Law Links ~ SCOTUS: Filming the Cops, Gay Marriage, Facebook Copyright, Jindal and School Vouchers

I'm starting a new weekly feature called "Law Links" to alert readers to legal actions here and around the world. This has always been an interest of mine, and even more-so now that my daughter is a new attorney who just passed the Bar Exam and is in court every day.

SCOTUSBlog Gears Up for Supreme Court Rulings Next Week

Editor's Note: On Tuesday, December 4, we expect one or more opinions at 10 a.m. We will be live blogging.
On Friday, the Court has granted two new cases, Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett (12-142) and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. (12-398 ). The Court did not act on the same-sex marriage cases. Additional orders are expected Monday at 9:30.

Bloomberg: A Free Market Fix for the Copyright Racket

Even as digital technology has made reproducing, remixing and repurposing creative works easier -- with potentially enormous benefits for consumers and producers of new works -- the monopoly privileges of copyright have expanded. The result is a bizarre combination of rampant copyright violations, frequent encroachment on legitimate fair use, suppression of new technologies and business models, and the ever-present threat of draconian penalties.

Ars Technica: Supreme Court Backs 7th Circuit Over Filming Police

The United States Supreme Court rejected a request from a Chicago-area prosecutor to review a recent ruling that the First Amendment protects a right to record the actions of police officers as they perform their public duties.
. . . The Supreme Court's decision to let the Seventh Circuit's ruling stand is a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which spearheaded the case. The ACLU's chapter in Massachusetts also had success vindicating a First Amendment right to record the actions of public officials. The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled police violated the rights of a Boston man when they arrested him for using his cell phone to record the arrest of a suspect. In March, the city agreed to pay $170,000 to settle his civil rights lawsuit.

Louisiana Judge Rules Against Bobby Jindal's School Voucher Program

The Associated Press said that (Judge) Kelley’s 39-page ruling concluded that the voucher program violates provisions in the state constitution regarding the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP, which determines how public schools are funded. “The MFP … was never meant to be diverted to private educational providers,” Kelley’s ruling said.
What Jindal’s team has been doing is implementing a voucher program, potentially the country’s largest, as a result of a new law that in part allows the state to offer vouchers to more than half of its students, or some 450,000 students. About 10,000 have applied, with most of the slots given to Christian schools, some of which didn’t really have the resources to handle the influx. They also use curriculum that promotes Young Earth Creationism, the belief that Earth is no older than 10,000 years old — and that human beings lived alongside dinosaurs — despite definitive scientific consensus that it is billions of years old.

Wired: Magical Copyright Hoax Debunked by Facebook

A silly copyright notice is sweeping Facebook . . . with users attaching pseudo-legalese to their status updates in a misguided effort to prevent Facebook from owning or commercially exploiting their content. The notice incorrectly implies that Facebook has recently changed the copyright provisions of its user agreement. It then unnecessarily asserts a user’s copyright over his Facebook posts (you retain such copyright without posting a notice) and cites the “Berner Convention,” an irrelevant international treaty properly spelled “Berne Convention.” The notice then instructs Facebook to get written permission to make commercial use of the user’s content, which is pointless as Facebook users agree to let the social network make money off their posts when they sign up for the service.
Popular hoax-debunking site Snopes addressed this copyright notice in the spring and updated their refutation today. Also, Facebook has taken the further step of putting out a statement of its own:

There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.

Supreme Court Won't Hear Husted Appeal on Early Voting

Fantastic News for Ohio and for the Dems in Ohio!!!

And really everybody in Ohio wins because they will get to vote during the last weekend before the election.

However, I think you should "bank" your votes now, in case there are shenanigans on election day, or bad weather, or illness, or whatever. Vote Now!!!!!!

The only loser is Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted who is a jerk for trying to help his party leaders suppress the vote in an important swing state. It's good to see the Supremes smack down a jerk for a change, instead of being jerks themselves.

And Husted has already issued an order for early voting to go forward:Link Here

DIRECTIVE 2012-50
October 16, 2012
To: All County Boards of Elections
Directors, Deputy Directors, and Board Members
Re: Uniform Days and Hours for In-Person Absentee Voting from November 3, 2012 through November 5, 2012
I hereby set uniform days and hours for in-person absentee voting, for UOCAVA and non-UOCAVA voters alike, as follows:
Saturday, November 3, 2012 – 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 4, 2012 – 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Monday, November 5, 2012 – 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
This Directive expands the uniform days and hours for in-person absentee voting established by Directive 2012-35, which remains in effect. As such, Boards are reminded that any voter in line when that day’s hours for in-person absentee voting ends, may remain in line to apply for and receive an absentee ballot in person.
If you have any questions regarding this Directive, please contact the Secretary of State’s elections attorney assigned to your county by calling (614) 466-2585.
Sincerely,
Jon

From SCOTUSblog

Without noted dissent, the Supreme Court at midday Tuesday turned aside a plea by state officials in Ohio to allow them to close down voting opportunities on the final three days before election day on November 6. The ruling was a significant victory for President Obama and for Democrats, especially since they claimed that the shuttering of voting offices on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before election day would be likely to affect low-income and minority voters — many of whom may be expected to vote Democratic.

