In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon said ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately.

Gershon wrote that it was “unmistakable that Congress determined ACORN’s guilt before defunding it.”  She said Congress may investigate ACORN but says they cannot “rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization.”

ACORN has been accused of voter registration fraud, embezzlement, violating their tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates, and engaging in partisan political activities.

The legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which says it’s dedicated to protecting constitutional rights, welcomed the judge’s decision.

“The judge’s ruling is a complete rebuke to the right wing’s smear tactics that unfortunately Congress fell for,” legal director Bill Quigley said. “This is why we have a system of checks and balances.”

In asking the judge to reconsider her December ruling, the government cited a Dec. 7 report written by former attorney general for Massachusetts, Scott Harshbarger.  The government said the report “reinforces Congress’ purpose in preventing fraud, waste and abuse” by describing ACORN’s long-standing management problems.

The government will consider whether to appeal, spokesman Robert Nardoza said.

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Last December the Second Appellate District Court of Appeal’s struck down the 1998  James Guelff Body Armor Act saying the law’s technical definition of body armor “failed to provide fair notice that his body vest was illegal.”

In doing so, the panel reversed a Los Angeles Superior Court’s 2007 decision against Ethan Saleem, who, when arrested by police, was wearing a camouflage vest that “weighed 10 pounds and was labeled, ‘body armor, fragmentation protective vest for ground troops;”  despite being released 9 days earlier on parole for a conviction of voluntary manslaughter – one of the violent felonies specified by Penal Code section 12370.

Body armor proscribed by the statute (section 12370)  must be certified based on its  “ballistic resistance to the penetration of . . . test ammunition.”(Cal. Code Regs., tit. 11, § 942, subd. (e).)

Justice Joan Dempsey Klein of the appeals court in the decision wrote: “[O]nly an expert would know if any particular protective body vest was proscribed by [the statute].  “And, if that is so,” writes Klein, “then we do not see how, without providing something like an official list of prohibited vests, the statute can be said to provide either fair notice to a defendant or meaningful guidelines to the officer on the street.”

California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr. calls the state’s high court decision to review the case:  “a victory for police officers everywhere.”  “Allowing criminals and gang members to arm themselves with body armor makes no sense, and I’m confident the Supreme Court will reverse this wrong-headed decision,” said Brown.

Brown appealed to the state high court, contesting that the appellate court’s decision “failed to follow the test for determining whether a statute is vague; contradicted the Legislature’s intent in enacting a body armor statute; and needlessly abrogated the entire body armor statute.”

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According to a poll published by the Christian daily Kristelig Dagbladet on Wednesday, 63 percent of the Danish population would be happy to see gay couples married at the altar.  The study says out of the 1304 people who responded, 63 percent say yes to gay marriages in the national church, while 25 percent say no.

A separate poll among the nation’s bishops taken by Berlingske Tidende newspaper showed that 7 out of 10 bishops with the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church support a law change to allow gay marriages within the church – as long as they are not registered partnerships and marriages..  That result shows the shift in considering homosexuality a sin.  In 2007, Kristeligt Dagblad conducted a poll that showed most were against the idea.

In 1997, Denmark’s bishops agreed to allow gays in a civil union to receive the blessing of the Church but the bishops omitted the phrase “Will you take this man (woman) to be your husband (wife)” from the ceremony.

The advisory council at Copenhagen’s Hyltebjerg Church decided on Monday that gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples within the National Church.  The council wrote to the ministry recommending the move but the minister for religion, Birthe Roenn Hornbech, has urged lawmakers to think the question through in-depth before reaching any decision.

In 1989, Denmark became the world’s first country to allow a civil union for homosexuals, but its parliament is now split over a move by the centre-left opposition to amend the law to allow religious weddings too.

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Liberty Counsel, a “nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization,” filed the brief seeking the court to protect the proponents who signed a petition in favor of Referendum 71, a measure that would revoke the latest addition of rights to the state domestic partners registry.

In January, the court agreed to decide whether opponents of the measure have a constitutional right to keep their names and addresses private because they fear they would be subject to harassment if their identities are made public.

