1.
Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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United States Reports
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The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. Opinions of the court in each case, prepended with a prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. For lawyers, citations to United States Reports are the reference for Supreme Court decisions. Following Bluebook, a commonly accepted citation protocol, the case Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, for example, would be cited as, Brown v. Bd. of Educ. The early volumes of the United States Reports were originally published privately by the individual Supreme Court Reporters, as was the practice in England, the reports were designated by the names of the reporters who compiled them, Dallass Reports, Cranchs Reports, etc. The decisions appearing in the entire first volume and most of the volume of United States Reports are not decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period, alexander Dallas, a lawyer and journalist, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume and this would come to be known as the first volume of Dallas Reports. Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania decisions in a volume of his Reports. When the Supreme Court began hearing cases, he added those cases to his reports, starting towards the end of the volume,2 Dallas Reports. Dallas went on to publish a total of four volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter, when the Supreme Court moved to Washington, D. C. in 1800, Dallas remained in Philadelphia, and William Cranch took over as unofficial reporter of decisions. In 1817, Congress made the Reporter of Decisions an official, salaried position, in 1874, the U. S. government began to fund the reports publication, creating the United States Reports. The earlier, private reports were retroactively numbered volumes 1–90 of the United States Reports, therefore, decisions appearing in these early reports have dual citation forms, one for the volume number of the United States Reports, and one for the set of nominate reports. For example, the citation to McCulloch v. Maryland is 17 U. S.316
3.
William Rehnquist
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Considered a conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendments reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism the Court, for the first time since the 1930s, the last 11 years of Rehnquists term as chief justice marked the second-longest tenure of a single unchanging roster of the Supreme Court, exceeded only between February 1812 and September 1823. He is the justice in Supreme Court history. Rehnquist was born William Donald Rehnquist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 1,1924 and he grew up in the suburb of Shorewood. Rehnquist changed his name to Hubbs, a family name. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden, Rehnquist graduated from Shorewood High School in 1942. He attended Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, for one quarter in the fall of 1942 and he served from March 1943 –1946, mostly in assignments in the United States. He was put into a program and assigned to Denison University until February 1944. He served three months at Will Rogers Field in Oklahoma City, three months in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and then went to Hondo, Texas, for a few months. He was then chosen for training program, which began at Chanute Field, Illinois. The program was designed to teach the maintenance and repair of weather instruments, in the summer of 1945, Rehnquist went overseas as a weather observer in North Africa. After the war ended, Rehnquist attended Stanford University with assistance under the provisions of the G. I, in 1948, he received both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree in political science. In 1950, he attended Harvard University, where he received another Master of Arts and he later returned to Stanford, and graduated from the Stanford Law School in the same class as Sandra Day OConnor, with whom he would later serve on the Supreme Court. Rehnquist graduated first in his class, Rehnquist went to Washington, D. C. to work as a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court during the courts 1952–1953 term. Rehnquists 1952 memo, entitled A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases, Rehnquist said, I believe that the memorandum was prepared by me as a statement of Justice Jacksons tentative views for his own use. Justice Jackson did not ask law clerks to express his views and he expressed his own and they expressed theirs. That is what happened in this instance, however, the papers of Justices Douglas and Frankfurter indicate that Justice Jackson voted for Brown in 1954 only after changing his mind. However, Rehnquist acknowledged defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks, several commentators have concluded that the memo reflected Rehnquists own views rather than those of Justice Jackson
4.
John Paul Stevens
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John Paul Stevens is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who served from December 19,1975, until his retirement on June 29,2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest justice then serving, the second-oldest serving justice in the history of the Court, and he was nominated by President Gerald Ford to replace the Courts longest-serving justice, William O. Douglas. Stevens is widely considered to have been on the side of the Court at the time of his retirement. Stevens served with three Chief Justices, Stevens was born on April 20,1920, in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family. His paternal grandfather had formed a company and held real estate in Chicago. His father, Ernest James Stevens, was a lawyer who became a hotelier. He lost ownership of the hotels during the Great Depression and was convicted of embezzlement and his mother, Elizabeth Maude Stevens, was a high-school English teacher. Two of his three brothers also became lawyers. As a boy, Stevens attended the 1932 World Series baseball game in Chicagos Wrigley Field in which Babe Ruth called his shot, Stevens later recalled, Ruth did point to the center-field scoreboard. And he did hit the ball out of the park after he pointed with his bat, so it really happened. He also had the opportunity to meet several people of the era, including the famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. The family lived in Hyde Park, and John Paul Stevens attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School. He subsequently obtained a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Chicago in 1941, while in college and he began work on his masters degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy. He enlisted on December 6,1941, one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamotos plane in 1943. Stevens married Elizabeth Jane Shereen in June 1942, divorcing her in 1979, he married Maryan Mulholland Simon that December. He has four children, John Joseph, Kathryn, Elizabeth, with the end of World War II, Stevens returned to Illinois, intending to return to his studies in English, but was persuaded by his brother Richard, who was a lawyer, to attend law school. Stevens enrolled in the Northwestern University School of Law in 1945 and he was a brilliant student, earning the highest GPA in the history of the law school. He received his J. D. in 1947, graduating cum laude
5.
