(Ivers, p.33) A legal team lead by Thomas Emerson represented Griswold and Buxton in this case. Emerson argued that the “liberty” part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was too broad to encompass the right to privacy that allowed married couples to get information and use birth control. The court struck down the Connecticut law saying that it violated the right of privacy protected by the US Constitution. (Ivers, p.33) According to the 53-32 of the General Statutes of Connecticut provided that "Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned." and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut states “Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender."
The court, therefore, will dismiss the case when the doctrine is applied since the defendant will argue their case based on the persuasiveness of the lower court or private court’s rulings. 1-7.The dormant Commerce Clause Purto Rico enacted a law in 2001 that sought for specific labels on cements sold in the state with a penalty on any company that violated the requirements. Similarly, the enacted law prohibited the sale of cements from outside the state. Antilles cement firm that imports from outside the stated filed a case in the court with claims that the enacted law violated the dormant commerce
Dontae caine Lgs 3:30-4:45 4/6/2013 MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISSON GROUNDS THAT THE STOLEN VALOR ACT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL To: Law partner to the current state of the law From: Dontae Reshard Caine Re: Stolen Valor Act as Unconstitutional Issue: Does the First Amendment protects false statements of fact – made without any apparent intent to defraud or gain anything? If so, what level of protection do they deserve. Six Justices agreed that some protection was warranted, but disagreed as to the amount, and three Justices believe that the First Amendment does not protect such lies at all. Background: The defendant has been charged by criminal complaint with one count of violation of 18U.S.C. § 704, popularly known as the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.
On March 6, 1996, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Compassion in Dying v. Washington held that preventing a competent adult from seeking physician assistance in committing suicide interfered with an individual's liberty interest and, therefore, violates an individual's substantive due process rights. Less than a month later in a similar case, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Quill v. Vacco held that the New York statute criminalizing assisted suicide violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court reasoned that the state has no rational or legitimate interest in preventing a mentally competent terminally ill patient in the final stage of his or her illness from taking a lethal dose of a physician-prescribed medication. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned both decisions; the Washington case became known as Washington v. Glucksberg. On June 27, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on suicide is rationally related to a legitimate government interest and therefore there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide; however, states are free to decide for themselves whether to allow physician-assisted suicide.
The First Amendment: Freedom of the Press The First Amendment prohibits Congress from preventing citizens from writing their opinions even when speaking ill of the government. Citizens can print anything as long as they think it to be true. If they knowingly print false information, it is considered libel and is unlawful. The First Amendment was proposed on September 25, 1789 and was ratified on December 15, 1791. Freedom of the press was provided in the First Amendment to prohibit Congress from punishing people for publishing their opinions.
The Court of Appeals saw no justification legally for a categorical rule excluding same-sex harassment claims from the coverage of Title VII. In 1998, The United States Supreme Court declared that same-sex sexual harassment was actionable under Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace (Perry & Fink,
The Court argued that the constitutional right to privacy was limited to matters relating to “marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing education.” The publication of records of official acts, such as arrests, did not fall under the rubric of privacy rights. Reputation alone is not constitutionally protected interest. The three justices (minority opinion) disagreed with the findings of the majority. The dissenting opinion reasoned that the decision justified that intrusive action defamed and stigmatized the respondent as a criminal. Justice Brennan, writing for the minority, reasoned an illegitimate and improper enforcement of law that assaulted the constitution (Chicago Kent College of
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States The Civil Rights of 1964 prohibited places of “public accommodation” from discrimination based on customer’s race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. The Heart of Atlanta Motel challenged the constitutionality of this provision and, after losing before a three- judge federal court, appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the power under the commerce Clause to enact the prohibitions on discrimination contained in the public accommodations sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Justice Thomas Clark wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court. The Heart of Atlanta Motel was a large, 216-room motel in Atlanta, Georgia.
In significant part this reads as a tendentious attack on recent Supreme Court jurisprudence. One particularly unfair portion of it is devoted to a discussion of the 2001 LAWRENCE decision which struck down a Texas law (and similar laws in other states) criminalizing private, consensual homosexual conduct between adults. Nagel’s discussion does not even address the Court’s argument that this law presented an unconscionable coercive intrusion by the state into the most intimate of relationships or Justice O’Connor’s argument that it had a severely disproportionate impact on a small and insular portion of the population (gays and lesbians). Instead, and quite erroneously, the law is presented as having been about “protect[ing] . .
To the contrary, the amendment imposes a special disability on those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint" (J.A Kennedy,2009) The truth is, I think it is sick that here in the United States, gay marriage is not a federally protected right. This is bigotry, pure and simple, and it needs to stop. Denying two women or two men the right to marry is as cruel and absurd as it was to deny two straight people of different races the right to marry. Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't the Constitution of the United States guarantee everyone the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?