Mark Sherman

January 10, 2007 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - Supreme Court justices indicated Wednesday they are inclined to uphold a Washington state law preventing unions from using fees they get from workers for political activities.The case involves a few thousand teachers and other education employees who are in the bargaining unit and thus represented by the more than 70,000-member Washington Education Association _ but who have chosen not to join the union.

By Mark Sherman

2 minute read

February 12, 2007 | Daily Report Online

MIAMI AP - A model code of conduct for state and local judges spells out, for the first time, that they are to avoid "sexual advances, requests for sexual favors" and other such unwelcome behavior.Ethics and women's groups pushed for even more specific language, but said they welcome special recognition of a problem they say persists to a disturbing degree.

By Mark Sherman

4 minute read

June 25, 2007 | Connecticut Law Tribune

The U.S. Supreme Court made it harder June 21 for most defendants to challenge their federal prison sentences. Appeals courts that review prison terms imposed by trial judges may deem them reasonable if they fall within federal sentencing guidelines adopted in the mid-1980s, the high court said.

By MARK SHERMAN

2 minute read

April 02, 2007 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The SupremeCourt rejected an appeal Monday from Guantanamo detainees who want challenge their five-year-long confinement in court, a victory for the Bush administration's legal strategy in its fight against terrorism.The victory may be only temporary, however. The high court twice previously has extended legal protections to prisoners at the U.

By Mark Sherman

3 minute read

October 20, 2008 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The Supreme Court is taking a look at federal prosecutors' efforts to pin identity theft charges on undocumented foreign workers who have Social Security and identification numbers that belong to others.The government has used the charges - with the possibility of prison time - to persuade people to plead guilty to lesser immigration violations.

By MARK SHERMAN

3 minute read

January 02, 2009 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday that Congress should be as generous to judges as it already has been to itself, by approving an inflation-related increase in their pay."I must renew the judiciary's modest petition: Simply provide cost-of-living increases that have been unfairly denied," Roberts said in his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary.

By MARK SHERMAN

3 minute read

November 02, 2009 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a judge's ruling that allowed prosecutors to charge a reputed Ku Klux Klansman with kidnapping more than 40 years after two black men were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi.The justices rejected a plea from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on whether too much time had elapsed for the case against James Ford Seale to go forward.

By MARK SHERMAN

3 minute read

November 03, 2008 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - A Vermont musician who lost her arm because of a botched drug injection is squaring off against a drug maker and the Bush administration in one of the most closely watched business cases of the Supreme Court's term.At issue is whether the federal government can limit lawsuits by consumers like Diana Levine who have been harmed by prescription medications.

By MARK SHERMAN

2 minute read

December 06, 2010 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether to keep alive the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history, a case that claims Wal-Mart pays women less than men and promotes women less frequently.The justices stepped into a dispute that could involve billions of dollars in back pay for 500,000 to 1.

By MARK SHERMAN

3 minute read

April 14, 2008 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The Supreme Court refused Monday to review a 30-year prison sentence for a teen who was 12 when he killed his grandparents in South Carolina.Lawyers for Christopher Pittman wanted the justices to examine whether the long prison term for a child violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

By MARK SHERMAN

3 minute read