Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Supreme Court Enters Legal Battle Over Gender Identity and the Purpose of Restrooms

Source    : Daily Signal
BY            : Matt Sharp
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Supreme Court Enters Legal Battle Over Gender Identity and the Purpose of Restrooms

Why do we make our restrooms and locker rooms private? Each of us performs a variety of necessary life functions in front of strangers every day. We eat in public restaurants, we work in public offices, and as anyone who ever has been stranded in an airport can attest, we even sleep in public. There is no shame or embarrassment in doing such activities in front of complete strangers. Yet when it comes to activities that involve a measure of undressing, we realize that most people are not comfortable doing them in public—and especially not in the presence of members of the opposite sex. So as a society, we set apart designated areas—restrooms, locker rooms, showers, changing rooms—for individuals to perform these intimate activities. In other words, private facilities exist because privacy matters.  But according to the federal government and LGBT activists, the primary function of private facilities is not privacy; it is affirmation of a person’s gender identity. And now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case out of Virginia.

In December 2014, the Gloucester County School Board made what should have been an uncontroversial decision. In response to a request to use the boys’ restrooms from a female high school student who asserts that she is male, the school board adopted a policy stating that the girls’ and boys’ restrooms can be used only by students of the designated sex. The school board concurrently made several single-stall, unisex restrooms available for anyone, including the self-described transgender student who was uncomfortable using the communal facilities at Gloucester High School.

The board otherwise allowed the student, Gavin Grimm, to live as a male, dress like a male, and use a male name and pronouns. And by offering accommodations, the school district guaranteed that Grimm would be afforded privacy—whether Grimm chose to use the single-stall facilities or the female communal restrooms with others of the female sex. But Grimm, 17, rejected this solution. Relying upon guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, which for several years quietly had pushed the idea that schools must treat a student consistent with his or her gender identity, Grimm sued the school district. The suit argues that under federal Title IX and its regulations, the school must affirm Grimm’s male gender identity by allowing use of the boys’ restrooms. The lawsuit received immediate support from the Education and Justice departments, which ultimately issued the now infamous “Dear Colleague” letter in May 2016. In it, the departments threatened to strip federal funding from any school that does not use its locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and even overnight accommodation on school trips to affirm a student’s gender identity. The Gloucester school board courageously stood against the full might of the federal government, recognizing that complying with Grimm’s demands would violate the constitutional privacy rights of other students, to whom the board owed a duty of care.

While the school board won in lower court, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and found that the government’s re-interpretation of Title IX and its regulations should be given deference. Under this re-interpretation, a law that allows schools to maintain separate locker rooms and restrooms on the basis of sex becomes one that orders schools to open up these facilities to anyone who asserts he or she is of the designated sex. The school board immediately asked the Supreme Court to review the case. On Friday, the high court accepted the case, and the implications of its eventual ruling likely will be historic and affect millions of schoolchildren across the country. Two aspects of the case are noteworthy. First, the Supreme Court previously issued a stay, allowing the school board to maintain its policy that protects student privacy in communal facilities. The stay, which remains in effect, recognizes that there would be irreparable harm if students were suddenly forced to share locker rooms and restrooms with the opposite sex.

Second, the court declined to take up the issue of whether “Auer deference”—the legal doctrine relied upon by the federal government to claim that its nonbinding guidance interpreting Title IX have the force of law—should be overturned. Instead, the court will examine whether the interpretation itself is consistent with Title IX and should be given deference. As a result, the privacy implications of the federal government’s lawless actions are likely to play a prominent role in the case.  And it is clear that the federal government’s interpretation of Title IX has no foothold in the law, whether one looks to the text of Title IX and its regulations (which authorize schools and colleges to maintain separate dorms, locker rooms, and restrooms on the basis of sex); the law’s legislative history (where concerns over privacy and safety were addressed by allowing sex-specific facilities); or subsequent court decisions interpreting the law (the overwhelming majority of which reject the claim that Title IX extends to gender identity or requires schools to affirm a student’s self-perceived gender). Indeed, when you research the purpose of Title IX, it is apparent that Congress sought to affirm the equality of women by guaranteeing them equal access to educational opportunities.

