Supreme Court News - Virginia - onPolitix

Court: State can block out of state use of FOIA

2013-04-29T14:21:08Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it's legal for Virginia to block out-of-state people from using its Freedom of Information Act to get state documents.

The court unanimously upheld a Virginia Supreme Court decision validating that state limitation of its FOIA law to state citizens and some media outlets.

Men from California and Rhode Island wanted to use the Virginia FOIA law to get state documents, but were denied because they are not Virginia citizens. The two men argued that it was unconstitutional to not allow everyone access to the protections of a state's FOIA law.

Justice Samuel Alito says that Virginia made most of the information the men wanted available to them and its refusal to make the rest of it available did not violate their constitutional rights.

TV-over-Internet service Aereo expands to Boston

2013-04-23T17:49:08Z

NEW YORK (AP) — Aereo, the television-over-the-Internet service that is threatening the broadcast and cable TV industries, is expanding to Boston on May 15.

With prices starting at $8 a month, Aereo will offer 28 Boston-area broadcast channels, plus the cable channel Bloomberg TV. Service will be available in Boston and surrounding areas in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

The Barry Diller-backed company announced in January that it plans to expand beyond New York to 22 additional U.S. markets. Boston represents the first metropolitan area outside New York. Others expected in the coming months include Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.

Aereo converts television signals into computer data and sends them over the Internet to subscribers' computers and mobile devices. Subscribers can watch channels live or record them with an Internet-based digital video recorder. They can pause and rewind live television, just like a DVR.

Aereo sells its service as a low-cost alternative to cable or satellite TV, and it plans to target those who have dropped pay-TV service or never had one. Aereo offers far fewer channels than most pay-TV packages, but it could appeal to viewers who already turn to Hulu, Netflix and other online sources for TV shows and movies.

Broadcasters see Aereo as a threat to their revenue, even though stations already make signals available for free. Broadcasters are increasingly supplementing advertising revenue with fees they get from cable and satellite TV companies for redistributing their stations to subscribers. If customers drop their pay-TV service and use Aereo instead, broadcasters would lose some of that revenue.

So far, federal courts have ruled against broadcasters' claims that Aereo's service constitutes copyright infringement. Aereo claims what it is doing is legal because it has thousands of tiny antennas at its data centers and assigns individual subscribers their own antenna. According to Aereo, that makes it akin to customers picking up free broadcast signals with a regular antenna at home. Broadcasters argue that the use of individual antennas is a mere technicality meant to circumvent copyright law.

Although the latest ruling, from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will likely be appealed, broadcasting companies have already threatened to take their stations off the air. The Fox and Univision television networks are among those that say they might end their free broadcasts and become a subscription-only channel like CNN, Nickelodeon and Discovery.

In a Twitter post Tuesday responding to the Boston expansion, CBS Corp. spokesman Dana McClintock vowed, "And we will be there to sue them." In an email, McClintock said the specifics of such a lawsuit were still to be determined.

If such a lawsuit is filed, Aereo could seek to have the cases consolidated in New York, where the company has had favorable rulings. But if broadcasters succeed in keeping the cases separate, they would have a better chance of winning in Boston because Massachusetts is part of a different appellate region and would not be bound by the 2nd Circuit's past rulings. The U.S. Supreme Court — or Congress — would be left to settle any conflicting rulings.

Aereo's Boston expansion will initially be available only to those who had pre-registered for the service. The New York-based company said others would be able to join after May 30.

Subscribers must live in one of 16 counties: Barnstable, Dukes, Essex, Middlesex, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, or Worcester in Massachusetts; Belknap, Cheshire, Hillsborough, Merrimack, Rockingham or Strafford counties in New Hampshire; or Windham County in Vermont.

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Online:

Aereo: http://aereo.com

High court weighs taking up new case on gun rights

2013-04-11T20:09:09Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the Senate voted to begin debate on new gun control measures, the Supreme Court is expected to consider a new appeal aimed at loosening state restrictions on firearms.

