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The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider a Virginia appeal to reinstate the life-without-parole sentence for one of the convicted ‘Beltway Snipers’ who terrorized the Washington, D.C., region in 2002.
The justices on Monday said that they would take up the state’s appeal in the case of Lee Boyd Malvo, after a Virginia appeals court ruled last year that he should be resentenced because of subsequent Supreme Court decisions that altered the rules for juvenile offenders.
DC SNIPER LEE BOYD MALVO’S LIFE SENTENCE THROWN OUT
Malvo, who was 17 years old when he and John Allen Muhammed shot and killed 10 people during a three-week period in Maryland, Virginia and Washington more than a decade ago, was sentenced to life without parole in all three states. Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.
FILE – In this Oct. 20, 2003 file photo, Lee Boyd Malvo listens to court proceedings during the trial of fellow sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad in Virginia Beach, Va. (AP Photo/Martin Smith-Rodden, Pool, File)
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled last year that while Malvo’s life-without-parole sentences were legal when they were imposed, Supreme Court decisions later changed sentencing requirements for juveniles. The judges said a resentencing would determine whether Malvo qualifies as "one of the rare juvenile offenders" who can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole because his "crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility." They said if his crimes instead "reflect the transient immaturity of youth" he’s entitled to a sentence short of life without parole.
MARYLAND JUDGE DENIES DC SNIPER MALVO’S BID FOR NEW SENTENCE
The decision in the Supreme Court case ruled juveniles are constitutionally different from adults for the purposes of sentencing “because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform,” which makes them “less deserving of the most severe punishments.”
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear Virginia’s appeal, and review the decision.
Malvo has been serving his sentences at Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Virginia.
In Maryland, meanwhile, a federal judge ruled that Malvo would not get a new sentence. He is serving six life-without-parole prison terms for the killings in that state.
Fox News’ Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
Alice Wisbiski, dressed as Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is joined by others for some exercise on the courthouse steps in Washington on Friday. This, to mark Ginsburg’s 86th birthday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
An area outside the nation’s highest court became a workout zone on Friday as supporters of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rang in her birthday.
In honor of her turning 86, fans of Ginsburg – who is known for her rigorous exercise regimen – assumed the plank position outside the Supreme Court in Washington, while belting out “Happy Birthday,” The Associated Press reported.
AS RUTH BADER GINSBURG TURNS 86, HOMETOWN BROOKLYN PLANS CELEBRATION FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
Leading the exercise was Bryant Johnson, the justice’s own workout instructor, while her son James was also in attendance.
At least one person in the group was photographed sporting a black robe and white lace collar, mirroring Ginsburg’s trademark look.
The justice’s routine includes push-ups and planks, the outlet reported.
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Ginsburg left a message for the group of supporters with Johnson, he told AP. She wanted him to relay that for the first time since she underwent surgery for lung cancer in December, she has "been able to do the planks the correct way and the push-ups.”
The court announced late last year that Ginsburg underwent a pulmonary lobectomy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after two nodules in the lower lobe of her left lung were discovered. The discovery came incidentally during tests, after she fractured several ribs during a fall in November.
Fox News’ Alex Pappas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News National
A federal court panel has dismissed 20 legal appeals involving misconduct complaints lodged against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ Judicial Council had been asked to look into 83 initial complaints filed against Kavanaugh, during his 12-year service on the DC-based federal appeals court. They were filed around the time of contentious Senate confirmation to the high court last year.
The 10th Circuit’s internal council in December tossed out those complaints, concluding Kavanaugh was no longer covered by the process, since he was now a Justice.
“Because the intervening event in this matter resulted in the loss of jurisdiction,” said the court, referring to Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court, “this Council does not have the authority to investigate or make findings upon which to base any remedial action.”
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS’ RECENT VOTES RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT ‘CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION’ ON SUPREME COURT
Justices of the Supreme Court are not subject to a code of conduct or disciplinary process like lower federal judges.
The nature of the complaints were not disclosed.
Chief Justice John Roberts — Kavanaugh’s new colleague — had initially referred the matter to the Denver appeals court. Two judges on the 10th Circuit panel dissented and recused in the dismissal of the appeals, saying that panel should not have been involved in both the initial review and the subsequent appeals.
“I am left to conclude that the entire Council should be disqualified from participating in consideration of the current petitions for review,” wrote Judge Mary Beck Briscoe. “And, in turn, I conclude that the petitions for review should be considered by a different body, specifically the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability.” Judge Carlos Lucero agreed.
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A group advocating for court reforms praised the dissenting opinions.
“Judge Briscoe and Lucero have stuck their necks out in a way that is to be commended,” said Gabe Roth of Fix the Court. “Of course there is little recourse or reprimand for a Supreme Court justice accused of misconduct, so today’s result is not surprising. That said, it is critical for our nation’s leading jurists to recognize a conflict of interest when they see one and having a council rule on a case that they’ve previously judged would seem to be a textbook definition of such a conflict.”