One’s sex is irrelevant in the classroom or science lab. Yet by recognizing that sex-specific facilities are permissible when privacy is needed, Congress communicated that women are not disaffirmed as being equal to men nor denied equal educational opportunities by the commonsense recognition of biological differences and the need for privacy that those differences necessitate. The same is true in the Gloucester County case. The school board has shown incredible compassion and accommodation to Gavin Grimm. Yet Grimm and the federal government are not seeking privacy or equal educational opportunities; Grimm is receiving both. Instead, they are demanding affirmation of Grimm’s decision to identify as a male. But locker rooms and restrooms are not for affirmation; they are for privacy. And schools should remain free to put the privacy of their students above political agendas.

SOURCE : dailysignal.com/2016/10/30/supreme-court-enters-legal-battle-over-gender-identity-and-the-purpose-of-restrooms/

Bail Bond Sanford – Brazil Judge Transfers Senate Security Officials Investigation to Supreme Court

Source     : Wall Street Journal
By             : LUCIANA MAGALHAES
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Brazil Judge Transfers Senate Security Officials Investigation to Supreme Court

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Thursday suspended a police investigation of four security officials of the country’s Senate and ordered that it be transferred to the court’s control. The officers were arrested last week on allegations they tried to obstruct a sprawling corruption probe centered on the nation’s state-run oil company. All four have since been released, and a lawyer representing one of them asked the Supreme Court to annul the investigation, arguing that it was illegal and violated the separation of powers established in the country’s Constitution.

Justice Teori Zavascki said the court will decide whether the separation of powers was violated and review the merit of the accusations. Judge Zavascki’s provisional ruling can be modified by a larger group of justices, but is valid unless and until the group makes a decision. Last Friday, Brazil’s Federal Police arrested the security officials, alleging they used Senate equipment to detect and remove wiretaps and other bugging equipment in the offices and homes of three current and one former senator.

Senate President Renan Calheiros said earlier this week that there was no attempt in the Senate to interfere with the investigation of corruption at oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras. The so-called Operation Car Wash probe has reached the highest levels of Brazil’s businesses and government. Corporate executives are accused of having colluded with politicians to skim billions of reais from Petrobras, channeling part of the profits to political campaigns.

Read more : wsj.com/articles/brazil-judge-transfers-senate-security-officials-investigation-to-supreme-court-1477591126

Sanford Bail Bond – State associationsa follow fund order from Supreme Court

Source    : ESPN Cric Info
By            : ESPNCRICINFO STAFF
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

State associations follow fund order from Supreme Court

The BCCI has submitted an affidavit with the Supreme Court saying that 12 state associations have transferred funds received from the board between September 26 and October 1, 2016, to a term deposit with a bank and will not utilise those amounts without further instructions from the court. Such an undertaking fulfils one of the conditions laid down by the Supreme Court in its interim order on October 7. The associations of Andhra, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Punjab, Saurashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh were those that sent letters and supporting documents to the BCCI saying they had set aside the amounts ranging from INR 16 crore to INR 19 crore each.

The BCCI’s affidavit, dated October 24, was signed by its general manager, administration and game development, Ratnakar Shetty. On October 7, the Supreme Court was told during a hearing that the BCCI had disbursed “substantial sums” to state associations before putting in place a disbursement policy, which was one of the Lodha Committee recommendations the board had to adopt by September 30.

The total amount in question was INR 2500 crore, which the BCCI had received as compensation from the broadcaster on account of termination of the Champions League T20, which was discontinued in 2015. The court then directed the state associations not to use the amounts received, and told the BCCI that no further money should be given unless the state association passed a resolution to implement the Lodha Committee’s recommendations. After a subsequent hearing on October 21, the states were told they had until December 3 to provide an affidavit stating their willingness to comply with the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.