The justices are meeting in private Friday to discuss adding new cases for the term that begins in the fall. Among them is an appeal of a federal court ruling that upheld New York's strict licensing scheme for carrying concealed weapons in public.

The National Rifle Association and 20 states are backing an appeal by five New York residents who claim that the state law violates their constitutional gun rights. The challenge comes nearly five years after a landmark Supreme Court decision in favor of gun rights — and four months after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn.

The court could say as early as Monday whether it will hear the case.

Legal scholars say the issue of whether people have a right to be armed in public is likely to win high court review at some point. The court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller focused mainly on the right to defend one's own home, but it left for another day how broadly the Second Amendment may protect gun rights in other settings.

In November, less than three weeks before the Newtown shootings, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a state law that requires those who want to carry handguns to show a special need for self-protection. Other states with gun laws like New York include California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Another federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., has since upheld the Maryland law, while challenges are pending to the laws in California, Hawaii and New Jersey.

Alan Gura, an Alexandria, Va.-based lawyer who is representing the New Yorkers, as well as the challengers in several other states, said that by upholding such state laws, lower courts are undermining constitutional protections for gun owners.

Gura said the appeals court rulings on the New York and Maryland laws, "if left unchecked, will accelerate the lower courts' resistance" to the Supreme Court's endorsement of gun rights.

"The issue here is a large and obvious one that predated Newtown and it will continue to be a big issue going forward," Gura said. He declined to speculate on whether the Newtown shootings might affect the Supreme Court's decision.

But University of California at Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on the legal dispute over guns, said the time may not be right for the high court's review. "The justices have to be cognizant of the politics of guns at this moment in time. Newtown makes it less likely the justices will want to wade into the gun issue," he said.

Another factor that often influences the justices' decision to take up a case is when lower courts come to different conclusions about the law's meaning. Gura's clients and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, defending the law, disagree about whether there is a split among federal appeals courts.

In December, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the only statewide ban on carrying concealed weapons, in Illinois. The court gave state lawmakers until June to adopt a law that takes account of the ruling. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has said she will wait to see what the state legislature does before deciding whether to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Gura said the Illinois ruling "brings this split into sharp relief at the federal appellate level."

But Schneiderman said the decision in Illinois stressed the unique nature of the state law that was struck down and contrasted that law with the statutes in New York and elsewhere that give officials wide discretion in deciding whether to grant permits to carry guns in public.

The case is Kachalsky v. Cacace, 12-845.

Justice Sotomayor visits Puerto Rico on book tour

2013-04-02T17:13:10Z

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is visiting Puerto Rico to present her new memoir and drawing thousands of fans in her parents' homeland.

The visit by the first Latina Supreme Court justice was an unscheduled stop on her book tour.

Sotomayor waved to large crowd of students and teachers on Tuesday as she entered the Law School of the University of Puerto Rico, where she spoke about her memoir "My Beloved World."

The book gives a personal account of growing up in an impoverished New York City tenement and becoming a federal judge in 1992. The self-described "Nuyorican" was scheduled to meet later Tuesday with the general public at the Plaza Las Americas mall.

Sotomayor also visited Puerto Rico in December 2009, shortly after being named justice.

Gay marriage case's Edie Windsor: marriage 'magic'

2013-03-28T07:09:11Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Edith Windsor got engaged in the 1960s to the woman who eventually became her wife, she asked for a pin instead of a ring. A ring would have meant awkward questions, she said: Who is he? Where is he? And when do we meet him?

On Wednesday, the 83-year-old stood on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, the face of a case that could change how the U.S. government treats married gay couples. She wore a grey pants suit, a pink and orange scarf and her engagement pin, a circle of diamonds.

Windsor, whose wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009, sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill she got after Spyer's death. The pair married in Canada in 2007. Had Windsor been married to a man, she would not have paid any estate tax.

