2017 U.S. Attorney General Memo on Religious Liberty (Filed in zBLC/ChurchOrganization/FirstAmendmentLaw/AGMemoReligiousLiberty2017)
Contents (with summaries. Issues which the following cases decide. See below these Contents for more details):
Filming the Police: Get to Know Your Rights (021218)(Short, up-to-date summary by Sarah Mills. Reproduced below.)
2. The right to pray in Jesus’ name. TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK v. GALLOWAY ET AL.
3. The words “Under God” may be spoken by school children saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
4. Freedom of press victory. Renna v. County of Union
5. Texas Appeal Court reverses trial court conviction of street preachers arrested for crossing a police line. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reverses Texas Appeal Court and reinstates convictions. United States Supreme Court denied cert.
6. U.S. S. Ct. rules 9-0 in striking down a Massachusetts law creating 35 foot buffer zones around abortion clinics, another great victory for free speech. MCCULLEN ET AL. v. COAKLEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS, ET AL.
7. Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC., ET AL
8. HSLDA files and wins fourth amendment federal suit where police forced their way in to house without a warrant.
9. Life Legal Defense Fund files 1983 action in case where judge trashed First Amendment to endorse police harassment of pro-life advocates.
10. Notre Dame v. Burwell, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-392. The U.S. Supreme Court revived the University of Notre Dame’s religious objections to the requirement for contraception coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, throwing out a lower court decision in favor of the federal government.
11. Anthony D. Elonis v. United States of America, Supreme Court, June 1, 2015. Ruling in a case that will significantly impact expression on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, a near-unanimous U.S. Supreme Court declared that threats made over the Internet are protected unless they are malevolent or reckless.
12. In OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL (June 26, 2015) The Supreme Court, under the leadership of the God of this world, rebels against the highest authority by allegedly legalizing same-sex marriage. “Civil marriage” is no marriage at all, just a Satanic means to destroy God’s covenant marriage.
13. Bible Believers v. Wayne County, Michigan (October 28, 2015, U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)(The court restates protection of even loathsome speech and tells the police that it is their duty to protect the speaker and the speech.)
14. Rock band ‘The Slants’ takes on Supreme Court (011617). This article introduced an important free speech issue. On June 15, 2017, all 8 judges sided came out in favor of free speech, even though the speech might be deemed offensive. The justices ruled that the 71-year-old trademark law barring disparaging terms infringes free speech rights.
15. States must allow same-sex married couples to be listed as father, mother on birth certificate, Supreme Court rules on June 26, 2017.
16. This opinion (United States vs. County of Culpeper) raises serious questions about how an abusive and intrusive effort was launched to go after Christian pastors and to ask them to reveal their beliefs about Islam even after a case settled.
17. Packingham v. North Carolina, S.Ct., June 19, 2017 struck down a state law which banned certain criminals from access to social media.
18. Liberal judge in Arizona attempts to bring chaos to the justice system.
19. With Obamacare, civil government took another step toward the destruction of freedom in America by telling individuals that they must do something. More attacks on individual freedom continue in the courts. See the following articles for more on this.
20. In a pivotal free speech decision issued June 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against government-compelled speech in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. The ruling strikes down a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers to provide free advertising for the abortion industry and affirmed that the government can’t force Americans to express messages with which they disagree.
Posts covering various other legal issues:
- Reasonable Suspicion: Police Must Possess A Sufficient Level Of Knowledge With Specific And Articulable Facts In Order To Conduct A Stop And Frisk
- Your Identity Is Not Private As A Matter Of Law: Identity Is Not Suppressible Under The Fourth Amendment
- Pat-Down Searches and the Search Incident to Arrest Doctrine
- Like Greta Garbo said, “I Want To Be Alone…And The Police Should Leave Me That Way”: Your Constitutional Right To Be Left Alone.
- Allowing Police To Search Your Home: How Far Can They Go?
- The New York Court of Appeals puts another nail in the coffin of the Fourth Amendment: Police Officers’ Mistaken Understanding Of The Law Justifies The Stop.