Read more: espncricinfo.com/india/content/story/1063439.html

Bondsman in Seminole County – New Jersey Asks Supreme Court to Hear Sports-Betting Case

Source     : Blog Wall Street Journal
By             : JACOB GERSHMAN
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

New Jersey Asks Supreme Court to Hear Sports-Betting Case

With the help of a star litigator, Gov. Chris Christie has taken the state’s high-stakes fight for legalized sports gambling to the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal appeals court this summer struck down a 2014 law signed by Mr. Christie allowing sports betting at casinos and racetracks. The state, though, refused to fold. Representing New Jersey, former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson — the same lawyer that Apple Inc. hired for its recent iPhone encryption showdown with the FBI — has asked the eight justices to hear the case.

A petition signed by Mr. Olson of Gibson Dunn and submitted to the high court days ago casts the rejection of New Jersey’s sports gambling law as a dangerous assault on state sovereignty. The dispute stretches back to 2012 when New Jersey first tried to legalize sports betting with a sweeping repeal of a longstanding ban. After that effort failed in court, New Jersey enacted a more limited repeal in 2014, applying to just casinos and racetracks. That triggered another round of litigation, with the National Collegiate Athletic Association and four major sports leagues suing to block it.

A federal judge and the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that even a partial repeal violated a 1992 law passed by Congress making it unlawful for States to “authorize by law” gambling on sports. In that appeal, Mr. Olson squared off against another high-powered lawyer, Paul Clement, who represented the NCAA. Nevada is the only state completely exempted from the sports-wagering restriction imposed by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA. Three other states — Montana, Delaware and Oregon — also secured more limited exemptions. New Jersey is attacking PASPA as unconstitutional. The argument is based on the “anti-commandeering doctrine” under the Tenth Amendment.

Articulating that doctrine, the Supreme Court has said that Congress may not “commandeer the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.” But Mr. Olson says that’s exactly what PASPA does. A key passage from his petition: This federal takeover of New Jersey’s legislative apparatus is dramatic, unprecedented, and in direct conflict with this Court’s Tenth Amendment jurisprudence barring Congress from controlling how the States regulate private parties. Never before has congressional power been construed to allow the federal government to dictate whether…a State may repeal…its own state-law prohibitions on private conduct. With the support of the American Gaming Association, New Jersey has pushed to legalize sports gambling as a way of reviving the state’s struggling casino and racetrack industries, particularly in Atlantic City.

Read more: blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/10/14/new-jersey-asks-supreme-court-to-hear-sports-betting-case/

Seminole County Bail Bonds – Apple at the Supreme Court: A Guide to the Big Samsung Showdown

Source     : Fortune
By             : Jeff John Roberts
Category :  Seminole County Bail Bonds , Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Apple at the Supreme Court: A Guide to the Big Samsung Showdown

On Tuesday, the country’s top court will hear a long running feud between Apple and Samsung over the design of the iPhone. The stakes are high: $400 million, an important intellectual property law issue—and a lot of pride for two corporate rivals and the consumers who love them. The case began in 2011 after Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs declared “thermonuclear war” against the Android GOOG 1.72% operating system that powers Samsung smartphones, and will likely end next year.

Here’s a plain English guide to the case based on interviews with patent experts, lawyers, and sources close to Apple and Samsung:

Why are Apple and Samsung at the Supreme Court?
The companies’ trip to the top court is the latest twist in a saga about whether Samsung devices like the Galaxy S phone copied early versions of the iPhone. At this point, it’s pretty much settled that Samsung infringed on Apple’s intellectual property—but now the Supreme Court has to step in to explain a law about how much it should pay. The legal fight has involved all sorts of intellectual property issues, but the top court is examining just one of them: How much a design patent should be worth.

When is the hearing?
Apple AAPL 0.91% and Samsung SSNLF -12.28% will square off at 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday at the Supreme Court. The hearing will last about 90 minutes with each side making arguments, and the U.S. Justice Department offering its two cents as well.