Windsor said the spirit of her partner of 44 years was watching and listening Wednesday, and she called marriage a "magic word."

"For anybody who doesn't understand why we want it and why we need it, OK, it is magic," she told reporters.

Windsor is asking the court to strike down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for purposes of federal law as the union of a man and a woman. She said the argument before the court went well.

"I think it went great. I think it went beautifully," she told reporters in front of the court after the argument.

Windsor, who goes by Edie, said public acceptance of gay marriage and gay people has changed since the time when she had to hide behind a pin.

"As we increasingly came out, people saw that we didn't have horns. People learned that we were their kids, and their cousins and their friends," she said.

When the couple's wedding announcement ran in The New York Times in 2007, she said, they received congratulations from hundreds of people, from schoolmates to colleagues.

Even 10 years ago, Windsor said, she would have been "hiding in the closet." But Wednesday she said she was "thrilled and exalted and humbled, very humbled" to be at the court.

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Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko

Gay marriage case's Edie Windsor: marriage 'magic'

2013-03-27T20:39:09Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Edith Windsor got engaged in the 1960s to the woman who eventually became her wife she asked for a pin instead of a ring. A ring would have meant awkward questions, she said: Who is he? Where is he? And when do we meet him?

Windsor, whose wife Thea Spyer died in 2009, sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill she got after Spyer's death. The pair married in Canada in 2007. Had Windsor been married to a man she would not have paid any estate tax.

Windsor said the spirit of her partner of 44 years was watching and listening Wednesday, and she called marriage a "magic word."

"For anybody who doesn't understand why we want it and why we need it, ok, it is magic," she told reporters.

Windsor is asking the court to strike down Section 3 of the Defense Of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for purposes of federal law as the union of a man and a woman. She said the argument before the court went well.

"I think it went great. I think it went beautifully," she told reporters in front of the court after the argument.

Windsor, who goes by Edie, said public acceptance of gay marriage and gay people has changed since the time when she had to hide behind a pin.

"As we increasingly came out, people saw that we didn't have horns. People learned that we were their kids, and their cousins, and their friends," she said.

When the couple's wedding announcement ran in The New York Times in 2007, she said, they received congratulations from hundreds of people, from schoolmates to colleagues.

Even ten years ago, Windsor said, she would have been "hiding in the closet." But Wednesday she said she was "thrilled and exalted and humbled, very humbled" to be at the court.

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Follow Jessica Gresko at —http://twitter.com/jessicagresko

Gay marriage equality box spreads on social media

2013-03-27T18:55:08Z

NEW YORK (AP) — Bud Light said it with beer cans and Martha Stewart with red velvet cake as companies and celebrities from Beyonce to George Takei joined millions of social media users in posting and tweaking a simple red logo in support of gay marriage.

A square box with thick pink horizontal lines (the mathematical equal symbol) was offered for sharing this week by the Human Rights Campaign as the U.S. Supreme Court took up arguments in key marriage rights cases.

The image, replacing profile pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and elsewhere, is a makeover of the advocacy group's logo, usually a blue background with bright yellow lines. The HRC made it available in red — for the color of love — on Monday and estimated tens of millions of shares by Wednesday.

"It shows the enthusiasm and the passion," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

Like viral campaigns of yore, supporting breast cancer awareness (pink), President Barack Obama (change your middle name to Hussein) and even Arab Spring (green), a bit of fatigue set in on some social media streams by those questioning whether such efforts serve to change any minds or, put simply, are plain annoying.

"My Facebook feed is a cascading aesthetic nightmare. Thanks, equality," Washington Post writer Dan Zak wryly grumbled on Twitter.

A photo of Justice Anthony Kennedy made the rounds with the quip: "Before we make a ruling, did enough people change their Facebook profile picture?!"

