Supreme Court leaves Kentucky’s ultrasound law in place
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds and show fetal images to patients before abortions.
The justices did not comment in refusing to review an appeals court ruling that upheld the law.
The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law on behalf of Kentucky’s lone remaining abortion clinic. The ACLU argued that “display and describe” ultrasound laws violate physicians’ speech rights under the First Amendment.
The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the Kentucky law, but its sister court in Richmond, Virginia, struck down a similar measure in North Carolina.
Doctors’ speech also has been an issue in non-abortion cases. The federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down parts of a 2011 Florida law that sought to prohibit doctors from talking about gun safety with their patients. Under the law, doctors faced fines and the possible loss of their medical licenses for discussing guns with patients.
In Kentucky, doctors must describe the ultrasound in detail while the pregnant woman listens to the fetal heartbeat. Women can avert their eyes and cover their ears to avoid hearing the description or the fetal heartbeat. Doctors failing to comply face fines and can be referred to the state’s medical licensing board.
The law was passed in 2017 and was signed by the state’s anti-abortion governor, Republican Matt Bevin. He narrowly lost his reelection bid last month. But Republicans remain in control of the state legislature.
New Hampshire to Supreme Court: Leave nudity laws to locals
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — There’s no reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on New Hampshire’s “Free the Nipple” case, the state attorney general said this week.
The high court is deciding whether to accept the appeal of three women who were convicted of public nudity at Weirs Beach in Laconia in 2016. Part of a campaign advocating for the rights of women to go topless, Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro argue the city’s ordinance discriminates on the basis of gender and that the Supreme Court should step in to settle disagreements on the issue that have arisen elsewhere.
The court asked the state to respond in September. In its filing this week, the state said there has been no meaningful disagreement. Nearly every state high court and federal appeals court has upheld similar ordinances, it said. And the only federal appeals court that ruled to the contrary involved reviewing a preliminary injunction, not the merits of the law.
The conflict the women identify is therefor “illusory,” the state said, and the court need not “wade into areas better left for the policy making of local legislative bodies.”
The state also argues that the state Supreme Court was correct in concluding that the Laconia ordinance does not discriminate based on gender bur rather “simply reflects common understanding of nudity, and that men and women are not interchangeable within those understandings.” While the women argue that the ordinance is based in “archaic, overbroad, and obsolescent notions about gender,” the state pointed that it is consistent with other laws that recognize the female breast as an erogenous body part warranting concealment in public.
For example, the state’s revenge pornography law makes it illegal to distribute private sexual images that show female breasts or other intimate parts. And another law makes it a crime to secretly observe or photograph someone’s private body parts, including female breasts.
“The Legislature left that language undisturbed when it amended the statute in 2012, not so long ago as to be considered a bygone era,” the state wrote.
The women now have two weeks to file a response.
Supreme Court to hear Delaware courts political balance case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to resolve a dispute over Delaware’s requirement of a political balance among state court judges. Delaware says the outcome could affect the makeup of regulatory commissions in many states.
The justices will hear an appeal from Delaware Gov. John Carney of a lower court ruling that struck down a provision of Delaware’s constitution. It requires the governor to split judicial nominations between the two major political parties.
The case began when a former Democrat who is now registered as an unaffiliated voter sued because he wanted to apply for a judgeship but didn’t meet the political affiliation requirement.
No other state appears to use Delaware’s system of choosing judges. But the state says 16 states require partisan balance on judicial nominating commissions and many states have similar requirements for regulatory bodies.
Arguments probably will take place in the spring.
‘Bridgegate’ duo to use different tactics at Supreme Court
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — One of the defendants seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn his conviction in New Jersey’s “Bridgegate” case wants to argue separately from his co-defendant, highlighting the different strategies they plan to use when the case is heard next month.
Former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive Bill Baroni made the request in a recent filing to the court. Oral arguments are scheduled for Jan. 14.
The Supreme Court earlier this year agreed to hear the appeals of Baroni and Bridget Kelly, who were convicted in 2016 of orchestrating traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge into New York to punish a political foe who opposed then-Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s reelection.
Kelly was Christie’s deputy chief of staff and Baroni was a top Christie appointee to the Port Authority. Christie wasn’t charged. Baroni had already begun serving his sentence last spring but was released after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, while Kelly has remained free on bail pending the appeal.
They were convicted of defrauding the Port Authority of money and property because time and labor was required to effectuate the lane realignments that caused the traffic jams in the town of Fort Lee, whose mayor declined to endorse Christie. Baroni later claimed the lanes were realigned as part of a traffic study.
Baroni argued in a filing last week that his attorneys should be allowed to argue separately from Kelly’s on Jan. 14 since the government is basing its argument on its assertion that in his position as deputy executive director, he didn’t have the authority to realign the lanes.
“Kelly’s criminal liability, in the government’s view, is thus derivative of Baroni’s,” his attorneys wrote. “That is, according to the government, if Baroni had authority, and thus committed no crime, neither did Kelly.”
Both defendants have argued in previous court filings that the government overreached by misapplying federal statutes to fit the facts of the case. They contend if the convictions stand, it will have the effect of criminalizing a wide swath of political behavior.
The government contended in a filing last month that political considerations take a backseat to the fact that the defendants exceeded their authority in order to “commandeer” Port Authority resources and lied about the traffic study.
Supreme Court to hear Delaware courts political balance case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to resolve a dispute over Delaware’s requirement of a political balance among state court judges. Delaware says the outcome could affect the makeup of regulatory commissions in many states.
The justices will hear an appeal from Delaware Gov. John Carney of a lower court ruling that struck down a provision of Delaware’s constitution. It requires the governor to split judicial nominations between the two major political parties.
The case began when a former Democrat who is now registered as an unaffiliated voter sued because he wanted to apply for a judgeship but didn’t meet the political affiliation requirement.
No other state appears to use Delaware’s system of choosing judges. But the state says 16 states require partisan balance on judicial nominating commissions and many states have similar requirements for regulatory bodies.
Arguments probably will take place in the spring.