What’s a design patent?
Most people don’t realize there are two types of patents: utility patents and design patents. Utility patents, which are far more common, protect new machines and other inventions. Design patents instead cover the ornamental parts of an invention that make is distinct. The point of design patents are to ensure that a product’s artistic elements, which are ineligible for copyright, can still be protected. Design patents can cover things like cars or spoons—or the look of Apple’s iPhone.

What’s so special about the iPhone design?
A jury found that Samsung infringed not just one, but three of Apple’s design patents. One covers the early iPhone’s black rectangle shape with rounded corners, and another covers the raised frame (aka the bezel) that holds the screen to the rest of the phone. The last one covers the layout of 16 colorful icons on the screen. Here’s a picture from the bezel patent.

So what’s the legal issue?
It’s not about whether Samsung infringed the patents. Instead, the fight is over how much the company should have to compensate Apple under a law that says it must pay the “total profit.” An appeals court ruled Samsung should hand over all of the profits it earned from products that infringed on the iPhone’s design. Samsung says this is unreasonable and it should only be on the hook for the value represented by the copied features. The case could turn on another phrase in the statute that refers to an “article of manufacture.” In this case, this would mean determining if the “article of manufacture” is the entire iPhone or instead just the patented features—such as the icon layout or the black rectangle look.

What are each side’s best arguments?
Apple is basically saying, “Look, the law is very clear: ‘Total profit’ means ‘total profit,’ and Samsung should pay up.” While it concedes that “article of manufacturer” can mean individual design features (rather than the whole product), Apple claims Samsung failed to make that argument in this case so the matter is settled. It wants the Supreme Court to reject Samsung’s appeal. Samsung is making more of a policy based argument, saying “Come on, it would be crazy for one little design feature to account for the entire profit of a product. That’s like saying a design patent for a car door handle should be valued on the basis of an overall car.” Samsung wants the Supreme Court to throw out the verdict altogether or return it for a new hearing based on the value of the design patents. Apple, though, has a policy argument of its own. It points out that Congress changed the design patent law in 1887 to add the “total profit” wording, and the reason it did so was to make sure copycats didn’t get off lightly.

So who’s going to win?
This one’s hard to predict, not least because the Supreme Court last ruled on design patents more than 100 years ago. The court’s conservatives, Justices Thomas and Alito, will be receptive to Apple’s “the law says what it says” argument. But on the other hand, Samsung has a good point that it’s absurd to claim anyone values any smartphone (bet it a Galaxy or an iPhone) entirely on a design feature—rather than for what it does. Sarah Burstein, an authority on design patents at Oklahoma University, suggests the Supreme Court will at least chip away at what some are calling a draconian rule set by the appeals court: “In this case, the Federal Circuit has created a rigid, bright-line rule. In a lot of recent IP cases, the Court has rejected rigid bright-line rules created by the Federal Circuit in favor of standards or multi-factor balancing tests. So it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Court do that here.” There’s also a good chance the Supreme Court will heed the Justice Department, which it invited to weigh in on the case. According to the feds, the court should preserve the “total profit” rule but also interpret “article of manufacturer” on a case-by-case basis — meaning sometimes the design patent will cover a whole product, and sometimes just a part of it. In this case, the Justice Department recommends a new trial.

Read more: fortune.com/2016/10/10/apple-supreme-court-samsung/

Bail Bond Seminole County – Oklahoma Supreme Court strikes down restrictive abortion law

Source     : The Reuters
By             : Joseph Ax
Category  : Bail Bond Seminole County , Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Oklahoma Supreme Court strikes down restrictive abortion law

Oklahoma’s highest court on Tuesday struck down a law imposing restrictions on abortion providers, including a requirement that they take samples of fetal tissue from patients younger than 14 and preserve them for state investigators. The law also set new criminal penalties for providers who violate abortion-related statutes as well as individuals who help a minor evade the requirement to obtain parental consent. In addition, the bill created a new, stricter inspection system for abortion clinics. Legislators had said the fetal tissue section was aimed at capturing child rapists and that the law would protect women’s health. But the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenged the law in court, said it unfairly targeted facilities that perform abortions.