Sandra Day O'Connor
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Sandra Day OConnor is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to OConnors tenures on the Court, she was an elected official, on July 1,2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005, considered a federalist and a moderate Republican, OConnor tended to approach each case narrowly without arguing for sweeping precedents. She most frequently sided with the conservative bloc, although in the latter years of her tenure. OConnor was Chancellor of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and she also served on the Board of Trustees for Colonial Williamsburg. Several publications have named OConnor among the most powerful women in the world, on August 12,2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States, by President Barack Obama. She was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Harry Alfred Day, a rancher and her sister was Ann Day, who served in the Arizona Legislature. She grew up on a ranch near Duncan, Arizona where she had to change automobile flat tires herself in dangerous environments. She later wrote a book with her brother, H. Alan Day, Lazy B, Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American West, about her childhood experiences on the ranch. For most of her schooling, OConnor lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother, and attended school at the Radford School for Girls. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946 and she attended Stanford University, where she received her B. A. in economics in 1950. She continued at the Stanford Law School for her LL. B and she has stated that she graduated third in her law school class, although Stanfords official position is that the law school did not rank students in 1952. On December 20,1952, six months after graduating law school. Her husband suffered from Alzheimers disease for twenty years until his death in 2009. After graduation from law school, at least forty law firms refused to interview her for a position as an attorney because she was a woman. She eventually found employment as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, after she offered to work for no salary and without an office, sharing space with a secretary. When her husband was drafted, she decided to pick up and they remained there for three years before returning to the states, where they settled in Maricopa County, Ariz. to begin their family
6.
Antonin Scalia
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Antonin Gregory Scalia was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia was described as the anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Courts conservative wing. Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey and he attended Xavier High School in Manhattan and then college at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. He obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School and spent six years in a Cleveland law firm before becoming a law professor at the University of Virginia. In the early 1970s, he served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and he spent most of the Carter years teaching at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the first faculty advisers of the fledgling Federalist Society. In 1982, Ronald Reagan appointed him as judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in 1986, Reagan appointed him to the Supreme Court. Scalia was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, becoming the first Italian-American justice and he was a strong defender of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power should be paramount in many areas. He opposed affirmative action and other policies that treated minorities as special groups and he filed separate opinions in many cases and often castigated the Courts majority in his minority opinions using scathing language. Antonin Scalia was born on March 11,1936, in Trenton, New Jersey and his father, Salvatore Eugene Scalia, an Italian immigrant from Sommatino, Sicily, was a graduate student at Columbia University and clerk at the time of his sons birth. The elder Scalia would become a professor of Romance languages at Brooklyn College and his mother, Catherine Louise Scalia, was born in Trenton to Italian immigrant parents and worked as an elementary school teacher. In 1939, Scalia and his moved to the Elmhurst section of Queens, New York. He later stated that he spent much of his time on schoolwork and admitted, while a youth, he was also active as a Boy Scout and was part of Scoutings national honor society, the Order of the Arrow. Classmate and future New York State official William Stern remembered Scalia in his school days. He could have been a member of the Curia and he was the top student in the class. He was brilliant, way above everybody else, in 1953, Scalia enrolled at Georgetown University, where he graduated valedictorian and summa cum laude in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. While in college, he was a champion debater in Georgetowns Philodemic Society. He took his junior year abroad at the University of Fribourg, Scalia studied law at Harvard Law School, where he was a Notes Editor for the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1960, becoming a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University, the fellowship enabled him to travel throughout Europe during 1960–1961
7.