1. The right to film police during routine traffic stops and in other settings and qualified immunity of police in such a case, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, May 23, 2013. CARLA GERICKE, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. GREGORY C. BEGIN, WEARE POLICE CHIEF, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL AND OFFICIAL CAPACITIES; JAMES J. CARNEY, LIEUTENANT, WEARE POLICE DEPARTMENT, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL AND OFFICIAL CAPACITIES; JOSEPH KELLEY, SERGEANT, WEARE POLICE DEPARTMENT, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL AND OFFICIAL CAPACITIES; BRANDON MONTPLAISIR, POLICE OFFICER, WEARE POLICE DEPARTMENT, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL AND OFFICIAL CAPACITIES, Defendants, Appellants.
Filming the Police: Get to Know Your Rights (021218)(Short, up-to-date summary by Sarah Mills. Reproduced below.)
2. The Supreme Court says the First Amendment clearly protects the right to pray in “Jesus’ name”, May 5, 2014. TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK v. GALLOWAY ET AL., No. 12-696. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it’s OK for pastors to pray “in Jesus’ name” at city council meetings. Five opinions were written in Greece v. Galloway, with three supporting opinions and two opposing.
Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority (joined by Roberts and Alito), ruling: “The town of Greece does not violate the First Amendment by opening its meetings with prayer that comports with our tradition, and does not coerce participation by nonadherents.” “To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech,” Kennedy wrote. [Read all the opinions here.]
A concurring opinion by Justices Thomas and Scalia went further, declaring the government does not coerce others to pray simply by allowing freedom of speech. They argued a ‘coercion’ test would be satisfied “only if a local government had actually compelled people to be followers of one faith, such as requiring people to go to religious services or to pay taxes to pay for religious institutions,” reports SCOTUS blog.
The four liberal justices tried but failed to ban Jesus prayers, but complained nonetheless.
Justice Kagan wrote for the minority: “even in a partly legislative body, [citizens] should not confront government-sponsored worship that divides them along religious lines.” Kagan was predictably joined by Sotomayor and Ginsburg. Justice Breyer wrote his own dissenting opinion.
Justice Alito corrected the facts in Kagan’s dissent in a fifth opinion, saying “when complaints were received, the town made it clear that it would permit any interested residents, including nonbelievers, to provide an invocation, and the town has never refused a request to offer an invocation.”
Article: “Opinion analysis: Prayers get a new blessing,” by Lyle Denniston, May 5, 2014.
3. The state Supreme Court of Massachusetts dismissed an atheist lawsuit and declared the words “Under God” may be spoken by school children saying the Pledge of Allegiance. The unanimous Court rejected the American Humanist Association’s argument that recitation of the Pledge discriminates against atheist schoolchildren,” reports Becket Fund. Stating that recitation of the Pledge is completely optional, the Court ruled that no child must be silenced from reaffirming timeless American ideals because others disagree. Chief Justice Roderick Ireland, writing for the unanimous court, stated “Here there is no discriminatory classification for purposes of art. 106 — no differing treatment of any class or classes of students based on their sex, race, color, creed, or national origin. All students are treated alike.” Read about the case which has links to briefs and other documents and articles at the following link: The Pledge of Allegiance Cases. Listen to a PIJN report on this and other matters by clicking the blue link.
4. Renna v. County of Union: “In a victory for the First Amendment, especially as it relates to freedom of the press, a federal court has ruled in favor of a political activist’s right to display a county government seal in the background of her public access television show. Rejecting Union County’s claim that activist Tina Renna was infringing on trademark protections associated with the seal, U.S. District Court Judge Kevin McNulty asserted that Renna’s use of the seal is protected by the First Amendment and that the County’s infringement claims were a baseless attempt to impede her free expression in the pursuit of increased government transparency.” See article “First Amendment Victory: Federal Court Rules in Favor of Rutherford Institute Lawsuit Over Citizen Activist’s Right to Display Union County Seal on TV Show.”
5. Click the following to go to article from June 13, 2014: “VICTORY: Texas Court Affirms First Amendment Rights of Street Preachers Arrested for Engaging in Sidewalk Protest and Crossing a Police Line.” Click the following to go to the Texas Court of Appeals opinion: Faust v. Texas (The Texas Second District Court of Appeals held: “Having sustained Appellants’ issue, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and render a judgment of acquittal.”). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed: “For the reasons discussed herein, we hold that Section 38.15(a)(1) was not unconstitutionally applied to appellants. Therefore, we reverse the decision of the Second Court of Appeals, and we order that the trial court judgments be reinstated.” Click here to go to the PDF of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinion. Cert was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court: FAUST v. TEXAS, No. 16-203. 137 S.Ct. 620 (2017) Joey Darrell FAUST and Ramon Marroquin, petitioners, v. TEXAS. Supreme Court of United States. January 9, 2017. Petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas denied.