In a unanimous opinion, the nine-member Oklahoma Supreme Court found the law violated the state constitution’s requirement that each legislative bill must address only “one subject.” The rule, the court said, is designed to prevent legislators from including provisions that would not normally pass in otherwise popular bills. The state unsuccessfully asserted that each part of the law addressed a single subject: women’s reproductive health. “We reject defendants’ arguments and find this legislation violates the single subject rule as each of these sections is so unrelated and misleading that a legislator voting on this matter could have been left with an unpalatable all-or-nothing choice,” Justice Joseph Watt wrote for the court.

In a concurring opinion, four judges said they also would have struck down the law as an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to have an abortion. Lincoln Ferguson, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, called the decision “disappointing.” “This law would have given law enforcement the ability to more easily prosecute sexual assaults of children that are discovered when a child under 14 has an abortion,” he said.

“The Attorney General’s Office remains committed to defending laws aimed at protecting the safety and well-being of Oklahoma women.” In a statement, Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup said the law was “nothing but a cynical attack on women’s health and rights by unjustly targeting their trusted health care providers.” Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated government has joined several socially conservative states in enacting abortion restrictions in recent years, drawing court challenges. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law imposing strict regulations on facilities that perform abortions. A similar law is on hold in Oklahoma while the state Supreme Court considers its legality.

Read more: reuters.com/article/us-oklahoma-abortion-idUSKCN12420G

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Kansas cited worst Supreme Court decision on anti-abortion law

Source     : VOX News
By             : German Lopez
Category :  Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Kansas cited the worst Supreme Court decision of all time to defend its anti-abortion law

Back in 2015, Kansas passed SB 95 to restrict access to abortion. The law, like many other anti-abortion measures across the country, was quickly challenged in court. So far, a pretty typical story. Here’s where it takes a very weird turn: To defend the law in court, Kansas Solicitor General Stephen McAllister cited the US Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision — which effectively allowed the expansion of slavery in the US — to argue that the anti-abortion law is constitutional.

Some background first: The ACLU and the Constitutional Accountability Center are challenging Kansas’s law on the grounds that if the 14th Amendment protects the right to an abortion, as the Supreme Court has found, then Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution does as well. That’s because both can be interpreted do the same thing: provide equal protection and due process to all people under the law. The 14th Amendment states, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” And the Kansas Constitution says that “all men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Both draw from the Declaration of Independence as inspiration.

What does Dred Scott have to do with any of this? Mark Joseph Stern explained for Slate: In his brief, Solicitor General Stephen R. McAllister insists that this argument is flawed because “[c]ourts across the country have recognized that ‘[t]he Declaration of Independence is a statement of ideals, not law.’ ” Thus, the Kansas Constitution’s adoption of the Declaration’s language provides no fundamental rights to Kansas residents—certainly not the right to an abortion. To support this proposition, McAllister cites, among other cases, Dred Scott, explaining that the decision described “the Declaration’s description of unalienable rights as merely ‘general words used in that memorable instrument’ and [held] that the Declaration did not have a legally binding effect.”

That is a curious choice, because Dred Scott is widely acknowledged as the worst Supreme Court decision of all time. Handed down in 1857, Dred Scott held that people “of African descent” are not and cannot become citizens under the United States Constitution. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney explained that blacks have long been “regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and … might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” Really, no one should cite Dred Scott in an approving manner. It will always look bad. But what’s even more perplexing is that there was simply no good reason for McAllister to include such a controversial case in his brief.