Anthony Kennedy
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Kennedy became the most senior Associate Justice on the court following the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. Since the retirement of Sandra Day OConnor in 2006, he has been the swing vote on many of the Courts 5–4 decisions. He has authored the majority ruling in many of these cases, including Lawrence v. Texas, Boumediene v. Bush, Citizens United v. FEC, Kennedy was born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in Sacramento, California. He was the son of Anthony J. Kennedy, an attorney with a reputation for influence in the California legislature, and Gladys, as a boy, Kennedy came into contact with prominent politicians of the day, such as California Governor and later U. S. He served as a page in the California State Senate as a young man, Kennedy attended Stanford University, graduating with a B. A. after spending his senior year at the London School of Economics. He earned an LL. B cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1961, Kennedy has been married to Mary Davis since 1963, and they have three children. Kennedy was in practice in San Francisco from 1961 to 1963. In 1963, following his fathers death, he took over his fathers Sacramento practice, from 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at McGeorge School of Law, at the University of the Pacific. He continues to teach law students at seminars during McGeorges European summer sessions in Salzburg and he remains Pacific McGeorges longest-serving active faculty member. During Kennedys time as a California law professor and attorney, he helped California Governor Ronald Reagan draft a state tax proposal. Kennedy has served in numerous positions during his career, including the California Army National Guard in 1961, Kennedy was unanimously confirmed by the U. S. Senate on March 20 and received his commission on March 24,1975. On November 11,1987, Kennedy was nominated to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Lewis F. Powell, Kennedy was then subjected to an unprecedentedly thorough investigation of his background, which he easily passed. In a lower court dissent that Kennedy had written before joining the Supreme Court, considering such conduct offensive and destructive of the family, Kennedy had written, indifference to personal liberty is but the precursor of the states hostility to it. It does not follow that each of those rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system, many argue that a just society grants a right to engage in homosexual conduct. We can extend that slightly to say that Georgias right to be wrong in matters not specifically controlled by the Constitution is a component of its own political processes. Its citizens have the liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense. Kennedy said about Griswold v. Connecticut, I really think I would like to draw the line and he also discussed a zone of liberty, a zone of protection, a line thats drawn where the individual can tell the Government, Beyond this line you may not go
8.
David Souter
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David Hackett Souter is a retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served from October 1990 until his retirement in June 2009 and he was the only Justice during his time on the Court with extensive prior court experience outside of a federal appeals court. Following Souters retirement announcement in May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor as his successor, Souter was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, on September 17,1939, the only child of Joseph Alexander Souter and Helen Adams Souter. At age 11, he moved with his family to their farm in Weare, in 1961, he graduated with an A. B. magna cum laude as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Magdalen College, Oxford and he then entered Harvard Law School, graduating in 1966. As Assistant Attorney General he prosecuted criminal cases in the courts, in 1971, Warren Rudman, then the Attorney General of New Hampshire, selected Souter to be the Deputy Attorney General. Souter succeeded Rudman as New Hampshire Attorney General in 1976, in 1978, with the support of his friend Rudman, Souter was named an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire. As a judge on the Superior Court he heard cases in two counties and was noted for his tough sentencing, with four years of trial court experience, Souter was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in 1983. Shortly after George H. W. Bush was sworn in as President, Souter had had seven years of judicial experience at the appellate level, four years at the trial court level, and ten years with the Attorney Generals office. He was confirmed by unanimous consent of the Senate on April 27,1990, President George H. W. Bush originally considered appointing Clarence Thomas to Brennans seat, but decided that Thomas did not have enough experience as a judge. Souter was seen as a justice whose professional record in the state courts provoked little real controversy. Bush nominated Souter on July 25,1990, saying that he did not know Souters stances on abortion, affirmative action, Senate confirmation hearings were held beginning on September 13,1990. The National Organization for Women opposed Souters nomination and held a rally outside of the Senate during his confirmation hearings, the president of NOW, Molly Yard, testified that Souter would end freedom for women in this country. Souter was also opposed by the NAACP, which urged its 500,000 members to write letters to their senators asking them to no on the nomination. And so we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts, despite the opposition, Souter won an easy confirmation compared to those of later appointees. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported out the nomination by a vote of 14–3, the Senate confirmed the nomination by a vote of 90–9, the nine senators voting against Souter included Ted Kennedy and John Kerry from Souters neighboring state of Massachusetts. These senators, along with seven others, painted Souter as a right-winger in the mold of Robert Bork and they based their claim on Souters friendships with many conservative politicians in New Hampshire. Souter opposed having cameras in the Supreme Court during oral arguments because he said questions would be out of context by the media
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Clarence Thomas
