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Regardless of whether the country prefers “activist” judges or “strict constructionists,” only half of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. That number has steadily declined over the last three years. In April 2009, 64 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the Court; by July 2010, that number had dropped to 58 percent. The Pew Research Center notes that those numbers are unusual because the president’s party has viewed the Supreme Court more favorably than the opposition party has in past polls....

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits religious discrimination in the workplace. This means employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees of faith to adhere to their beliefs unless that accommodation poses an undue hardship for the business. Under the 1977 Supreme Court case Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, anything above a minimal burden constitutes an undue hardship on an employer. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to revisit this standard but declined to do so on February 24....

Trinity Lutheran finally had its day in the Supreme Court and things seem to have gone well. The Missouri church is challenging its exclusion from a state program that provides grants for resurfacing playgrounds with recycled tire material – except if, like Trinity Lutheran’s, those playgrounds are part of churches. That violates its right to free exercise and equal protection, the church argues. After a year and a half of waiting, the church finally made its case during oral arguments today and many of the justices seemed to be leaning its way....

Defendant’s conviction for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute ecstasy are affirmed where: 1) substantive collateral attacks on permanent scheduling orders were impermissible in criminal cases where defendants’ sentences would be determined by those scheduling orders; and 2) the district court properly denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment because it tracked the language of the conspiracy statute, identified a location and co-conspirators, and alleged the purpose of the conspiracy. However, defendant’s sentence is vacated where the district court made inadequate findings to justify its reliance on a temporary amendment to U....

Conviction and sentence for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and making a false statement relating to health care matters is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded where: 1) the district court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss the superceding indictment de novo as the indictment was sufficient to state the offense; 2) the court did not err in denying defendant’s Batson challenge to the government’s peremptory strike of a juror as the government provided a race-neutral ground for the strike; 3) the court did not err in giving a deliberate ignorance instruction to the jury; 4) the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s conviction for health care fraud, but the court erred in denying defendant’s motion for acquittal on the false statement charge as the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction; and 5) the court did not err in imposing a two-level sentencing enhancement for a supervisory role in the offense, but did err in imposing a sentencing enhancement for abuse of a position of trust....

District court’s conviction of defendant for possessing child pornography, supported by evidence found while executing a warrant to search defendant’s computers and hard drives for unrelated crime of voyeurism, is affirmed as, although the officer exceeded the scope of the warrant by opening certain files, those files are severable from the remaining files seized. Read US v. Mann, No. 08-3041 Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division...

Is Facebook finally deciding to take responsibility for its actions? Or, maybe more precisely, its inactions? Facing withering criticism for a hands-off policy that allowed fake political posts to sway the 2016 general election and provided a mechanism for groups to incite violence in developing countries, Facebook says it’s getting the message. Sort of, anyway. And that’s why we will soon see a Facebook Oversight Board. In September 2019, Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was taking steps internally to identify and keep out fake and dangerously inflammatory content....

Thanks to the difficulty imposed by Congress in AEDPA, it’s more likely that you’ll see a unicorn tap dance with Lieutenant Dan than you’ll see a federal court actually grant a state prisoner’s federal habeas petition – and that you’ll see a circuit court of appeals sustain the petition. Well, someone call Gary Sinise, because the Third Circuit granted Jose Juan Chavez-Alvarez’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Chavez-Alvarez claimed the government violated his due process rights detaining him without a bond hearing since 2012....

Wilkerson v. Shinseki, No. 09-8027, involved an action claiming that plaintiff’s reassignment discriminated against him based on his obesity and diabetes, and that age discrimination played a role in his reassignment in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant, on the grounds that 1) plaintiff was not otherwise qualified to hold the position as required by the Rehabilitation Act; 2) defendant had a non-discriminatory reason for removing plaintiff that was not pretextual; and 3) plaintiff did not allege that the accessing of his health records was intentional misconduct, as required by the Privacy Act....

We thought there was something funny about the officer’s testimony about his fear while being trapped in a rapidly accelerating vehicle, especially considering the glacial pace of a Mazda MPV at top speed. Judge Clifton thought so too, tossing out 0-60 times like he was writing for Car and Driver, rather than a dissent. Judge Clifton’s numbers must’ve worked, however, as this police shooting case, one of a series of shootings that led to the Anaheim race riots, was just granted an en banc rehearing this morning....