6. MCCULLEN ET AL. v. COAKLEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS, ET AL. struck down a state law creating 35 foot buffer zones around abortion clinics. This case, which was handed down on June 26, 2014, repeated basic and long-standing Supreme Court jurisprudence concerning speech in the public forum. Some excerpts from the case follow (be sure to read the entire case – click to the above link to go directly to the case):
Held: The Massachusetts Act violates the First Amendment. Pp. 8–30. (a) By its very terms, the Act restricts access to “public way[s]” and “sidewalk[s],” places that have traditionally been open for speech activities and that the Court has accordingly labeled “traditional public fora,” Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 469. The government’s ability to regulate speech in such locations is “very limited.” United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171, 177. “[E]ven in a public forum,” however, “the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech, provided the restrictions ‘are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information,’ ” Ward, supra, at 791. Pp. 8–10….
(1) The buffer zones serve the Commonwealth’s legitimate interests in maintaining public safety on streets and sidewalks and in preserving access to adjacent reproductive healthcare facilities. See Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western N. Y., 519 U. S. 357, 376. At the same time, however, they impose serious burdens on petitioners’ speech, depriving them of their two primary methods of communicating with arriving patients: close, personal conversations and distribution of literature. Those forms of expression have historically been closely associated with the transmission of ideas. While the Act may allow petitioners to “protest” outside the buffer zones, petitioners are not protestors; they seek not merely to express their opposition to abortion, but to engage in personal, caring, consensual conversations with women about various alternatives. It is thus no answer to say that petitioners can still be seen and heard by women within the buffer zones. If all that the women can see and hear are vociferous opponents of abortion, then the buffer zones have effectively stifled petitioners’ message. Pp. 19–23.
(2) The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the Commonwealth’s asserted interests. Subsection (e) of the Act already prohibits deliberate obstruction of clinic entrances. Massachusetts could also enact legislation similar to the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, 18 U. S. C. §248(a)(1), which imposes criminal and civil sanctions for obstructing, intimidating, or interfering with persons obtaining or providing reproductive health services. Obstruction of clinic driveways can readily be addressed through existing local traffic ordinances. While the Commonwealth contends that individuals can inadvertently obstruct access to clinics simply by gathering in large numbers, that problem could be addressed through a law requiring crowds blocking a clinic entrance to disperse for a limited period when ordered to do so by the police. In any event, crowding appears to be a problem onlyat the Boston clinic, and even there, only on Saturday mornings.
It is no accident that public streets and sidewalks have developed as venues for the exchange of ideas. Even today, they remain one of the few places where a speaker can be confident that he is not simply preaching to the choir. With respect to other means of communication, an individual confronted with an uncomfortable message can always turn the page, change the channel, or leave the Web site. Not so on public streets and sidewalks. There, a listener often encounters speech he might otherwise tune out. In light of the First Amendment’s purpose “to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail,” FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 U. S. 364, 377 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted), this aspect of traditional public fora is a virtue, not a vice. In short, traditional public fora are areas that have historically been open to the public for speech activities. Thus, even though the Act says nothing about speech on its face, there is no doubt—and respondents do not dispute—that it restricts access to traditional public fora and is therefore subject to First Amendment scrutiny. See Brief for Respondents 26 (although “[b]y its terms, the Act regulates only conduct,” it “incidentally regulates the place and time of protected speech”).
In short, traditional public fora are areas that have historically been open to the public for speech activities. Thus, even though the Act says nothing about speech on its face, there is no doubt—and respondents do not dispute—that it restricts access to traditional public fora and is therefore subject to First Amendment scrutiny. See Brief for Respondents 26 (although “[b]y its terms, the Act regulates only conduct,” it “incidentally regulates the place and time of protected speech”). Consistent with the traditionally open character of public streets and sidewalks, we have held that the government’s ability to restrict speech in such locations is “very limited.” Grace, supra, at 177. In particular, the guiding First Amendment principle that the “government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content” applies with full force in a traditional public forum. Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95 (1972). As a general rule, in such a forum the government may not “selectively . . . shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others.” Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 209 (1975).
