An Orange County, California, judge has ruled the state's death penalty unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney says California's death penalty inflicts cruel and unusual punishment, not because state-sanctioned killing of captive convicts is abhorrent, but because California…
Posts published in “national”
What will happen when the courts overturn South Dakota's ban on same-sex marriage? Look at Minnesota, where legislators beat the courts to the punch and made gay marriage legal last year, and you'll see the answer is, not much: ...something…
South Dakota civil rights organization Four Directions continues to fight racism in the judicial system, This week, Four Directions petitioned the Federal Northern District Court of California to preserve the investigation file on Judge Richard Cebull. Judge Cebull heard and…
I'm spending my Fourth of July in exile from the land I love. There will be no fireworks for us tonight; we saw our fireworks on Tuesday, Canada Day, over English Bay in Vancouver. We will spend our America Day…
While the Supreme Court imbues corporations with the power of religious belief, Justice Samuel Alito points quietly toward the logical political response: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court’s five more conservative justices, said a federal religious-freedom law…
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McCullen v. Coakley yesterday that a Massachusetts law prohibiting free-speech activities within 35 feet of the entrance or driveway of an abortion clinic violates the First Amendment. The buffer zones serve the Commonwealth’s legitimate…