagan said a lower court’s reasoning was flawed when it ruled for the makers of the rubber chew toy. The court did not decide whether the toy’s maker had violated trademark law but instead sent the case back for further review.
“This case is about dog toys and whiskey, two items seldom appearing in the same sentence,” Kagan wrote in an opinion for the court. At another point, Kagan asked readers to “Recall what the bottle looks like (or better yet, retrieve a bottle from wherever you keep liquor; it’s probably there)” before inserting a color picture of it.
Arizona-based VIP Products has been selling its Bad Spaniels toy since 2014. It’s part of the company’s Silly Squeakers line of chew toys that mimic liquor, beer, wine and soda bottles. They include Mountain Drool, which parodies Mountain Dew, and Heini Sniff’n, which parodies Heineken beer.
While Jack Daniel’s bottles have the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” the toy proclaims: “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” The original bottle notes it is 40% alcohol by volume. The parody features a dog’s face and says it’s “43% Poo by Vol.” and “100% Smelly.”
The packaging of the toy, which retails for around $20, notes in small font: “This product is not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”
Jack Daniel’s, based in Lynchburg, Tennessee, wasn’t amused. Its lawyers argued that the toy misleads customers, profits “from Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill” and associates its “whiskey with excrement.”
At the center of the case is the Lanham Act, the country’s core federal trademark law. It prohibits using a trademark in a way “likely to cause confusion ... as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of ... goods.”
A lower court never got to the issue of consumer confusion, however, because it said the toy was an “expressive work” communicating a humorous message and therefore needed to be evaluated under a different test. Kagan said that was a mistake and that “the only question in this case going forward is whether the Bad Spaniels marks are likely to cause confusion.”
Kagan also said a lower court erred in its analysis of Jack Daniel’s claim against the toy company for linking “its whiskey to less savory substances.”
The opinion was one of four the court issued Thursday, including a 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in Alabama in a congressional redistricting case. The case had been closely watched for its potential to weaken the landmark Voting Rights Act.
The case is Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 22-148.
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Convictions tossed in 2016 death of 16-year-old shot in minivan in Trenton
Attorney News |
2023/06/21 16:37
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An appeals court in New Jersey has tossed out the convictions of a man sentenced to 55 years in prison after being tried as a teenager in the 2016 death of a girl who was shot in a minivan as she and other juveniles were riding around Trenton.
The court found a number of problems with the prosecution of the then-17-year-old suspect, including the testimony of a detective and the process by which the prosecution was moved to adult court, NJ.com reported. As a result, the court ordered prosecutors to start at the beginning and seek a new adult court waiver from family court.
Although the Mercer County prosecutor’s office publicly named the suspect after indicting him in 2017, the appeals court used a pseudonym for the defendant, who is now 25 and has been serving a 46-year mandatory minimum term, according to court records.
Prosecutors say Ciony Kirkman and six other teens were in the minivan in April 2016 in Trenton when authorities said the suspect shot at the vehicle. Kirkman, 16, was struck in the head and died a few days later. A jury convicted the defendant of murder, attempted murder and assault with a firearm after an eight-day trial in 2018.
The appeals court said numerous errors in the testimony of the lead detective deprived the defendant of a fair trial. The judges also expressed concerns about initial recordings of two witnesses identifying the shooter, saying one recordin appears to indicate that another detective had spoken to them before the recording started.
The appeals court also said the defense at the waiver hearing didn’t submit evidence of disabilities that might have kept the case out of adult court.
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Austrian court restarts US extradition proceedings for Ukrainian
Headline Legal News |
2023/06/17 18:22
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An Austrian court said Friday that it has ruled in favor of Ukrainian businessman Dymitro Firtash in a years-long legal saga over a U.S. bid to have him extradited to face corruption charges, sending the extradition case back to square one.
Firtash faces a U.S. indictment accusing him of a conspiracy to pay bribes in India to mine titanium, which is used in jet engines. He denies any wrongdoing.
He was arrested in Austria in 2014 and then freed on 125 million euros ($136 million) bail, kicking off a still-unresolved legal saga. A Vienna court initially ruled against extradition on the grounds that the indictment was politically motivated.
A higher court in February 2017 rejected that reasoning as “insufficiently substantiated” and ruled that Firtash could be extradited. Austria’s Supreme Court of Justice upheld that ruling in 2019.
The country’s justice minister at the time approved the extradition, but a Vienna court judge ruled it could only take place after a decision on a defense call to reopen the case. Firtash backed that June 2019 motion with “numerous documents, including written witness statements,” Vienna’s upper state court said.
In March 2022, a Vienna court ruled against reopening the case. But the upper state court said Friday that it has now ruled in favor of Firtash and decided to allow reopening extradition proceedings, overturning the 2017 ruling. It pointed to new evidence.
Judges in Vienna will now have to consider anew whether Firtash can be sent to the United States.
In June 2019, a Chicago federal judge rejected a motion to dismiss the indictment against Firtash, who has argued that the U.S. has no jurisdiction over crimes in India. However, the judge ruled that it does, because any scheme would have impacted a Chicago-based company.
American aviation company Boeing, based in Chicago, has said it considered business with Firtash but never followed through. It is not accused of any wrongdoing.
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