A unanimous ruling by New Jersey’s Supreme Court in State v. Pomianek, 2015 N.J. LEXIS 275, 2015 WL 1182529 (March 17, 2015), striking down part of the state’s Bias Intimidation Law, may imperil the conviction of Dharun Ravi in the suicide of Tyler Clementi , the gay Rutgers University freshman who had been Ravi’s dormitory roommate.
The court’s ruling came in the case of David Pomianek, Jr., a white man who was convicted by … <Read More>
On March 5 the Supreme Court posted on its website the last argument calendar for the year, listing for Tuesday, April 28, the appeals in Obergefell v. Hodges, Tanco v. Haslam, DeBoer v. Snyder and Bourke v. Beshear, the four marriage equality appeals from the states of the 6th Circuit. The arguments will begin at 10 am. The Court does not broadcast its arguments live, but in a press release also issued March 5 the … <Read More>
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on January 16, 2015, that it was granting four petitions to review the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F.3d 388 (Nov. 6, 2014), which had rejected the claim that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and to have such marriages recognized by other states. The 6th Circuit’s ruling, issued on November 6 on appeals by four states from district court pro-marriage equality … <Read More>
The Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously ruled on December 19 that two Providence fire fighters with religious objections to homosexuality did not enjoy a First Amendment right to decline an assignment to staff a fire truck participating in the 2001 Pride Parade in their city. Fabrizio v. Providence, 2014 R.I. LEXIS 158. The court reversed a decision by Providence County Superior Court Justice Brian Van Couyghen, who had denied a motion for summary judgment … <Read More>
An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel voted 2-1 in United States v. Bates, 2014 WL 5421846, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20564 (Oct. 27, 2014), to vacate the child pornography conviction of Cameron Dean Bates, who had been convicted by a Southern District of Florida jury and sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for receiving, accessing, distributing, and possessing child pornography. The majority of the panel concluded that the trial judge … <Read More>
Granting pending summary judgment motions in two pending marriage equality cases, Senior U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick ruled on October 16 that Arizona’s constitutional and statutory same-sex marriage bans violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Connolly v. Jeanes, 2:14-cv-00024 JWS (D. Ariz.); Majors v. Horne, 2:14-cv-00518 JWS (D. Ariz.). Sedwick, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court in Alaska by President George H.W. Bush, hears many Arizona cases … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge Michael McShane ruled on August 21 that a lesbian former employee could sue a hospital under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act for 1964 for retaliatory discharge, even though the complaints she claims to have made before her discharge concerned sexual orientation discrimination. Bennefield v. Mid-Valley Healthcare, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116554 (D. Or.). Title VII outlaws discrimination because of sex, but federal courts have generally held that this … <Read More>
In a complicated three-way parental rights case, the New Jersey Appellate Division ruled on August 6 that the Mercer County Superior Court should not have dismissed without a plenary hearing a custody/visitation action by a child’s former lesbian step-parent. K.A.F. v. D.L.M., 2014 N.J. Super. LEXIS 112, 2014 WL 3843057. Key to the court’s ruling was that the consent of only one legal parent is necessary to the determination whether a third party has formed … <Read More>
On August 6 a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held a marathon three-hour argument for appeals in six marriage equality decisions coming from all four states in the circuit: Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. Eight attorneys — four representing the states and four representing groups of same-sex couple plaintiffs — struggled with defining fundamental rights, parsing state justifications for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, figuring out whether … <Read More>
A state trial judge in Key West, Florida, has ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Judge Luis M. Garcia ruled on July 17 that Monroe County Clerk Amy Heavilin must issue a marriage license to Aaron R. Huntsman and William Lee Jones, who have been a couple for eleven years, on July 22. Garcia wrote that he was giving the clerk until July 22 “in … <Read More>