The Court acted in a one-sentence order that contained no explanation. The action, though, left intact a lower-court order that required voting officials in the crucial electoral state to open the polls on that final weekend to all voters, if they open them to any voters. Ohio officials wanted to allow voting then only by members of the military and their families, on the theory that they might be called away suddenly on military duty. While it is up to each county’s election officials to decide whether to be open for voting on those days, many if not most — and, crucially, major cities — are expected to do so rather than shut out military voters altogether. Under the lower-court order, all voters must be treated the same for early voting.

Obama's ACA Mandate Upheld as a Tax!!!!

OMG - what a morning!!!

CNN breathlessly announced that Obamacare had been overturned without even reading the ruling, and Fox followed suit. Meanwhile cooler heads announced that it was more complicated than that, and in fact, the mandate had been upheld!

Bottom line from #SCOTUS, Obama Administration wins.Challenge to #ACA fails.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 28, 2012

Via Talking Points Memo

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that the Affordable Care Act meets constitutional muster and can be allowed to continue its slow process of transforming the nation’s health care system.

Thursday’s historic decision, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, was by no means fait accompli. Though the consensus among constitutional scholars has always been that the law’s insurance mandate did not exceed Congress’ Commerce Clause powers, its opponents erected a counterargument that quickly became an article of faith on the right. In the end, Roberts decision upheld the mandate as an exercise of Congress’ taxing power.

Reaction from the Right is predictable!

Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn't a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 28, 2012

See more reactions and quotes:
SCOTUS Upholds Obamacare! Tea Party Heads Asplode!

Supreme Court Ruling at 10 a.m. Today

My liveblog leading up to the Supreme Court Countdown:
Here on Snark Amendment

Whatever the ruling is, things are going to be explosive in the morning. As soon as we get some reliable reports about the opinion as well as the dissent, I will post those here in the Snark Lane.

No one knows whether the health care law will be upheld, but it might give you hope to know that Tom Goldstein, publisher of Scotusblog says it will be upheld and NOT struck down. Maybe the Tea Party should think about that before they dress up like Minutemen and start crowing like roosters on the steps of the Surpreme Court tomorrow morning.

Goldstein writes:

In the end, you have to make a prediction and take responsibility for it. I believe the mandate will not be invalidated tomorrow. Far less important, I expect the principal opinion will be written by the Chief Justice; a majority of the Court will find it has jurisdiction; and the challenge to the Medicaid expansion will be rejected.

Most observers disagree. There are certainly good reasons to believe the Court will invalidate the mandate. Most important, at the oral argument, the questions of two critical Justices – Justice Kennedy and the Chief Justice – were on the whole critical of the mandate’s constitutionality.

But in the end, based on the entire mix of information I have, I think the mandate will not be struck down tomorrow. (I don’t have any inside information, nor does anyone else.) My prediction includes the possibility that there will not be a single majority opinion for the theory on which the mandate is upheld, and even the thin possibility that the Court will not have a majority to find the mandate constitutional.

Immigration Ruling "Big Win" for Obama, Scalia & AZ - Not So Much

Editor Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUS Blog calls the Immigration Ruling a "Big Win" for Obama Administration in discussion with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.

I think the Administration has to be very happy with the decision in the Arizona immigration case. They clearly won with respect to three of the four provisions of the very tough Arizona immigration law and it was basically a tie on the fourth. They didn't lose. The Supreme Court saying that on the ask for your papers provision, they didn't know enough about how the statute would be applied to know whether it was constitutional or not and they would have to wait to decide that question. They made pretty clear that you could ask for immigration papers if you had a reasonable cause if you weren't going to hold people for too long just to check their immigration status. So it does uphold that principle which is very important to a lot of Conservatives who favor the law that you can ask about the status but beyond that, it was a big win for the Obama Administration.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wall Street Journal Law Blog also has a great interview with Professor Peter Spiro of Temple University,an expert on immigration law, talking about the Arizona Immigration Law Ruling:

Hi, Peter. Thanks for taking the time. After reading over the opinion, what’s your immediate takeaway?

Well, it’s a split decision in that both sides got a bit of what they wanted. But in my view, it’s really only nominally a split decision. I think it’s mostly a victory for opponents of the law.

...*snip*...

Remind us again what 2(B) enabled the federal government to do, if you would.

Sure. That portion allows state authorities to ask someone to show his or her immigration papers if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person might be here illegally.

But 2(B) really doesn’t have any teeth, at least not in the way other provisions of the law do. 2(B) allows state officials to call [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency] and say ‘hey, we think someone’s here illegally.’ But ICE doesn’t necessarily have to do anything in response to the state’s call.

And that’s part of why I really think this is mostly a win for the law’s opponents. Two of the three provisions that were struck down outright did have teeth — they allowed the state to put an alien in jail.

And 2(B) could be struck down later?

Right. The court ruled on the facial challenge to the law. But it’s kicking back to the lower courts the issue of whether the law is constitutional in the ways in which it gets applied. For now, we’ll have to allow those to work their way through the court system

...*snip*...

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of three dissenting justices, read a fairly scathing statement from the bench. What did you make of this?

It struck me as so much crying in the wilderness, to be honest. His view is pretty jurisprudentially extreme, and I think it could likely be the last time that Scalia gets to weigh on in immigration issues during his court tenure.

But I think a broad takeaway here is that on a court divided such as this one is, it’s Justice Kennedy who calls the shots.