Source: Fox News Politics
The hometown of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hasn’t forgotten her birthday. Brooklyn, N.Y., plans a celebration called #RallyforRuth on Friday, as Ginsburg turns 86 years old.
Eric Adams, president of the New York City borough, will host the party for Ginsburg, who was born Joan Ruth Bader in Brooklyn on March 15, 1933. It was unclear if the justice, known by her initials, "RBG," will attend.
Still, the festivities are set to begin at 8 a.m. at the Brooklyn Municipal Building and will include a call for the city to rename the building in her honor, Patch.com reported. An online petition has garnered more than 60,000 signatures, the report said.
FOX NEWS POLL: TRUST IN JUDICIAL, EXECUTIVE BRANCHES DROPS; RBG MOST POPULAR JUSTICE
The party follows a year that hasn’t been the best for Ginsburg in terms of her health.
Last month, the justice underwent a pulmonary lobectomy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York after two nodules were discovered in the lower lobe of her left lung. The discovery came during tests after she fractured several ribs during a fall in November.
Both nodules removed during the lung surgery were found to be malignant, but pre-surgery scans indicated no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body, the Supreme Court said in a statement. No further treatment was being planned.
Ginsburg’s injury forced her to miss some Supreme Court sessions for the first time since being appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
Her brief absence sparked speculation about whether the justice might look ahead to retirement — potentially presenting President Trump with an opportunity to nominate a third Supreme Court justice after Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
The lead-up to Ginsburg’s birthday was marred Thursday by an incident of vandalism: a poster of the justice was defaced with a swastika and an anti-Semitic insult and an expletive, according to the New York Police Department, which said it was investigating the act as a hate crime.
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A straphanger tweeted a photo of the defaced poster on a Brooklyn subway platform to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York’s FOX 5 reported. The poster advertises a book about Ginsburg. Subway officials say the graffiti had been removed.
"There is no room for hate in NYC," the NYPD tweeted.
Ginsburg received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School, according to her biography on the U.S. Supreme Court website.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News National
Bethany Mendez, center, along with attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon, right and Mariah Gondeiro-Watt, litigation counsel for the Freedom Foundation, at a press conference on Monday. (Handout)
A California special-education teacher filed suit earlier this week against the state teachers’ union and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, saying she wasn’t told she could opt out of paying union dues.
Bethany Mendez, a teacher in Northern California’s Freemont Unified School District and the lead plaintiff in the case, claimed she was never informed that she no longer was required to have $1,500 in annual dues deducted from her pay.
Mendez and five other California teachers named as plaintiffs want the California Teachers Association to be required to get the consent of educators before union fees are deducted — and to refund fees because the union failed to inform them of the changes in the law.
NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA SUE TRUMP ADMIN IN 9TH CIRCUIT OVER NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARATION
In a court filing, lawyers representing the teachers argued that the unions “regularly divert a portion of wages to financially support the unions and their political activity,” and that the teachers “never gave legally valid consent for these deductions and have expressly objected to the deductions.”
The California Teachers Association did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
The lawsuit also said Becerra had failed to enforce a decision made last summer by the U.S. Supreme Court that found government workers couldn’t be forced to contribute to labor unions representing them.
The landmark 5-4 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees scrapped a 41-year-old decision that had allowed states to require public employees to pay some fees to unions that represent them.
The ruling fulfilled a longtime wish of President Trump and conservatives to do away with the fair share fees non-members pay to unions in 22 states; the court stated that the laws violated the First Amendment by compelling workers to support unions with which they may disagree.
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“Great news today for America’s public servants, like teachers, police officers, and firefighters, who will no longer be forced to join a union or political organization and financially support leadership they disagree with,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., tweeted on Wednesday. “This is a victory for free speech!”
The ruling, however, was immediately slammed by union leaders as a blow to working-class Americans.
“In this case, a bare majority of the court, over the vigorous dissent of four justices, has conceded to the dark web of corporations and wealthy donors who wish to take away the freedoms of working people,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “[I]t will further empower the corporate elites in their efforts to thwart the aspirations of millions of working people standing together for a better life.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
Progressive groups are reaching out to 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to support their push to expand the number of Supreme Court justices in order to diminish the current conservative majority.
So far, the drive by the group named ‘Pack the Courts’ is getting two maybes from Democratic presidential contenders and a no from a likely White House hopeful.
IT COULD BE AN HISTORIC YEAR FOR THE SUPREME COURT
“I don’t think we should be laughing at it,” South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat, said last week at an event in Philadelphia.