Links to a couple of articles dealing with the McCullen v. Oakley
Supreme Court strikes down abortion clinic buffer zone, June 26, 2014, Richard Wolf, USA Today
Supreme Court, 9-0, nixes 35 foot ‘buffer zone’ at abortion clinic, June 26, 2014, Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor
Further developments:
Give And Take, Supreme Court Style (070314)(Analysis of Mcullen)
Life Legal Defense Foundation website (updates on cases dealing with abortion including suits against officials for violations of civil rights)
Mississippi’s Jackson Police Department Sued for Civil Rights Violations (072314)(Read the Complaint filed in the case by clicking here.)
7. BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC., ET AL decided June 30, 2014. In a 5-to-4 decision, ruled that the government could not force religious owners of Hobby Lobby and other closely-held, for-profit corporations to provide contraceptives that offend their religious faith to employees.
Jerald Finney agrees with the analysis in the following article: Here’s Why Hobby Lobby’s Victory Is No Victory At All
On Heels Of Hobby Lobby, Supreme Court Grants Stay For Religious College (07_14)
8. HSLDA files and wins fourth amendment federal suit where police forced their way in to house without a warrant.
Article: “Warrant? I Don’t Need no Stinking Warrant!
Read the complaint filed in this case by clicking here.
9. Article: Judge Trashes First Amendment to Endorse Police Harassment of Pro-Life Advocates; Notice of Appeal document; 1983 Complaint filed in the case –
10. Notre Dame v. Burwell, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-392. The U.S. Supreme Court revived the University of Notre Dame’s religious objections to the requirement for contraception coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, throwing out a lower court decision in favor of the federal government. See Scotusblog for links to briefs, etc.
11. Anthony D. Elonis v. United States of America, 575 U.S. ____ (2015). Ruling in a case that will significantly impact expression on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, a near-unanimous U.S. Supreme Court declared in this June 1, 2015 opinion, that threats made over the Internet are protected unless they are malevolent or reckless. See Scotusblog for links to amicus briefs, etc.
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12. In OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL (June 26, 2015) (Click to go directly to PDF of the opinion), the Supreme Court, under the leadership of the God of this world (See, Satan orchestrates the world system), has rebelled against the Highest authority, God, in allegedly legalizing marriage between two people of the same sex. Please realize that two people of the same sex cannot marry, no matter what the Supreme Court says. This is explained in other articles on this website (See below; see also, for example, The Hierarchy of Law as it relates to sodomy and sodomite marriage, Laws Protecting New Testament Churches in America: Read Them for Yourself, and Jerald Finney’s lecture on the Hierarchy of Law.).
13. Article: Anti-Muslim Slurs Get Legal Protection (102915); Link to the opinion: Bible Believers v. Wayne County, Michigan out of the Sixth Circuit on October 28, 2015. The court stated, among other things:
“Diversity, in viewpoints and among cultures, is not always easy. An inability or a general unwillingness to understand new or different points of view may breed fear, distrust and even loathing,” the justices wrote. “But … the First Amendment demands that we tolerate the viewpoints of others with whom we may disagree.”
The Sixth Circuit stressed that the First Amendment “envelops all manner of speech, even when that speech is loathsome in its intolerance, designed to cause offense, and, as a result of such offense, arouses violent retaliation.”
Attorney Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center, who argued the case on behalf of the Bible Believers, applauded the decision, saying it was “solidly on the side of free speech.”
“If this went the other way, it would incentivize violence as a legitimate response to free speech, and that is wrong in our country,” Muise said. “Any freedom-loving American enjoys protections of the First Amendment.”
The lawsuit was filed against Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and two deputies, who had argued that they had a right to protect the public from violence on the night of the festival, noting the Bible Believers had caused problems in the past. According to court documents, Bible Believers attended the Dearborn festival the year before and things got ugly: The evangelicals spewed hate messages; fights broke out; the Bible Believers were evicted.
The mayor of Minneapolis does not know the law. See “MINNEAPOLIS INSTALLS SHARIAH HOTLINE FOR ‘HATE SPEECH’ SNITCHES“(062217).
Stone Throwing Muslims Bloody Christians In Michigan; 6th Circuit To Rehear 2012 Dearborne Case: A Free-Speech Start! (Articles). The 2012 case was originally dismissed by the 6th Circuit which has agreed to rehear the case.