None of that mattered to the masses of same-sex marriage supporters. Some swapped matzoh for the pink lines as Passover got under way, or added frowny Internet star Grumpy Cat, who explained marriage equality would make her happy.

Bert and Ernie showed up against the red background. (They're best friends with no plans to marry, according to Sesame Street.) Another version featured Paula Deen atop the red square and lines turned a shade of yellow akin to her favorite fatty ingredient and the tagline: "It's like two sticks of butter y'all."

Takei, a noted punster with nearly 4 million followers in Facebook, turned the equal sign into the division sign for those opposed to marriage equality.

Beyonce, with more than 44 million followers there, played it straight, leaving the logo alone and adding a personal message: "It's about TIME!!! (hash)EQUALITY (hash)MarryWhoYouLove.

Fergie let the image speak for itself on Twitter, adding: "No words necessary." Montana Sen. John Tester, a Democrat who endorsed same-sex marriage on Tuesday, put the logo up as his profile on Facebook while the clothing site Bonobos swapped its usual Facebook pic for the red square using fancy white pants for the equal sign.

Martha Stewart's Facebook page used a slice of red cake with white icing to make the image and the HBO page for "True Blood" added fangs.

All in good fun?

"There's a lot of serious conversation going on and there's an awful lot of important concepts that the Supreme Court justices are discussing," Sainz said. "What this logo going viral means is individuals have reduced it to a very straightforward concept."

Steve Jones, a professor of online culture and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wondered whether all the mash-ups muddle the message.

"Once you throw it together with something like Grumpy Cat it's fun," he said. "But was this message intended to be fun?"

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Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

Social Status: Seeing red?

2013-03-27T18:37:59Z

(LIN) — As U.S. Supreme Court justices heard arguments on California’s gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, a revolution was sweeping Facebook, taking over the profile photos of those who wanted to show support.

It started as a plea from the Human Rights Campaign’s Facebook page, when the organization asked Facebook users to “wear red to show your support for marriage equality. And make your Facebook profile red too!”

Along with the post was an image of the organization’s universal equal sign logo, which is typically blue and yellow, but with two shades of red. The image quickly went viral as many changed their profile pictures to reflect the revamped logo, turning many Facebook feeds red.

It didn’t stop on Facebook. Twitter users also showed support and used the icon, and terms like #SCOTUS, #Prop8, #DOMA and #gaymarriage have become top trending topics this week.

But where do members of Congress and state leaders stand? Who’s adopting the new icon, and sounding off on the social media?

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has and updated icon on his Facebook page, and he’s made his stance on gay marriage known via wall post:

“Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., updated her Tumblr blog yesterday, expressing her support of gay marriage.

“Good people disagree with me,” McCaskill writes. “On the other hand, my children will have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, took to Twitter to push her followers to an op-ed in USA Today:

My op-ed in @ usatoday on SCOTUS:Court's conclusion must be firm and clear: #DOMA & #Prop. 8 are unconstitutional. goo.gl/LKXOT

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 26, 2013

The biggest Republican standout in social stance when it comes to gay marriage is Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who posted this tweet on March 15:

All of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage bit.ly/Ydg7tU

—Rob Portman (@robportman) March 15, 2013

Portman explains that his son said he was gay two years ago, and while he and his wife were “surprised” when they were told the news, they now have “a more complete picture of the son we love.”

What’s also worth noting are those who are silent on the issue on Facebook in the past week. Midterm elections are rapidly approaching, and speaking out on a topic as politically polarizing as same-sex marriage could be career suicide, and that may not be worth risking.

Those notably silent on the issue include House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, just to name a few.

But there's still time to chime in. Although Proposition 8 arguments were held March 26 in Hollingsworth v. Perry, and Defense of Marriage Act arguments were held March 27 in U.S. v. Windsor, decisions on both cases aren't expected until sometime this summer.