“Because in some ways it’s no more a shattering of norms than what’s already been done to get the judiciary to where it is today,” added Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran who last month launched a presidential exploratory committee.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who’s also launched a presidential exploratory committee, said last month on ‘Pod Save America’ that expanding the court or imposing term limits were “interesting ideas.”
But the move to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court isn’t flying with likely White House contender Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“I wouldn’t. I think nine is good number. It’s worked for our country,” the four-term Democratic congressman from California told Fox News on Monday after he headlined ‘Politics and Eggs,” a must stop for White House hopefuls in New Hampshire.
“I don’t want to let these extraordinary times that President Trump has put us in lead us to too many extraordinary remedies,” the former prosecutor explained. “I’d rather see us go back to a country of following the law, having qualified justices, and depending on the systems of government that we already have in place, just making those systems more accountable and work better.”
SWALWELL SAYS HE WAS ‘RIGHTFULLY’ SCHOOLED ON TWITTER
‘Pack the Courts’ told Fox News it is meeting with Buttigieg on Monday evening. The group highlighted that it’s in the process of reaching out to Gillibrand, as well as the campaigns of presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California.
“We’re in the process of reaching to every declared Democratic contender and hope to both enlighten them to the importance of this strategy for taking back the Court and enlist their support for their strategy,” ‘Pack the Court’ campaign manager Kate Kendell said.
Kendell said her group has received a $500,000 grant from the Palm Center, a progressive-leaning but independent non-partisan think tank in California to fund research on controversial and provocative policy proposals. She added they’re now beginning to raise small-dollar donations from individuals to further fuel their effort to expand the number of high court justices.
The organization is partnering with ‘Demand Justice,’ another progressive group founded last year to try and counter GOP efforts to put more conservatives into federal courts.
‘Demand Justice’ director Brian Fallon – who served as press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign – highlighted that “we strongly believe that reforming the Court — especially by expanding it — is the cornerstone for re-building American democracy."
But Republicans say advocating to expand the number of Supreme Court justices will make 2020 Democratic contenders appear more extreme to voters come the general election.
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"Democrats are setting themselves up for failure in the general election by agreeing to every single progressive policy touted by the activist left including the Green New Deal, taxes on the wealthy, Medicare for All, and now packing the Supreme Court,” argued Sarah Dolan, executive director of the pro-GOP opposition research group ‘America Rising.’
The Judiciary Act of 1869 established the current number of nine justices for the Supreme Court. A push by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937 to increase the number of justices failed.
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The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the decisive vote in a California pay dispute case before a lower court doesn’t count — because the vote came from a judge who died before the ruling was issued.
The case from the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals involved a dispute over pay filed by a Fresno County government employee.
STEPHEN REINHARDT, CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, ‘PROGRESSIVE ICON,’ DIES AT 87
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was seen as a progressive icon on the bench, heard the dispute and participated in a preliminary vote. The appeals court then issued an opinion in his name nine days after he passed away in March 2018.
But the high court, vacating the decision of a federal appeals court, said Monday that “federal judges are appointed for life, not for eternity.”
“The upshot is that Judge Reinhardt’s vote made a difference,” said the Supreme Court in its unsigned ruling. “Was that lawful?”
The justices said it was not. “Because Judge Reinhardt was no longer a judge at the time when the en banc decision in the case was filed, the 9th Circuit erred in counting him as a member of the majority.”
The Supreme Court itself follows the same practice.
The votes of Justice Antonin Scalia issued after his sudden death three years ago did not count, even though he had participated in a number of argued cases earlier in the court’s term. No decision is official until it is formally released by the court, and every member of the court must be on the bench at the time.
Reinhardt was one of the longest-serving federal judges when he died at age 87, and one of the most liberal on the 9th Circuit. He was appointed to the federal bench in 1980 by President Carter.
The case was sent back to the 9th Circuit for reconsideration.
Reinhardt died of a heart attack last year during a visit to a dermatologist in Los Angeles, the court spokesperson said.
When he died, Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, called Reinhardt "one of the greatest jurists of our time. A searingly brilliant Angeleno and true progressive icon."
SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE IF WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL ‘PEACE CROSS’ CAN STAND
He was considered a liberal stalwart on the bench. He wrote in one opinion that a Trump administration order to deport a man who entered the country illegally nearly three decades ago and became a respected businessman in Hawaii was “inhumane” and “contrary to the values of the country and its legal system.”
In 2012, he wrote an opinion that struck down California’s gay marriage ban. He also wrote a 1996 opinion that struck down a Washington state law that prohibited doctors from prescribing medication to help terminally ill patients die.
He was among the federal judges who decided that overcrowding in California’s prison system was unconstitutional.
Reinhardt joined another judge in ruling that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional, a decision that was later overturned.
Fox News’ Amy Lieu and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
On the heels of controversial late-term abortion legislation from New York and Virginia in January and an early February Supreme Court ruling blocking a Louisiana state law that would have restricted access to the procedure, the latest Fox News Poll finds that voters remain divided on the issue.
