Supreme Court U S

The cable television industry is ready to introduce an advanced video-on-demand service that would provide rebroadcasts of programs without commercials and without a fee paid to the producers. But the prospect has sent a shudder through the television and film industries, which could lose the right to profit from their work in the era of video on demand. All that stands in the way is a final clearance from the Supreme Court.

Hugh Caperton, owner of a small coal mine from Slab Fork, W.Va., was driven into bankruptcy after he ran up against the huge A.T. Massey Coal Co., but got a measure of revenge when a jury awarded him $50 million in damages. But when Massey appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court, Caperton thought it might mean trouble. Massey Chief Executive Don Blankenship had spent $3 million of his own money to help elect a new justice. "The deck was stacked against us," Caperton said.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away the Federal Trade Commission's bid to impose antitrust penalties that would have limited the royalties collected by memory-chip technology firm Rambus Inc. The justices, without comment, left intact a federal appeals court decision favoring Rambus, which gets more than 80% of its revenue from royalties.

The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Wednesday to the government's use of a strong new identity theft law against illegal workers who use fake ID cards. Last year, U.S. immigration agents raided a meat-packing plant in Iowa and arrested 389 workers for having false documents. About two-thirds of them were charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year prison term. Lawyers say this charge is used as a bargaining chip.

The Supreme Court on Friday bowed out of deciding whether the president has the power to imprison people in the U.S. indefinitely without a trial -- avoiding a showdown the Obama administration did not want. The court granted the administration's request to dismiss the challenge to the president's authority from suspected Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah Marri, who was detained by the military for 5 1/2 years without charges.

The United States may have apologized in 1993 for the "illegal overthrow" of Hawaii's native monarch a century earlier, but that congressional expression of regret did not give native Hawaiians a legal claim to state lands, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The 9-0 decision leaves it to the state of Hawaii to decide how to manage the 1.2 million acres in dispute. The title to this land transferred to the state in 1959, when it was admitted to the Union.

The Supreme Court put a new limit on police searches of cars Tuesday, saying that "countless individuals guilty of nothing more serious than a traffic violation" have had their vehicles searched in violation of their rights. In a 5-4 decision, the justices set aside a 1981 opinion that had given police broad authority to search cars whenever they made an arrest.

During an 18-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice David H. Souter migrated from conservative to moderate to liberal, leaving opinions across the political spectrum on divisive issues like abortion, property rights and the separation of church and state. -- Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992) In a bitter 5-4 vote upholding Roe vs.

A full-scale battle on Capitol Hill over the next Supreme Court nominee could still be months away, but skirmishes have been taking place all year. Conservative activists have brought the most explosive weapon in their arsenal -- the issue of abortion rights -- to bear against a trio of President Obama's nominees for other posts, offering a likely preview of what to expect when Obama's choice to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As President Obama's search for a Supreme Court justice progresses, it appears the White House has locked in on two competing sets of nominees: those who have traditional judicial and academic backgrounds and another group that comes from what might be called the "real world." Since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement this month, much of the speculation about who will succeed him has centered on candidates such as U.S. Solicitor Gen. Elena Kagan, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S.