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Clarence Thomas is an American judge, lawyer, and government official who currently serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Thomas succeeded Thurgood Marshall and is the second African American to serve on the court, Thomas grew up in Savannah, Georgia, and was educated at the College of the Holy Cross and at Yale Law School. In 1974, he was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri, in 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Senator John Danforth and in 1981 was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U. S. Department of Education. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in 1990, President George H. W. Bush nominated Thomas for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He served in that role for 16 months and on July 1,1991, was nominated by Bush to fill Marshalls seat on the United States Supreme Court, the U. S. Senate ultimately confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48. Since joining the court, Thomas has taken a textualist approach, seeking to uphold the original meaning of the United States Constitution and he is generally viewed as the most conservative member of the court. Clarence Thomas was born in 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia and he was the second of three children born to M. C. Thomas, a worker, and Leola Williams, a domestic worker. They were descendants of American slaves, and the family spoke Gullah as a first language, Thomass earliest-known ancestors were slaves named Sandy and Peggy who were born around the end of the 18th century and owned by wealthy Liberty County, Georgia planter Josiah Wilson. M. C. left his family when Thomas was two years old, Thomass mother worked hard but was sometimes paid only pennies per day. She had difficulty putting food on the table and was forced to rely on charity, after a house fire left them homeless, Thomas and his younger brother Myers were taken to live with his maternal grandparents in Savannah, Georgia. Thomas was seven when the family moved in with his grandfather, Myers Anderson. Living with his grandparents, Thomas enjoyed amenities such as indoor plumbing and his grandfather Myers Anderson had little formal education, but had built a thriving fuel oil business that also sold ice. Thomas calls his grandfather the greatest man I have ever known, when Thomas was 10, Anderson started taking the family to help at a farm every day from sunrise to sunset. His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance, he would counsel Thomas to never let the sun catch you in bed, Thomas grandfather also impressed upon his grandsons the importance of getting a good education. Thomas was the black person at his high school in Savannah. He considered entering the priesthood at the age of 16, and he also briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary in Missouri. No one in Thomass family had attended college, Thomas has said that during his first year in seminary, he was one of only three or four blacks attending the school
10.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10,1993 and she is the second female justice and one of four female justices appointed on the Supreme Court. She is generally viewed as belonging to the wing of the Court. Ginsburg was one of the few women in her law school class, following law school, Ginsburg turned to academia. She was a professor at Rutgers School of Law–Newark and Columbia Law School, Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her legal career as an advocate for the advancement of gender equality and womens rights, winning multiple victories arguing before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Joan Ruth Bader is the daughter of Nathan and Celia Bader, Russian Jewish immigrants. The Baders older daughter, Marylin, died of meningitis at age 6 when Ruth was 14 months old, the family called Joan Ruth Kiki, a nickname Marylin had given her for being a kicky baby. When Kiki started school, Celia discovered that her daughters class had several other girls named Joan, although not devout, the Bader family belonged to East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative temple, where Ruth learned tenets of the Jewish faith and gained familiarity with the Hebrew language. At age thirteen, Ruth acted as the rabbi at a Jewish summer program at Camp Che-Na-Wah in Minerva. Her mother took a role in her education, taking her to the library often. Celia had been a student in her youth, graduating from high school at age 15. Celia wanted to see her daughter get more of an education, Ruth attended James Madison High School, whose law program later dedicated a courtroom in her honor. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruths high school years, and died the day before Ruths high school graduation, Bader attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi. While at Cornell she met Martin D. Ginsburg at age 17 and she graduated from Cornell with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23,1954. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the female student in her graduating class. At age 21, she worked for the Social Security Administration office in Oklahoma and she gave birth to a daughter in 1955
11.
Stephen Breyer
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Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Breyer is generally associated with the liberal side of the Court. Following a clerkship with Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964, Breyer became well known as a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School, there he specialized in administrative law, writing a number of influential textbooks that remain in use today. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Anne A. and Irving Gerald Breyer, Irving Breyer was legal counsel for the San Francisco Board of Education. Both Breyer and his brother, Charles, who is a federal district judge, are Eagle Scouts of San Franciscos Troop 14. Breyers paternal great-grandfather emigrated from Romania to the United States, settling in Cleveland, in 1955, Breyer graduated from Lowell High School. He is also fluent in French, in 1967, he married the Hon. Joanna Freda Hare, a psychologist and member of the British aristocracy, as the youngest daughter of John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham. The Breyers have three children, Chloe, an Episcopal priest and author of The Close, Nell. Breyer served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg during the 1964 term and he was a special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 1965 to 1967 and an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer was a counsel to the U. S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975. He worked closely with the chairman of the committee, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Breyer was a lecturer, assistant professor, and law professor at Harvard Law School starting in 1967. He taught there until 1994, also serving as a professor at Harvards Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1980, at Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law. While there, he wrote two influential books on deregulation, Breaking the Vicious Circle, Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation. In 1970, Breyer wrote The Uneasy Case for Copyright, one of the most widely cited skeptical examinations of copyright, Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School. From 1980 to 1994, Breyer was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, he was the courts Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994. In the last days of President Jimmy Carters administration, on November 13,1980, Carter nominated Breyer to the First Circuit, and the U. S. Senate confirmed him on December 9,1980, by an 80–10 vote. He served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994 and the United States Sentencing Commission between 1985 and 1989, in 1993, President Bill Clinton considered him for the seat vacated by Byron White that ultimately went to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Breyers appointment came shortly thereafter, however, following the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994, Breyer was confirmed by the U. S. Senate in an 87 to 9 vote and took his seat August 3,1994
12.