The solicitor general was trying to argue that Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution was not, unlike the 14th Amendment, written with the intent to establish a broad scope of rights. McAllister’s brief pointed out that Section 1 doesn’t mention abortion, privacy, or, in a key difference to the 14th Amendment, due process. And he argued Section 1’s writers only included it to show broad support for the Declaration of Independence and equal rights for people of all races. So, in his view, it would be interpreting Section 1 too broadly to declare that it allows abortion. But you can make this case by citing other cases. McAllister, in fact, cites several cases besides Dred Scott to make this exact point. So choosing to include Dred Scott not only looks bad, but it seems totally unnecessary.

Update: After swift backlash, Kansas on Wednesday withdrew its Dred Scott–referencing brief. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt issued an apology in a statement:

Yesterday’s reference to Dred Scott in a State’s response brief does not accurately reflect the State’s position, is not necessary for the State’s legal argument, and should not have been made. Neither the State nor its attorneys believe or were arguing that Dred Scott was correctly decided. Nonetheless, the reference to that case was obviously inappropriate, and as soon as I became aware of it today, I ordered the State’s brief withdrawn. The unfortunate use of this citation should not distract from the important question the Kansas Supreme Court faces in this case: Whether the Kansas Constitution establishes a state-level right to abortion. The State will continue to argue vigorously that it does not. Kansas will likely file another one to defend its anti-abortion law — hopefully without mentioning any pro-slavery Supreme Court decisions in the process.

Read more: vox.com/identities/2016/10/19/13331320/kansas-abortion-dred-scott

Bail Bond Sanford – Brexit in the High Court: What the legal arguments tell us

Source    : BBC Co. News
By            : Gavin Stamp
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Brexit in the High Court: What the legal arguments tell us

It lasted three days, brought together some of the country’s most eminent legal minds and, in the words of one, considered an issue of “fundamental constitutional importance” to the government, Parliament and the UK as a whole. Bearing all of this in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that the 582-page transcript of the High Court hearing into Brexit, which concluded on Tuesday, make fascinating as well as, at times, gruelling reading. At stake is the question of whether the government is within its rights to begin the process of leaving the EU – by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – without the consent and authorisation of Parliament. During the application for judicial review of the government’s intended use of prerogative powers to kickstart Brexit, the 23 lawyers on either side of the argument covered a huge amount of ground.

Appropriately for a case hinging on the scope of parliamentary sovereignty, there was a dizzying amount of legislation referred to in court. The 1972 European Communities Act, the 1978 European Parliamentary Elections Act, the 2008 European Union Amendment Act, the 2010 Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, the 2011 European Union Act and the 2015 European Union Referendum Act were among laws cited as either setting or not setting vital precedents.
If that was not enough, a rich body of case law was thrown into the mix – covering disputes as diverse as the sequestration of a hotel during World War One, efforts to stop businessman Freddie Laker from securing a new airline licence in the early 1970s and changes to the criminal injuries compensation for firefighters in the 1980s. Amid all the rifling through tabs and bundles of evidence, there were some lighter moments, including outbursts of sympathy for the short hand writer, assertions from both sides that academic research supported their arguments and a to-and-fro about whether the government’s planned Great Repeal Bill was misnamed. There was also some rhetorical flourish to admire, from among others the constitutional historian and crossbench peer Lord Pannick. The QC, who was representing Gina Miller – the investment manager challenging the government’s Brexit strategy – likened Parliament having to accept its authority being undermined “not to (it) straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel”.

James Eadie QC, First Treasury Counsel representing the government, used terms such as “higher beasts” and “silver bullets” to describe the possibility of one piece of statute trumping another and likened the potential threat to certain rights from EU exit as “necessary incidents of leaving a club”. But unlike certain TV courtroom dramas, there was little or no playing to the gallery or moments when the presiding judges, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, Master of the Rolls Sir Thomas Etherton or Lord Justice Sales, had to admonish or direct any of the silks in front of them except to clarify points of legal argument. It was quickly established on both sides that the issue was justiciable – in other words falling within the auspices of the courts to decide upon.

