Results tagged “supremecourt”

It was on this day last year that the District's longstanding and long controversial ban on handguns was upended, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such blanket prohibitions were an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. More broadly, though, what had been the country's strictest regulations of a specific type of gun gave the majority of the court the chance to rule that the Second Amendment granted an individual, not collective right to gun ownership. And it was all because of a District resident whose name now graces the case file: Dick Heller.

Obama is set to nominate appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court seat vacated by David Souter at press conference this a.m. Sotomayor has been a front-runner for several weeks and received some, er, enthusiastic critiques from legal observers, like TNR's Jeffrey Rosen, who quoted anonymous law clerks to portray the Yale and Princeton grad as "not that smart." Sotomayor made her way to the Ivies after growing up in a housing project in the Bronx. Should make for interesting confirmation hearings. If she makes it, Sotomayor will be the third woman in the history of the court, the second on the current bench, and the first Latina.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) today ended a two-week moratorium on lethal injections after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution method did not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Today the Post is reporting some big, if symbolic news -- Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) decided yesterday to impose a moratorium on executions until the U.S. Supreme Court can issue a ruling on a case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections. Kaine's announcement directly stayed two upcoming executions.

Walter Dellinger has argued before the Supreme Court on many occasions. In fact, according to a Post profile of the lawyer and academic, he's been in front of the nine justices often this year -- three times in the last four weeks. And while yesterday's argument may have been one of the most historic, it probably wasn't the most fun.

Since we couldn't get into the Supreme Court itself and hardly consider ourselves legal experts, we're going to...link to someone else that's live-blogging the audio proceedings.

A little more than a year separates when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Circuit first called the District's gun laws unconstitutional, and the final test those laws will face today before the U.S. Supreme Court. And in a matter of hours, the case will have been heard, the audio of the proceedings will be released, and months of conjecture will fill the space until the justices actually issue a final ruling.

With the March 18 hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the D.C. gun ban fast approaching, there's been a lot of news we've missed.

...historically Congress has interpreted the Second Amendment as recognizing the right of law-abiding individuals to keep and bear arms. This Court should give due deference to the repeated findings over different historical epochs by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, that the Amendment guarantees the personal right to possess firearms. The District’s prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable per se.

"While the District of Columbia is not a state, it operates under a framework of laws enacted by the Congress which gives its elected leaders the duty to advocate the positions and interest of its citizens before the federal judiciary."

When District lawyers face the Supreme Court in March to defend the city's ban on handguns, they'll not only be fighting to save a local policy -- they'll also be asking the court to decide whether the Second Amendment protects gun ownership in an individual capacity or only under the auspices of a state-run militia.

Good morning, Washington. Supporters of Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Barack Obama are riding high off their caucus victories in Iowa last night, but locally, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to suffer some bumps in the road after one year in office. Just weeks after the resignation of Attorney General Linda Singer, Fenty's former deputy chief of staff, Neil Richardson, has also resigned. Richardson, who was a key Fenty aide during his mayoral campaign, had been moved out of Fenty's "bullpen" in October and placed in an office called Serve DC, where he was tasked with creating a volunteer program to help the school system. Yesterday Richardson decided that the demotion, which came, according to the Post, after Richardson complained to the mayor that he was not listening enough to the public on key decisions, wasn't worth sticking around for, and tendered his resignation. WTOP has excerpts from Richardson's resignation letter, which reiterates complaints heard from others about Fenty's dictatorial governing style.

As we mentioned at the end of the day yesterday, Acting D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has fired Alan Morrison, the lawyer who had been preparing to defend the District's handgun ban before the Supreme Court in March. The timing of this move leads to all manner of questions about how seriously the Fenty administration actually takes this Supreme Court case, and whether the Mayor and the Acting AG are capable of putting important legal proceedings above personal disagreements.

>> The D.C. attorney who wrote the 15,000-word gun ban brief was fired, just as the city prepares to defend its position to the U.S. Supreme Court. [NBC4]

It looks like Virginia's gunnin' for a fight -- pun intended.

Big news from the Washington Post: D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer has resigned after less than a year on the job.

Good morning, Washington. It turns out that House Pages don't need lecherous congressmen's help to make scandalous headlines: two have just gotten busted for inappropriate behavior in a House elevator. They've been dismissed, bringing the year's total fired pages to five — two others were caught shoplifting, and one was booted for fighting. Needless to say, it looks like the program — the oversight of which has been in turmoil — will be getting...

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and...