LISTEN: Hollingsworth v. Perry LISTEN: United States v. Windsor

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Social Agenda is biweekly feature following politicians on social media sites and across the Internet. Follow @onPolitix on Twitter or like onPolitix on Facebook.

High court skeptical of federal marriage law

2013-03-27T12:22:54Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is indicating it could strike down the law that prevents legally married gay couples from receiving a range of federal benefits that go to married people.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the decisive vote in close cases, joined the four more liberal justices Wednesday in raising questions about the provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that is being challenged at the Supreme Court.

Kennedy said the law appears to intrude on the power of states that have chosen to recognize same-sex marriages. Other justices said the law creates what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called two classes of marriage, full and "skim-milk marriage."

The federal law affects a range of benefits available to married couples, including tax breaks, survivor benefits and health insurance for spouses of federal employees.

It still is possible the court could dismiss the case for procedural reasons, though that prospect seemed less likely than it did in Tuesday's argument over gay marriage in California.

The motivation behind the 1996 federal law, passed by large majorities in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, was questioned repeatedly by Justice Elena Kagan.

She read from a House of Representatives report explaining that the reason for the law was "to express moral disapproval of homosexuality." The quote produced an audible reaction in the courtroom.

Paul Clement, representing the House Republican leadership in defending the law, said the more relevant question is whether Congress had "any rational basis for the statute." He supplied one, the federal government's interest in treating same-sex couples the same no matter where they live.

Clement said the government does not want military families "to resist transfer from West Point to Fort Sill because they're going to lose their benefits." The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is in New York, where same-sex marriage is legal, and Fort Sill is in Oklahoma, where gay marriages are not legal.

Court could avoid ruling on gay marriage ban

2013-03-26T13:09:28Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court suggested Tuesday it could find a way out of the case over California's ban on same-sex marriage without issuing a major national ruling on whether gays have a right to marry, an issue one justice described as newer than cellphones and the Internet.

Several justices, including some liberals who seemed open to gay marriage, raised doubts during a riveting 80-minute argument that the case was properly before them. And Justice Anthony Kennedy, the potentially decisive vote on a closely divided court, suggested that the court could dismiss the case with no ruling at all.

Such an outcome would almost certainly allow gay marriages to resume in California but would have no impact elsewhere.

Kennedy said he feared the court would go into "uncharted waters" if it embraced arguments advanced by gay marriage supporters. But lawyer Theodore Olson, representing two same-sex couples, said that the court similarly ventured into the unknown in 1967 when it struck down bans on interracial marriage in 16 states.

Kennedy challenged the accuracy of that comment by noting that other countries had had interracial marriages for hundreds of years.

There was no majority apparent for any particular outcome and many doubts expressed about the arguments advanced by lawyers for the opponents of gay marriage in California, by the supporters and by the Obama administration, which is in favor of same-sex marriage rights.

Kennedy made clear he did not like the rationale of the federal appeals court that struck down Proposition 8, the California ban, even though it cited earlier opinions in favor of gay rights that Kennedy wrote.

That appeals court ruling applied only to California, where same-sex couples briefly had the right to marry before voters adopted a constitutional amendment in November 2008 that defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Several members of the court also were troubled by the Obama administration's main point that when states offer same-sex couples all the rights of marriage, as California and eight other states do, they also must allow marriage.

Justice Samuel Alito described gay marriage as newer than such rapidly changing technological advances as cellphones and the Internet, and appeared to advocate a more cautious approach to the issue.

"You want us to assess the effect of same-sex marriage," Alito said to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. "It may turn out to be a good thing. It may turn out to be not a good thing."

Charles Cooper, representing the people who helped get Proposition 8 on the ballot, ran into similar resistance over his argument that the court should uphold the ban as a valid expression of the people's will and let the vigorous political debate over gay marriage continue.

Here, Kennedy suggested that Cooper's argument did not take account of the estimated 40,000 children who have same-sex parents. "The voices of these children are important, don't you think?" Kennedy said.