Senate Bill 5688 substantially expands the registry to include all state rights afforded to married couples, and it passed in this year’s Legislature. The registry has more than 5,000 couples, most of them of the homosexuals.

State elections spokesman, David Ammons, with the Office of the Secretary of State said opponents of the measure “have until July 25 to gather 120,577 valid voter signatures to secure a place on the November 3 ballot. A yes vote on the referendum would be to sustain the Legislature; a no vote would overturn the law. The filing will temporarily suspend the new legislation, House Bill 5688, which was to take effect July 25, 90 days after adjournment of the Legislature.”

But pro-homosexual groups used Washington’s Freedom of Information Act to request that the names and addresses of petition signers be made public and issued a press release calling for followers to hold “personal and uncomfortable conversations” with any person who signed the petition.

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed agrees with the allowing the petitions to be made public,  as he argues that political speech is not private anonymous speech, and therefore their personal information should be released to the gay rights groups.

“The governmental interests in transparency and accountability, and providing information to the public, are unrelated to the suppression of free expression,” says Reed. “In fact, these interests enhance free expression by allowing people to obtain information about their government so that they can make informed decisions.”

If the Court allows release of information about the petition signers, those individuals would face the same persecution experienced by supporters of Proposition 8 in California. There, when records were made public by a local judge, marriage supporters received death threats, envelopes with white powder, property damage, harassing calls and emails from same-sex marriage activists and were forced to resign their jobs.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, says that releasing the identities of petition signers would violate the First Amendment, because it would result in the suppression of protected speech.  Further, releasing the names of the voters would make them vulnerable to harassment.

“The right to petition government lies at the foundation of freedom. If people fear for their safety because they signed a petition in support of their right to vote, then they will refrain from exercising a fundamental freedom,” said Staver.  “We do not allow someone to intimidate voters at the ballot box. We must not allow bullies to frighten people from petitioning the government for the right to vote. We do not live in a rogue regime. We live in America, where the rule of law should be respected and where everyone should have the opportunity to petition government without fear of reprisal.”

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear this case on April 28, 2010, to determine whether supporters’ names and addresses are subject to the Freedom of Information Act in Washington.

James Bopp Jr. of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom will be arguing the case on behalf of those who signed the petition.

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The nation’s capital is now the sixth place in the nation where gay marriages can legally take place. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont also issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Because of a mandatory waiting period, couples won’t be able to marry in the District of Columbia until March 9.

The gay marriage law was initially introduced in the 13-member D.C. Council last October and received an 11 to 2 support.   The measure passed and D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty signed it in December, but because Washington is a federal district, the law had to undergo a congressional review period that expired March 2.

Congress had 30 legislative days to veto it under the Home Rule Act which it declined to do.

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court denied an emergency appeal filed by Reverend Harry Jackson and other petitioners to prevent the same-sex marriage law from going into effect, pending further review of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009.

Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the request because the court was unlikely to grant certiorari for the following reasons:

First, as “a matter of judicial policy” – if not “judicial power” – “it has been the practice of the Court to defer to the decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia on matters of exclusively local concern.”

Second, the Act at issue was adopted by the Council and placed before Congress for the 30-day period of review required by the DC Charter. A joint resolution of disapproval by Congress would prevent the Act from going into effect, but Congress has chosen not to act.

Finally, while petitioners’ challenge to the Act by way of a referendum apparently will become moot when the Act goes into effect, petitioners have also pursued a ballot initiative, under related procedures in the DC Charter, that would give DC voters a similar opportunity to repeal the Act if they so choose. Their separate petition for a ballot initiative is now awaiting consideration by the DC Court of Appeals. … [T]he DC Court of Appeals will have the chance to consider the relevant legal questions on their merits, and petitioners will have the right to challenge any adverse decision through a petition for certiorari in this Court at the appropriate time.

Last Wednesday, Maryland’s attorney general, Douglas F. Gansler, issued a legal opinion concluding that his state should immediately begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

A study by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, predicts that over 14,000 same-sex marriages would occur in the city over the next three years.