Read more: bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37704117

Sanford Bail Bond – Who Will Be the First Openly LGBTQ Supreme Court Justice

Source     : Vice News
By             : Steve Friess
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Who Will Be the First Openly LGBTQ Supreme Court Justice

Billionaire Peter Thiel will probably never be a Supreme Court justice. It’s a laughable prospect, despite reports, swiftly denied, that surfaced last month that Donald Trump had promised him a seat. The PayPal founder, after all, has never practiced law, once wrote that women’s suffrage was antithetical to a “capitalist democracy,” and promotes fringe ideas like cryonics and paying young geniuses to skip college. One once-disqualifying reason that no longer seems to apply: Thiel is openly gay. That this is a non-issue is astonishing, historically speaking, and highlights the fact that an out LGBTQ justice is now not only possible but possibly imminent. With three sitting justices over the age of 78—setting aside whether President Obama’s stalled Merrick Garland nomination will be withdrawn after the election—court-watchers expect our next president to have multiple appointments. “Until very recently, no president would have taken the chance, but now it’s certainly plausible,” University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman said. “A president may decide this is an important statement to make.”

But what LGBTQ legal eagle will become enshrined as an instant American icon, alongside Justices like Louis Brandeis, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Sonia Sotomayor? Is the first openly LGBTQ justice already in public life? “Absolutely,” said Sam Erman, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “Whoever it is, it’s someone who has already made an excellent legal career,” agreed Daniel Ortiz, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic director at the University of Virginia. “The chances are good that that person is already on a bench somewhere.” Supreme Court nominees today come almost without exception from academia or the federal appeals bench. Of the eight sitting justices, only Elena Kagan, a former Harvard Law School dean, was never a judge, and she served as the White House’s chief lawyer at the Supreme Court. Nominees for the lifetime position also tend to be younger than 60, because presidents prefer justices who will remain on the bench for decades after their presidencies end. Presently, there are ten known openly gay or lesbian federal district court judges—all appointed since 2011—out of nearly 900, and one federal appeals court judge, appointed in 2013. And according to a report released last month by the LGBTQ legal rights organization Lambda Legal, out of 340 state high court justices, only 10 are openly gay or lesbian; in addition, only two judges nationwide are transgender. Lambda was unable to identify any openly HIV-positive or bisexual judges.

Of these, a clear frontrunner emerged based on conversations with court experts for this article: US Court of Appeals judge Todd M. Hughes, 49. The Ohio-born Duke Law graduate was confirmed 98-0 in September 2013 by the Republican-controlled Senate as the first out appellate-level judge. But Hughes also serves in an unusual nook of the federal judiciary, ruling mainly on cases involving patents, veterans’ benefits, international trade, and “other really weird stuff,” Ortiz said. Supreme Court justices typically come with experience in range of constitutional appellate issues, so Ortiz said Hughes’s niche may not be seen as relevant. Experts also pointed to lesbian District judges Pamela K. Chen, 54, of New York, who is Asian, and Staci Michelle Yandle, 54, of Illinois, who is black. And from the state-level judiciary, Washington Supreme Court justice Mary Yu, 58, is a Latina Asian lesbian. As there’s never been an Asian American or female African American justice, any of the three would be an efficient way of making history on multiple fronts.

Eric Lesh, Fair Courts Project director for Lambda Legal, said Lambda has pressured the Obama administration for years, with remarkable success, to appoint more LGBTQ judges on every level of the federal judiciary. That effort will continue in either the Clinton or Trump administration, he said, although their priority is to push for judges likely to expand LGBTQ civil rights and protections. Trump is vowing to choose justices in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose virulent dissents against LGBTQ rights is clearly not what Lambda has in mind. While the federal bench is the usual source of nominees, the nation’s first Jewish, female, and black justices took less traditional paths. In 1916, Brandeis became the first non-Christian justice having never served as a judge. O’Connor, the court’s first female justice, was a longtime Arizona state senator with just two years on the state’s appellate court bench before President Reagan made her a household name in 1981. And Marshall, its first African American justice, served briefly as a federal appellate judge, but his prominence came first as the lawyer who won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.

