Supreme Court

On summer nights in the mid-1960s, while black-and-white television crackled elsewhere in his Staten Island home with news of Southern violence and Vietnam, Bobby Lasnik would stretch out in his bedroom to let the righteous soundtrack of the civil rights movement waft into his impressionable teenage soul. Tuned in to WBAI-FM, coming across the water from Manhattan, he heard baleful laments about injustice that he would carry with him for a lifetime. "Suddenly there was someone speaking a certain kind of truth to you. You'd say, 'Wow!

A company headed by cellphone pioneer Craig O. McCaw asked the California Supreme Court to reinstate a $603-million fraud and breach-of-contract verdict against Boeing Co., alleging that two appellate justices had conflicts of interest. ICO Global Communications, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corp., said in its appeal filed Wednesday that two state 2nd District Court of Appeal judges considered Boeing's petition to toss out the trial court verdict even though they owned stock in Boeing.

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

A federal appeals court in Washington has upheld a key part of the Voting Rights Act, one that requires states and localities with a history of discrimination against minorities to "pre-clear" changes in their election procedures with the Department of Justice or a federal court. The reasoning behind the 2-1 ruling is persuasive; Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.and other members of the Supreme Court should exercise judicial restraint by refusing to reconsider it. In an earlier, 2009 decision, the chief justice recognized that Congress has the power to enforce the 15th Amendment's guarantee of a right to vote.

Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, has died. He was 56. Known as Marc Christian, he died of pulmonary problems June 2 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The details were confirmed Friday by his sister, Susan Dahl, who said she did not publicly announce his death earlier because of her brother's wish for privacy.

As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, its sixth with John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice, the reality is that this is the most conservative court since the mid-1930s. Since Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, conservatives have sought to change constitutional law, and they have succeeded in virtually every area. During the first years of the Roberts court, it has consistently ruled in favor of corporate power, such as in holding that corporations have the 1st Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts in independent political campaigns.

Fleeing from the police in a vehicle can trigger a mandatory 15-year term in federal prison for a repeat criminal, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In a 6-3 decision, the court said that "vehicular flight" counts as a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act, triggering the mandatory term if it is a third offense. Speeding away from the police "presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "It is a provocative and dangerous act that dares, and in a typical case requires, the officer to give chase.

Reacting to Eric J. Segall's Op-Ed article on Tuesday warning of a gay rights backlash if theU.S. Supreme Court overturns Proposition 8, reader Sara Wan of Malibu wrote: "It is wrong to suggest that pushing for civil liberties should be left to Congress and not include the judicial system. As long as discrimination is legal, it is harder to fight it. "Segall's analogy to past laws banning interracial marriage is incorrect. While there was not a specific push to legalize interracial marriage, the 1967 Supreme Court decision was the direct result of the civil rights movement.

On the September night that the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death, a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Supreme Court in Washington to protest America's continued practice of capital punishment. But they were in the wrong place. The protesters should have assembled 600 miles southeast, in Atlanta. The Constitution does not empower the Supreme Court to proscribe capital punishment or to regulate it out of existence, and those who ignore that point have made it increasingly expensive and less effective.

President Obama did the right thing last week by (finally) coming out in favor of marriage equality for all people. Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, and the president's explicit support should further that goal. But if the Supreme Court forces that change on the American people (through litigation over California's Proposition 8 or other cases), the probable backlash would be substantial and might well do more damage than good to the future of gay rights and other important causes.

WASHINGTON - A widow who conceived a baby from the sperm of her late husband is not automatically entitled to Social Security survivors benefits to help raise the child, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 9-0 decision rejected the claim that a biological child of a married couple, even one born years after the father died, always qualifies as his survivor under the Social Security Act. Instead, the justices upheld the government's multi-part definition of who deserves survivors benefits.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider blocking a constitutional challenge to the government's secret wiretapping of international phone calls and emails. At issue is whether Americans who have regular dealings with overseas clients and co-workers can sue to challenge the sweep of this surveillance if they have a “reasonable fear” their calls will be monitored. The case, to be heard in the fall, will put a spotlight on a secret surveillance program that won congressional approval in the last year of President George W. Bush's presidency.

Reacting to Eric J. Segall's Op-Ed article on Tuesday warning of a gay rights backlash if theU.S. Supreme Court overturns Proposition 8, reader Sara Wan of Malibu wrote: "It is wrong to suggest that pushing for civil liberties should be left to Congress and not include the judicial system. As long as discrimination is legal, it is harder to fight it. "Segall's analogy to past laws banning interracial marriage is incorrect. While there was not a specific push to legalize interracial marriage, the 1967 Supreme Court decision was the direct result of the civil rights movement.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, after a four-year break from terrorism issues, is set to decide as soon as Monday whether to again take up constitutional challenges to George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism laws involving wiretapping and the Guantanamo prisoners. In one case, the Obama administration is asking the court to block a suit against the government's monitoring of international phone calls and emails. And in the other set of appeals, lawyers for six detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are asking the justices to make good on their promise of four years ago and give the inmates a "meaningful opportunity" to be released.

President Obama did the right thing last week by (finally) coming out in favor of marriage equality for all people. Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, and the president's explicit support should further that goal. But if the Supreme Court forces that change on the American people (through litigation over California's Proposition 8 or other cases), the probable backlash would be substantial and might well do more damage than good to the future of gay rights and other important causes.

WASHINGTON - By the time the Supreme Court wrapped up the last of its public arguments for this term, it had been an unusually rough first year for U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's chief courtroom lawyer. A respected, reserved corporate attorney, Verrilli also had a passion for defending inmates on death row. But he had not handled high-stakes, politically charged cases in the high court. He seemed repeatedly caught off guard when his liberal arguments were met with skepticism and even scorn from the justices, a majority of whom lean to the right.

If Bill Clinton were a senior federal bureaucrat instead of president of the United States, he probably could have had a discreet fling with a willing subordinate and not risked his job. But if the liaison had become a public scandal and if his secretary had played a role as a go-between and if agency police had been aware of trysts in the office, he might well have been sacked for letting sex interfere with his work.

California Supreme Court Justice Edward A. Panelli said Thursday he is strongly considering retiring but will not announce a decision until early September. In an interview with The Times in his spacious court office here, the affable Deukmejian appointee described much of his job as an unrelenting grind that leaves little time for family or recreation. Though he is leaning toward retirement, Panelli said he wants to mull it over more before deciding whether to leave his prestigious post.

A convicted killer who died on death row while his appeal languished before the California Supreme Court should have his case decided posthumously, his attorney told the state high court. Scott F. Kauffman, who represented Dennis Lawley for 19 years, contends that his client was innocent of a 1989 murder for hire that sent him to San Quentin. Lawley, he said, deserves a ruling on his claims, even if the outcome will have no practical consequence. "Mr. Lawley's death does not erase the injustice of his conviction and sentence," Kauffman told the court in a written motion.

The increasing levels of disdain Americans hold toward government also extends to the Supreme Court, which  according to a new Pew Research Center survey  is at its lowest approval ratings in 25 years. Though a majority of Americans still have a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, at 52% it's the lowest level of support the court has received since 2007 and 2005, when 57% of Americans favored it.  The latest poll was conducted in the wake of the contentious debate over the constitutionality of President Obama's healthcare revamp, which brings the assumption that the low marks are indicative of a significant drop in support from the left.