14. Rock band ‘The Slants’ takes on Supreme Court (011617). This article introduced an important free speech issue. On June 15, 2017, all 8 judges sided came out in favor of free speech, even though the speech might be deemed offensive. The justices ruled that the 71-year-old trademark law barring disparaging terms infringes free speech rights. See, e.g., Opinion: At Supreme Court, the Slants Are ‘Fighting for More Than a Band Name’; Justices side with Portland rock band The Slants in trademark dispute; google, e.g., “oriental rock group slant” for more articles and info.
The PDF of the Supreme Court opinion, can be accessed by clicking the following link: MATAL, INTERIM DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE v. TAM
The Supreme Court stated, among other things: “Simon Tam, lead singer of the rock group “The Slants,” chose this moniker in order to “reclaim” the term and drain its denigrating force as a derogatory term for Asian persons. Tam sought federal registration of the mark “THE SLANTS.” The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) denied the application under a Lanham Act provision prohibiting the registration of trademarks that may “disparage . . . or bring . . . into contemp[t] or disrepute” any “persons, living or dead.” 15 U. S. C. §1052(a). Tam contested the denial of registration through the administrative appeals process, to no avail. He then took the case to federal court, where the en banc Federal Circuit ultimately found the disparagement clause facially unconstitutional under theFirst Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.
Held: The judgment is affirmed. “
15. Article: States must allow same-sex married couples to be listed as father, mother on birth certificate, Supreme Court rules on June 26, 2017. TheSupreme Court case overturned the holding of the Arkansas Supreme Court. On December 8, 2016, the Arkansas Supreme Court [official website] on Thursday overturned [opinion, PDF] a ruling that allowed all married same-sex couples to get the names of both spouses on their child’s birth certificate.
Two female same-sex couples petitioned the Supreme Court to review their case, which fought the Arkansas Department of Health’s issuance of birth certificates bearing only the birth mother’s name and not the female spouse. The health department’s decision adhered to a provision of Arkansas law, which was rejected by a trial court but kept in place by Arkansas Supreme Court.
On Monday, the high court reversed and remanded the Arkansas high court’s judgment in a per curiam opinion, meaning it was delivered on behalf of the entire court rather than signed by an individual justice writing the opinion. Justice Neil Gorsuch, however, issued a blistering dissent of the Supreme Court’s decision that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both joined.
See, for more details, Supreme Court rules Arkansas birth certificate law unconstitutional following legalization of same-sex marriage.
16. Article: Justice Department to Force Christian Pastor to Testify on Islam Views (September 4, 2017)
Article: Federal Court Dismisses Entire Justice Department Mosque Case (September 1, 2017).
Click here to go to the opinion in U.S. vs. County of Culpepper.
The article also links to a prior report on an outlandish effort to shake down a Christian pastor about his views on Islam by the Justice Department in an Obama-era holdover case.
In this case, a federal court entirely dismissed the Justice Department’s case.
United States District Court Judge Norman Moon ruled that the case was moot because the mosque settled with Culpeper County. The mosque obtained a settlement allowing it to pump and haul sewage from the land.
The opinion raises serious questions about how an abusive and intrusive effort was launched to go after Christian pastors and to ask them to reveal their beliefs about Islam even after a case settled.
17. Packingham v. North Carolina, S.Ct., June 19, 2017 struck down a state law which banned certain criminals from access to social media.
“Held: The North Carolina statute impermissibly restricts lawful speech in violation of the First Amendment. Pp. 4–10. (a) A fundamental First Amendment principle is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more. Today, one of the most important places to exchange views is cyberspace, particularly social media, which offers “relatively unlimited, low-cost capacity for communication of all kinds,” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 870, to users engaged in a wide array of protected First Amendment activity on any number of diverse topics. The Internet’s forces and directions are so new, so protean, and ….”
Google for articles on this case. One such article is:
Article: Packingham Decision Says More About The Power Of Facebook Than Sex Offenders
18. Article: ROGUE FEDERAL JUDGE PREPARING TO DECLARE TRUMP’S PARDON OF ARPAIO UNCONSTITUTIONAL (October 3, 2017). Liberal judge in Arizona attempts to bring chaos to the justice system.
19. With Obamacare, civil government took another step toward the destruction of freedom in America by telling individuals that they must do something. More attacks on individual freedom continue in the courts. See the following articles for more on this:
Cakes and the commercial marketplace (October 17, 2017)(The government is beginning to tell individuals what they must do: buy insurance or pay a fine, for example. Now, fornicators are beginning to asking the government to force people to violate their consciences and the Word of God in service to sinful lifestyles.)