It is thus possible for a president to cast a wider net. After Scalia’s death, in fact, Stanford professors Pamela Karlan, 57, and Jeffrey Fisher, 46, co-directors of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, were both mentioned as prospects by court watchers. And experts interviewed for this article pointed to prospects like Kenji Yoshino, 47, a law professor at New York University; Paul Wolfson, who was short-listed by Obama in 2014 for a seat on the Washington DC Court of Appeals; Kathleen Sullivan, a 61-year-old Stanford Law School dean; and Mary Bonauto, 55, the attorney who successfully argued the 2003 Massachusetts case that won same-sex marriage as well as the Supreme Court’s Obergefell marriage equality case in 2015. Elected officials are another once-common, now-rare pool for Supreme Court nominees that observers believe could resurface. On that score, the most likely prospect could be Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, 54, the first out person to win a seat in Congress and then in the Senate. “If we’re looking for somebody who is smart, has a law degree but also could bring a different kind of perspective, I could see Tammy,” said Indiana University law professor Steve Sanders, who noted that the former chief justice Earl Warren was appointed with no judicial experience directly from his perch as California governor in 1953.

Read more: vice.com/read/who-will-be-the-first-openly-lgbtq-supreme-court-justice

Bondsman in Seminole County – Nobody is above law, say legal experts on Supreme Court notice to Markandey Katju

Source     : First Post News
By             : PTI
Category :  Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Nobody is above law, say legal experts on Supreme Court notice to Markandey Katju

“Nobody is above law” and a former judge of the Supreme Court is an “ordinary citizen”. This was how some legal experts reacted to the apex court order asking its former judge Markandey Katju to appear personally before it to explain the “fundamental flaws”, as claimed by him in the sensational Soumya rape case. While welcoming the order, senior advocate and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Dushyant Dave said “powerful signals have been sent to those who bring disrepute to the organisation”.

Its vice president and senior advocate Ajit Kumar Sinha was of the view that it is an “unprecedented” order and Justice Katju, who has become a “common citizen” after his retirement, has to clear his stand on the issue. Senior lawyer Meenakshi Arora termed the order as “undoubtedly unusual” but said “Let’s take it as a positive fact that as a critic of a judgment, the court can ask for his
assistance.” However, Sinha said as long as his blog is limited to criticising the judgement there will not be any problem but if he had exceed the limit by criticising the judge or the author of the judgement then it would take a different dimension. “As long as somebody citicises the judgement, then it’s not the problem. But if someone criticises the judge, then that is not right. The move by the Supreme Court is unprecedented,” Sinha said.

A very respectful senior advocate and a good friend of Justice Katju told PTI on the condition of anonymity, “nobody is above the law” and if somebody scandalises the Supreme Court, it is entitled to ask him to explain. “A Facebook post is also a public speech. But nobody is above the law. If someone scandalises the Supreme Court, they are entitled to ask him to explain. They have not issued any contempt. This is giving an opportunity to him to mellow down his comments,” the senior lawyer said. Dave, who was more forthcoming, said “This is a right move and I hope it teaches Justice Katju a lesson for impropriety.” “This is for the first time that a former Supreme Court judge has been asked to appear in court. I would say this is a welcome move by the Supreme Court. I hope powerful signals are sent to those who bring disrepute to the organisation, irrespective of the fact as to who they are,” he said.

His colleague in the SCBA, Sinha said “After retirement, Justice Katju has also become a common citizen. He has been asked to appear in the court to explain his stand on the comment he made. I think, the bench thought it right that he himself should clear the stand. If he is able to substantiate his stand then the court will review. Else, consequences will follow.

Read More : firstpost.com/india/nobody-is-above-law-say-legal-experts-on-supreme-court-notice-to-markandey-katju-3057252.html