Category Archives: Courts

The Ground Zero Cross and Atheists

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American Atheists filed suit three years ago against having this symbol included in the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which officially opened late last month. Their suit was tossed forthwith as baseless; US District Court Judge Deborah Batts wrote

No reasonable observer would view the artifact as endorsing Christianity. [The museum curators] have not advanced religion impermissibly, and the cross does not create excessive entanglement between the state and religion.

The group appealed to the Second Circuit which responded by instructing American Atheists actually to make a case and not just bellyache, and to do so by 14 July. In so instructing, the Appellate Court cited an amicus brief provided by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty which argued among other things that

Courts should not allow people to sue just because they claim to get “dyspepsia” over a historical artifact displayed in a museum.

As Eric Baxter, Senior Counsel for Religious Liberty noted,

Taking personal offense is not an injury that warrants invoking the power of the courts to shut down everything you disagree with. The Constitution is not a personal tool for censoring everyone’s beliefs but your own.

Indeed.

The Courts Get Another One Right

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Quartavius Davis was convicted of robbing, in 2010, seven stores in and around Miami and sentenced to roughly 162 years in prison. His prosecutors based their case, in large part, on cellphone records that placed Davis near the scene.

The evidence included records of the cell towers to which their phones were connected when they placed and received calls, according to court documents.

These data were obtained solely on the basis of a claim “that the records were relevant and material to an ongoing investigation.”

The 11th Circuit demurred. Writing for a unanimous court, Judge David Sentelle wrote in part

[I]t cannot be denied that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures shields the people from the warrantless interception of electronic data or sound waves carrying communications. The next step of analysis, then, is to inquire whether that protection covers not only content, but also the transmission itself when it reveals information about the personal source of the transmission, specifically his location.

And [emphasis added]

One’s cell phone, unlike an automobile, can accompany its owner anywhere. Thus, the exposure of the cell site location information can convert what would otherwise be a private event into a public one. When one’s whereabouts are not public, then one may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those whereabouts.
…
There is a reasonable privacy interest in being near the home of a lover, or a dispensary of medication, or a place of worship, or a house of ill repute. [W]e do not see…Davis’s location outside his expectation of privacy.

And ultimately,

Cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation.

Yewbetcha.

A 4th Amendment warrant requires a showing of probable cause, a rather stricter standard than just the government claiming an interest. However, the matter isn’t closed with this ruling; the 5th and 6th Circuits have ruled that warrants are not needed in such cases. This points to an eventual Supreme Court case.

The 11th Circuit’s opinion can be read here.

Lawsuits

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The carrion-eaters are gathering.

Of all the problems haunting General Motors Co over its handling of defective ignition switches, the one with plaintiffs’ lawyers is just beginning.

The company’s size and self-confessed failures in an internal report released last week are attracting lawyers who forged some of the biggest civil settlements ever

And

It is common for bad headlines and deep pockets to lure plaintiffs’ lawyers—and a pile of lawsuits. In 2012, BP PLC agreed to pay at least $7.8 billion to end litigation over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Toyota settled for about $1.1 billion with owners of about 16 million cars affected by unintended-acceleration problems. Plaintiffs’ lawyers collected about $227 million in fees and costs.

And

Mark Robinson, [a] Newport Beach, CA lawyer…won a $127 million jury verdict in 1978 against Ford Motor Co….

Mr Robinson is hoping to be a major force in the GM ignition-switch suits. Also maneuvering for influence is Elizabeth Cabraser of San Francisco, a leader in litigation over the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, breast implants and the drugs Vioxx and Fen-Phen. The two lawyers are co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in personal-injury cases against Toyota.

But of course….

Another Correct Court Ruling

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And, again, it comes in the area of free speech.

The 7th Circuit has ruled in Wisconsin Right to Life State v Timothy Vocke, a Wisconsin case concerning the permissible State government-imposed limits on political speech that Wisconsin’s law and a host of implementing rules are unconstitutional.

The Court’s unanimous ruling held, among other things, that

  • the state’s corporate-speech ban is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling
  • the cap on the amount a corporation may spend on fundraising for an affiliated political committee is unconstitutional
  • the lengthy disclaimer requirement under state Government Accountability Board’s regulation is unconstitutional as applied to 30-second radio ads and ads of shorter duration
  • the statutory definition of “political purposes,” section 11.01(16), and the regulatory definition of “political committee,” GAB § 1.28(1)(a), are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad in the sense meant by federal court precedent.

This also is likely to cut the underpinnings out from beneath the Democrats’ secret John Doe investigations of exactly these sorts of organizations, which Star Chamber “investigations” are centered on exactly these now acknowledged to be unconstitutional grounds.

The ruling can be seen here.