What Masterpiece Cakeshop Is Really About (October 24, 2017)(Good article, with some minor mistakes; e.g., he says, “Under Christendom, Jews, Muslims, and unorthodox Christians were sometimes pressured or compelled to profess approved Christian doctrines: the Spanish Inquisition was sponsored not by the Church but by the monarchy.” Rule by Catholicism was not “Christendom.” Catholicism is not “Christian.” However, he makes some good points. It is not about the cake. Another quote from the article: “In this respect, the vendor-marriage cases are another instance in the centuries-old pattern in which governments have attempted to compel dissenters or outliers to publicly affirm and acquiesce to the dominant orthodoxy. That is precisely what the cases are all about.” He is right. Some of those governments were “ecclesiocracies” controlled by Catholicism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, or some other form of Protestantism.)
The Fourteenth Amendment and Masterpiece Cakeshop: Equal Citizenship, our Inclusive Republic, and Anglo-American Common Law (120517) by Christopher Green and David Upham. Christopher Green is Associate Professor of Law and H.L.A. Hart Scholar in Law and Philosophy at the University of Mississippi. David Upham is Director of Legal Studies and Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas. “… In sum, the common law and the original Republican understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment converge on the same intuitive argument in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop: America is an inclusive republic, where all citizens, regardless of race, color, creed, or way of life, have a right to participate in the marketplace, free from the creedal exclusions imposed by those armed with state coercive power, save perhaps where that citizen uses some monopoly power to exclude other citizens from the market. Colorado has sought to force the baker either to leave his profession or provide wedding-related services incompatible with his creed. He can have no duty to provide such services where the same-sex couple can obtain their wedding cake a short distance down the street.”
The Christian Baker’s Unanswered Legal Argument: Why the Strongest Objections Fail (112917) by Sherif Girgis. “The Supreme Court is about to decide whether a baker has a First Amendment right not to be compelled to design and create cakes celebrating same-sex weddings. The baker’s best legal argument is simple, and it survives the best objections filed by the ACLU and Progressive scholars.”
20. In a pivotal free speech decision issued Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against government-compelled speech in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. The ruling strikes down a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers to provide free advertising for the abortion industry and affirmed that the government can’t force Americans to express messages with which they disagree.
Article: US Supreme Court: Govt can’t force Americans to express messages they disagree with (062618)
Filming the Police: Get to Know Your Rights (021218):
If you’ve been paying attention to media coverage of the #J20 inauguration protests, you know that a year later, charges against 135 of the 188 defendants charged with felony rioting have been dropped, and a similar outcome is possible in the remaining cases. These arrests occurred as part of a tactic known as “kettling,” in which a group of people are swept into a small area and arrested en masse. Demonstrators, bystanders, journalists, medics, and legal observers were charged, and as a result, had their phones seized as evidence. For the latter group of defendants, legal observers, this meant that a piece of evidence commonly used in defending protesters – actual video footage of the arrests – has not been available to the attorneys working on these cases.
What are legal observers? Often trained by the National Lawyer’s Guild, a progressive bar association, you may have seen them in neon green hats if you’ve been near a protest recently. The critical thing to know is they are there specifically to watch protests, take notes on police conduct, and film any police misconduct or arrests they observe. But what are the legal ramifications of this activity?
As NYC civil rights attorney David Rankin shared with Lawline, we all have a First Amendment right to film the police in public – and sometimes, as in the beating of Rodney King or the shooting of Walter Scott, regular people exercising this right has led to critical evidence in police misconduct cases that otherwise might never have been prosecuted.
Last July in Fields v. City of Philadelphia, a case that was pending when this program was filmed, the Third Circuit became the latest federal appeals court to officially hold that the First Amendment protects the rights of bystanders to record police interactions with third parties. This means that fully half the states have recognized this right.
Although this specific issue has not been considered by the Supreme Court, one pending case, Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida has the potential to impact the defense of retaliation claims raised by bystanders who film the police. Lozman raises the issue of whether a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim can be defeated by showing that the police had probable cause to arrest for any reason – even if that reason is unrelated to the original charge – so this is definitely a case to watch for anyone interested in these issues.
Simply Church: God's Prescribed Relationship Between Church and State 