The poll, conducted February 10-12 and released Wednesday, finds 44 percent of voters identifying as pro-life, while 46 percent are pro-choice. That is similar to July 2018: 42 percent pro-life vs. 45 percent pro-choice.
Democrats (72 percent), women (52 percent), and voters under age 45 (53 percent) are nearly equally as likely to be pro-choice as Republicans (71 percent), men (49 percent), and those over 45 (51 percent) are to be pro-life. Independents are split, 42 percent pro-life vs. 43 percent pro-choice.
CLICK TO READ THE COMPLETE POLL RESULTS.
And when asked about their familiarity with the most famous of abortion cases, Roe v. Wade, just under half (48 percent) say they are “extremely” or “very” familiar with the ruling while the exact same number are “somewhat” or “not at all” familiar.
Moreover, 57 percent of voters say the Supreme Court should let the 46-year old ruling stand; that number jumps to 68 percent among those who are familiar with the case.
Majorities of Democrats (73 percent), voters ages 45 and over (63 percent), women (59 percent), Catholics (59 percent), and men (54 percent) all feel the case should be left alone. Even pluralities of Republicans (43 percent stand vs. 37 percent overturn) and Protestants (49-29 percent) would let the ruling stand.
On January 22, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Reproductive Health Act, which allows for abortions after 24 weeks if a woman’s health is at risk or if the fetus is not viable. Additionally, a law introduced in early January by a Democratic lawmaker in Virginia would have also loosened restrictions on late-term abortions, but the bill was set aside.
So how do voters feel about late-term abortions? Voters take a more nuanced view about late-term abortions than the traditional pro-choice/pro-life divide. One-in-ten (11 percent) think a woman’s right to have an abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy should “always” be legal, while 43 percent say “only in some circumstances,” and 37 percent say “never.”
Majorities of Republicans (58 percent) and white evangelical Christians (61 percent) think late-term abortions should be wholly illegal. Republican women (65 percent) are among the most opposed to third-trimester abortion.
Among women overall, 52 percent are pro-choice and 54 percent say third-trimester abortions should either be legal in all (11 percent) or some circumstances (43 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) (formerly named Anderson Robbins Research) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from February 10-12, 2019. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.
Source: Fox News Politics
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled to drastically curb the powers that states and cities have to levy fines and seize property, marking the first time the court has applied the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines at the state level.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who returned to the court for the first time in almost two months after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, wrote the majority opinion in the case involving an Indiana man who had his Land Rover seized after he was arrested for selling $385 of heroin.
“Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history for good reason: Such fines undermine other liberties," Ginsburg wrote. “They can be used, e.g., to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. They can also be employed, not in service of penal purposes, but as a source of revenue.”
JUSTICE GINSBURG MAKES FIRST VISIT TO SUPREME COURT SINCE LUNG CANCER SURGERY
While the ruling was unanimous, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion outlining different reasons for reaching the same conclusion — namely, that "the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." Ginsburg’s opinion was based on the due process clause of the same amendment.
The Supreme Court, with its ruling, sent the case of Tyson Timbs back to a lower court to decide if Indiana officials went too far in seizing Timbs’ Land Rover. Timbs, who bought the Land Rover for $42,000 in January 2013, was arrested a few months later for selling heroin and pleaded guilty.
Timbs, who was sentenced to one year of home detention and five years of probation, argues that the forfeiture of his vehicle was disproportionate to the $10,000 maximum fine he faced for selling heroin.
The high court’s ruling could now limit the ability for states and cities to carry out what critics – on both sides of the political divide – say is an increasingly common practice of imposing steep fines and seizing property.
Timbs’ legal team, at the Institute for Justice, cast the decision as a blow against the practice of civil forfeiture, the legal process by which law enforcement officers are able to take assets from people suspected of involvement in a crime without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing.
The same group has focused on similar issues for years. “I can’t think of any other issue that enjoys such cross-aisle support,” Darpana Sheth, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, told Fox News in 2017.
DOJ ASKS SUPREME COURT TO TAKE UP CASE OF MILITARY TRANSGENDER BAN
The Constitution’s ban on excessive fines, meanwhile, is enshrined in the Eighth Amendment and, while originally it only applied at the federal level, the Supreme Court since the 1960s has incorporated many of those rights at the state level under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.
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Since 2014, more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws either limiting forfeiture or making the process more transparent.
New Mexico now requires a criminal conviction before any property is seized, and police in Florida need to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that property was linked to a crime before it’s seized. Arizona raised the burden on law enforcement to prove property was used in a crime from a preponderance of evidence to clear and convincing evidence, while Mississippi passed a law enacting a slew of provisions aimed at bringing more transparency to the practice.
Source: Fox News Politics
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