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In the case, Joyner v. Forsyth County, federal judge James A. Beaty ruled on January 28 that Forsyth County’s invocation policy is unconstitutional.  Judge Beaty’s decision prevents the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners from opening public meetings with any prayer that may mention a particular deity.

Accordingly, Beaty’s decision suggests the first prayer given at the Continental Congress in 1774 was “unconstitutional.”

After reading Psalm 35, on September 7, 1774 at 9 o’clock a.m, Reverend Jacob Duché with Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, prayed these words:

O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle!

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.

Amen.

After a public meeting Monday that attracted nearly 1,000 county residents in support of continuing the case, the board of commissioners voted down party lines in favor of filing the appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit., giving ADF the green light to proceed.

“America’s founders opened public meetings with uncensored prayer. Public officials should be able to do the same,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. “Through their campaign of fear, intimidation, and disinformation, the ACLU and its allies continue their threats against hometown governments that they consider to be easy prey. Once again, though, they have failed.”

On March 30, 2007, attorneys with the ACLU and AU filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The three named individual plaintiffs filed suit because the board “does not have a policy which discourages or prohibits those whom [the board] has invited to deliver prayers from including references to Jesus Christ, or any other sectarian deity, as part of their prayers.”

A federal magistrate judge in late 2009 agreed with the plaintiffs and recommended that the court issue a declaratory judgment finding that sectarian invocations that opened Forsyth County Board of Commissioners  meetings violate the Establishment Clause.

Although the county’s official policy calls for inviting clergy from all congregations who have a presence in the community, the plaintiffs argued that the invocation applications referred to Jesus in an overwhelming number of cases and non-Christian deities were never invoked. Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp made the recommendation to U.S. District Court, concluding  that although the selection process seeks to include a wide variety of speakers from diverse religious faiths, “it is the prayers themselves that the public ’sees and hears,’ not the selection policy.”

Sharp acknowledged in his recommendation that prayer before meetings is a “developing area of law,” and that other circuits have declined to consider whether words of prayers advance one religion over another.

Regardless, in January,  Judge Beaty issued his order, agreeing with Sharp’s recommendation to rule against Forsyth County.

“An invocation according to the dictates of the giver’s conscience is not an establishment of religion,” said Johnson. “If it was, you’d have to argue that the drafters of the U.S. Constitution were violating the Constitution in the prayers and invocations that they themselves offered.”

In 2007, ADF launched a nationwide effort to advise public bodies of their constitutional right to open meetings with an invocation, mailing thousands of informational letters to local governments. Since then, ADF attorneys have received a large volume of requests for legal assistance from state legislatures and many county and city governments.

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The Wilkins v. Gaddy [docket] ruling says a defendant need not “show significant injury in order to state an excessive force claim.”  The decision reinstates a North Carolina inmate’s claim that he was “maliciously and sadistically assaulted” by a corrections officer.

Jamey Wilkins brought about the lawsuit after an officer, referred to only as Gaddy, “snatched [him] off the ground and slammed him onto the concrete floor” after Wilkins asked for a grievance form. Gaddy “then proceeded to punch, kick, knee and choke him until another officer had to physically remove him from ,” according to the prisoner’s pro se lawsuit.

A district court had dismissed Wilkins’ excessive force claim after determining that his injuries were “de minimis.”

The High Court found that the lower court had incorrectly applied the standard articulated in Hudson v. McMillian, which held that “the use of excessive physical force against a prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment [even] when the inmate does not suffer serious injury.” The court reversed the decision below and remanded for further proceedings. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, arguing that Hudson was wrongly decided.

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Starr, who has been dean of the law school for five years, made national attention when he investigated President Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals.  He also represented the supporters of California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage during its state constitutional challenge last year.

Legal career: Starr clerked for Judge David W. Dyer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 1973-74.  The he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1975-77. From 1981 to 1983, he was counselor to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith. From 1983 to 1989, he was a United States Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and from 1989 to 1993, Starr was Solicitor General of the United States. He was an adjunct professor at New York University Law School, and a distinguished visiting professor at George Mason University Law School.  Starr also lectured at Pepperdine University prior to his appoint in 2004.