City parking tickets can result in a police harassment lawsuit, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, a three-judge panel reinstated Mark Geinosky’s lawsuit against the city of Chicago and eight Chicago cops. Geinosky claims the officers singled him out for 24 bogus parking citations over a 14-month period, reports the Chicago Tribune. How bad was this parking ticket harassment? All of tickets concerned the same vehicle. All arrived in the mail, typically in batches of three or four....

Dismissal of an attorney’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against four New Jersey Superior Court judges, the New Jersey Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct (ACJC), and its director and counsel is affirmed where: 1) the criminal allegations against the judges are related to actions they took as judges and plaintiff has not set forth any facts that would show that any of the judges acted in the absence of jurisdiction; 2) plaintiff’s criminal claims fail to state a cause of action under section 1983, as individual citizens do not have a constitutional right to the prosecution of alleged criminals; 3) plaintiff failed to state a section 1983 claim for one of the judge’s alleged improper influence; 4) district court properly dismissed plaintiff’s five claims for attorney’s fees and costs based on the alleged constitutional violations because, to the extent that plaintiff’s pro se complaint can be read to include claims against the director and counsel of ACJC in their individual capacities, they are entitled to quasi-judicial immunity and thus not subject to suit for injunctive relief; and 5) plaintiff’s claim that New Jersey Court Rule 2:15 violates the New Jersey Constitution is rejected....

Dismissal Based on Failure to Serve Affirmed In Constien v. US, No. 10-6153, plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal of her suit against the U.S. and several agencies and officials for failure to serve them with process in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4, the court affirmed where the only proper service effected by plaintiff was service by a deputy marshal on a U.S. attorney, but even if plaintiff was a proper person to receive service, no defendant was properly served because service on each required service by mail on the Attorney General, and the only mailing of process to the Attorney General had been by plaintiff herself, not by a nonparty, as required by Rule 4(c)....

The Ninth Circuit decided two criminal cases, one involving the collection of a judgment debt, and another concerning the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Office Depot Inc. v. Zuccarini, No. 07-16788, involved a judgment debtor’s appeal from the district court’s order appointing a receiver to take control of and auction off some of debtor’s domain names in order to satisfy the judgment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that 1) Kremen was still an accurate statement of California law, and domain names were intangible property subject to a writ of execution; and 2) domain names were personal property located wherever the registry or the registrar were located....

Pleading guilty typically results in a lighter sentence, so it’s not surprising that a defendant would be annoyed if his guilty plea was rewarded with an upward variance from the Sentencing Guidelines. Though the laws of this great land allow a defendant to be annoyed, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that they do not allow a defendant to withdraw his guilty plea without a fair and just reason....

Hackers can do hard time, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed on Thursday. Earlier this week, the appeals court affirmed an 18-year prison sentence for a Blaine hacker, Barry Vincent Ardolf, reports the Pioneer Press. In 2010, Ardolf was indicted on charges related to tormenting his neighbors via the Internet. The conflict began when one of his neighbor’s children walked into Ardolf’s yard and began playing a game of chase....

Amidst persistent wage gaps and pay secrecy, a proposed California law attempts to even the playing field by mandating a public display of wage information. Proponents say that this will not only improve pay disparities but gaps in opportunities as well. California’s Pay Disclosure Bill The bill contains two main conditions: increasing pay scale transparency and improved pay reporting. The bill would require employers covered under the bill to include pay ranges on all job postings, giving applicants easy access to that information....

A federal judge in Detroit dismissed charges against doctors and others for female genital mutilations, saying a federal ban against the procedure was unconstitutional. Judge Bernard Friedman said Congress “overstepped its bounds” by enacting a 1996 statute that prohibited the practice. Friedman said it is a matter for the states, and the federal government did not have authority as it claimed under the Commerce Clause. Defendants still face other charges, but not for mutilating the nine girls in the case....

In US v. Hughes, No. 08-6008, the Sixth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s grant of defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found in his car in a prosecution for being a felon in possession of a firearm. As stated in the decision: “In order for traffic stop to be permissible under the Fourth Amendment, a police officer must know or reasonably believe that the driver of the car is doing something that represents a violation of law....

In an action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claiming that Defendants falsely stated in state-court complaints that a certain document was a statement of Plaintiff’s account, summary judgment for Defendants is reversed where there was an issue of material fact as to whether Defendants’ representations were misleading or deceptive. Read Hartman v. Great Seneca Fin. Corp., No. 08-3773 Appellate Information Submitted: June 18, 2009 Decided and Filed: June 30, 2009...