Mark Sherman

September 29, 2009 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - High-ranking government officials are usually protected from claims that they violated a person's civil rights. In lawsuits stemming from law enforcement and intelligence efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks, three federal courts have left open the possibility that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and a lieutenant may be held personally liable.

By MARK SHERMAN

7 minute read

October 02, 2007 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday with how to give judges discretion to impose shorter prison terms, including for some crack cocaine crimes, without abandoning the long-standing national goal of similar punishments for similar crimes.In a pair of cases involving drug crimes, trial court judges handed down sentences that were shorter than those called for in the federal sentencing guidelines established by the U.

By Mark Sherman

4 minute read

April 09, 2007 | Daily Report Online

By Mark Sherman

5 minute read

March 28, 2007 | National Law Journal

The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for whistleblowers to share in the proceeds from fraud lawsuits against government contractors. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the Court, said that retired engineer James Stone was not an original source of the information that resulted in Rockwell International, now part of aerospace giant Boeing Co., being ordered to pay the government nearly $4.2 million for fraud connected with environmental cleanup at the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

By Mark Sherman

3 minute read

February 05, 2009 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said.Pancreatic cancer is often deadly, although the court said doctors apparently found Ginsburg's cancer at an early stage.Ginsburg, 75, had the surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

By MARK SHERMAN

5 minute read

July 09, 2009 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's thin record on the limits of presidential power suggests she will be neither reflexively hostile to broad expansion of a president's authority nor a reliable rubber stamp in support of it.Three cases in particular offer clues:- As a judge on the 2nd Circuit U.

By MARK SHERMAN

6 minute read

October 29, 2007 | Daily Report Online

By Mark Sherman

5 minute read

March 03, 2008 | Daily Report Online

WASHINGTON AP - The nine justices in black robes file into the Supreme Court consumed with thoughts about the great legal issues of the day. Only one of them is likely to ask questions involving raccoons, an unruly son, pet oysters or even the dreaded "tomato children."When Justice Stephen Breyer leans toward his microphone at the end of the bench, lawyers can expect to be asked almost anything.

By MARK SHERMAN

5 minute read

October 25, 2011 | Daily Report Online

Most of the Republican presidential candidates want to wipe away lifetime tenure for federal judges, cut the budgets of courts that displease them or allow Congress to override Supreme Court rulings on constitutional issues.Any one of those proposals would significantly undercut the independence and authority of federal judges.

By Mark Sherman

5 minute read

May 07, 2007 | National Law Journal

In his 15 months on the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito has been everything his conservative supporters expected and his liberal detractors feared. The newest justice has been a reliable vote in favor of the death penalty, expanded police powers and restrictions on abortion. But could Alito turn out to be more like Justice David Souter -- now firmly entrenched in the Court's liberal camp -- or Justice Harry Blackmun, another Republican appointee who became more liberal during his time on the Court?

By Mark Sherman

5 minute read