Effective June 1, Starr, who is a native of Texas, will become the 14th president of Baylor University, a private, Baptist-affiliated school in Waco.

“Ken has had a tremendous impact on our students, the law school and the Pepperdine community at large,” said Pepperdine President Andrew K. Benton. “His leadership, his love of scholarship and his devotion to our students helped raise the national stature of our school, and we will benefit from the good he accomplished here for many years to come.”

Benton announced the school has launched a nationwide search for a new law school dean.

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Picture is of a 22 week old fetus. Oklahoma law allows abortions to be performed up to 22 weeks. In 2007, more than 6,300 abortions were performed in Oklahoma.

An Oklahoma County judge ruled a 2009 law that would ban abortions on the basis of the fetus’s gender and require women seeking abortions to fill out a survey is unconstitutional.

District Judge Daniel L. Owens said Friday that House Bill 1595 by Sen. Todd Lamb (R), and Rep. Daniel Sullivan (R), covers too many topics, and therefore violated the Oklahoma constitution’s “single-subject” rule.

“We filed this important, pro-life legislation in separate bills this session to avoid any single-subject conflict,” said Sullivan.

“I fail to see how a bill that has multiple sections all dealing with abortion would violate the single-subject rule,” said Sullivian. “If we used this kind of logic in looking at other bills, any interest group could challenge a bill that has more than one section in it and claim that it violates the single-subject rule. This could bring the legislative process to halt.”

The law banned abortions based on fetus gender and required women to supply basic statistics of those who have abortions to be placed on a public Web site, but the information would not have identified the woman.

“The government has no business running a grand inquisition into the private lives of Oklahoma women,” said Jennifer Mondino, an attorney for The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the legal challenge to the law on behalf of two Oklahoma women – former state representative Wanda Stapleton and Lora Joyce Davis.

But recording statistical data on abortions is nothing new. Currently 46 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia have mandatory or voluntary reporting, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a organization that “promotes sexual and reproductive health worldwide.”

“We are deeply disappointed that an Oklahoma court would decide that a preference for a baby of a different sex is a reason to take a child’s life,” said Tony Lauinger, chairman for Oklahomans for Life.

In August, Oklahoma County District Judge Vicki Robertson struck down Senate Bill 1878 on virtually the same grounds.  The August decision is on appeal at the state Supreme Court.

SB 1878 required a women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure and have its findings explained to her. The measure also covered the posting of signs in clinics, administration of the abortion pill RU-486 and lawsuits.

The 2008 law also would have required the doctor or technician to describe what the woman was seeing, including if the fetus’ heart was beating.

In 2007, more than 6,300 abortions were performed in Oklahoma.

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“This is a very historic, emotional day for black farmers,” said John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association who once traveled 200 miles in a mule-drawn wagon from Baskerville, Va., to Washington to raise awareness about black farmers. “But the [Obama] administration is going to have to help me finish the job.”

In a conference call Thursday, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said the settlement would put an end to a “sordid chapter in USDA history.”

The money, which must be approved by Congress, would go to farmers who claim they were unfairly left out of a 1999 settlement case (Pigford v. Glickman).

The Pigford case was filed in 1997 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Timothy Pigford, and was settled in 1999. In that case, more than $1 billion was awarded to roughly 16,000 claimants who were part of a class-action lawsuit claiming discrimination in USDA farm loans programs that occurred in 1981 to 1997.

In Thursday’s settlement announcement, black farmers who are able to provide substantial evidence that they suffered from discrimination, and who filed complaints between 1981 and 1997, will get up to $50,000 along with debt relief.  A separate more complex path may award damages up to $250,000.

Further it was noted that foreclosure on farms that have pending claims will be halted until the claims are addressed. Those with who have proven their claims will begin receiving payments sometime mid-2011.

Case: Timothy Pigford, et al., v. Dan Glickman, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, US District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 97-1978.

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