The Supreme Court has announced that it will take on Heller v. District of Columbia, the D.C. handgun case, and decide whether our city's ban on handguns violates the Constitution. The Court will likely hear the case sometime in March, with a decision to come later in the session. The case will mark the first time the Court has taken up the meaning of the Second Amendment in almost 70 years, and the decision could...

We've always wondered:Where the police have reason to believe that a suspect is concealing cocaine between his buttocks cheeks, is it reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for the police, at the scene of the arrest, to reach into the suspect's undershorts and seize the cocaine as a search incident to the suspect's arrest?While this might sound like a late-night joke between first-year law students, it's actually a question the U.S. Supreme Court is set to...

...ummm, nothing yet. According to the Associated Press, the Supreme Court failed to reach a decision on whether or not to hear a case related to the District's gun laws. Though a verdict from last week's conference discussion was possible today, it seems that the nine justices haven't yet decided if they want to take the case, which stems from a March decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Circuit that ruled...

Good morning, Washington. Recent increases in gun-related crime in the city seems to be today's main topic of news, just as the Supreme Court may announce today whether it intends to take another look at D.C.'s handgun ban. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has scheduled a press conference this morning to address the District's position on its gun safety law, but in the meantime the Washington Post is questioning the law's effectiveness and just last...

Good morning, D.C. The federal government is observing Veteran's Day today, which means Washington is much quieter than normal this morning. The chilly, wet weather certainly isn't helping make the work day, for those of us who are at our desks, any more inviting. Keep in mind that post offices, banks, schools and local government offices are closed for the day as well. Coal Train Clean-up Continues: Workers are still out cleaning up the site...

In the coming weeks District officials will find out whether a Court of Appeals decision that found the city's gun laws unconstitutional will stand or whether the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Mayor Adrian Fenty's appeal. According to SCOTUSBlog, the justices of the Supreme Court will debate whether or not to take the case on November 9. Should they choose to, the two sides would argue before the court in February or March; otherwise,...

Good morning, Washington. Flickr user zenfrisbee went down to the West Lawn yesterday to catch the festivities surrounding the Dalai Lama's visit and acceptance of a Congressional Gold Medal. China, naturally, had "solemnly demanded" the cancellation of the event, which saw President Bush appear with the Dalai Lama in public -- something no sitting U.S. president has done before. Bush dismissed China's concerns over the event, saying he didn't think it would severely damage relations...

In England, being named poet laureate is a lot like being named to the U.S. Supreme Court: once there, you're there for life. More importantly, you're expected to be the living, breathing embodiment of a tradition, of an institution constructed entirely of words, texts, precedent. And, though you aren't expected to wear robes when performing your job, you are expected to pen occasional verses on the birth of a royal or on the opening of...

On Wednesday night, Washington Performing Arts Society opened its fall classical music season with a spectacular concert by the La Scala Philharmonic. Notably it did so not at the Kennedy Center, which has long been the organization's main venue, but at the newer and growing Music Center at Strathmore. In spite of the suburban location, which doubled this disgruntled city dweller's car trip, a VIP box at house left held such distinguished guests as First...

>> D.C. United and Chivas Guadalajara renew their budding rivalry this evening. The match is part of the Copa Nissan Sudamericana, a 34-team invitational tournament featuring the best clubs of South America and several North American teams looking to crash the party. The match could be one of the most entertaining, competitive affairs this season. United aims to atone for their first round exit from the tournament two years ago; they also seek to...

"Books," wrote the poet Philip Larkin, "are a load of crap." No doubt Larkin, one of the most gifted lyric poets of the 20th century and a career librarian at the University of Hull, was being ironic. But irony or no, the participants and sponsors of this Saturday's National Book Festival vehemently disagree. Held every year for the last six years on the National Mall -- rain or shine -- the festival brings together marquee-name...

MONDAY: The Beauty Myth author Naomi Wolf will be at the Arlington County Public Library in Shirlington to read from her new book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, in which Wolf outlines how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century's worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile. 5 p.m., free. TUESDAY: Erudite actor Alan Alda will...

Neither Mozart nor Hockey Themed Washington works hard to burnish its dining credentials. D.C. fat cats who are literally fat need somewhere to eat, and they're not going to throw down lobbyist dollars for just any slop. No. D.C. is a dining destination, beckoning the up-and-coming chefs and their myriad foodie followers. People are noticing, too. From the New York Times to the National Geographic Traveler, we're a getting noticed -- enough so that a...