Sodomy laws in the United States
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Sodomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety of sexual acts, were inherited from British criminal laws with roots in the Christian religion of Late antiquity. Through the 20th century, the liberalization of American sexuality led to the elimination of sodomy laws in most states. During this time, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, however, in 2003 the Supreme Court reversed the decision with Lawrence v. Texas, invalidating sodomy laws in the remaining 14 states. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson wrote a law in Virginia which contained a punishment of castration for men who engage in sodomy. Jefferson intended this to be a liberalization of the laws in Virginia at that time. It was rejected by the Virginia legislature, prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state, punished by a lengthy term of imprisonment and/or hard labor. Over the years, many of the states that did not repeal their sodomy laws had enacted legislation reducing the penalty. At the time of the Lawrence decision in 2003, the penalty for violating a sodomy law varied very widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction among those states retaining their sodomy laws, the harshest penalties were in Idaho, where a person convicted of sodomy could earn a life sentence. Michigan followed, with a penalty of 15 years imprisonment while repeat offenders got life. By 2002,36 states had repealed their laws or their courts had overturned them. By the time of the 2003 Supreme Court decision, the laws in most states were no longer enforced or were enforced very selectively. The continued existence of these rarely enforced laws on the books, however, was often cited as justification for discrimination against gay men. In 2005 Puerto Rico repealed its law, and in 2006 Missouri repealed its law against homosexual conduct. In 2005, basing its decision on Lawrence, the Supreme Court of Virginia in Martin v. Ziherl invalidated §18. 2-344, in State v. Whiteley, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the crime against nature statute, N. C. G. S. § 14-177, is not unconstitutional on its face because it may properly be used to criminalize sexual conduct involving minors, non-consensual or coercive conduct, public conduct, and prostitution. On January 31,2013, the Senate of Virginia passed a bill repealing §18. 2-345, on February 20,2013, the Virginia House of Delegates passed the bill by a vote of 62 to 25 votes. On March 20,2013, Governor Bob McDonnell signed the repeal of the lewd, on March 12,2013, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down §18. 2-361, the crimes against nature statute. On June 25, Cuccinelli filed a petition for certiorari asking the U. S. Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision, which was rejected on October 7
13.
Equal Protection Clause
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The Equal Protection Clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The meaning of the Equal Protection Clause has been the subject of much debate and this clause was the basis for Brown v. The Equal Protection Clause itself applies only to state and local governments, however, the Supreme Court held in Bolling v. Sharpe that equal protection requirements apply to the federal government through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Before and during the Civil War, the Southern states violated the rights of speech of pro-Union citizens, anti-slavery advocates. During the Civil War, the Southern states stripped many white citizens of their citizenship and banished them from the states. Shortly after the Union victory in the American Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress and ratified by the states in 1865, many ex-Confederate states then adopted Black Codes following the war. These laws severely restricted the rights of blacks to hold property, including property and many forms of personal property. These codes also created harsher criminal penalties for blacks than for whites, because of the inequality these Black Codes imposed, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This Act provided that all born in the United States were citizens. Full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, president Andrew Johnson Vetoed the Civil Rights bill of 1866 amid concerns that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to pass such a law. Such doubts were one factor that led Congress to begin to draft, moreover, Congress wanted to protect white Unionists who were under personal and legal attack in the former Confederacy. The effort was led by the Radical Republicans of both houses of Congress, including John Bingham, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens, the most important among these, however, was Bingham, a Congressman from Ohio, who drafted the language of the Equal Protection Clause. The Southern states were opposed to the Civil Rights Act, but in 1865 Congress, exercising its power under Article I, section 5, clause 1 of the Constitution, to be the Judge of the. Qualifications of its own Members, had excluded Southerners from Congress, declaring that their states, having rebelled against the Union, could therefore not elect members to Congress. It was this fact that the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted by a rump Congress—that allowed the Equal Protection Clause to be passed by Congress. Its ratification by the former Confederate states was made a condition of their reacceptance into the Union, during the debate in Congress, more than one version of the clause was considered. Here is the first version, The Congress shall have power to all laws which shall be necessary
14.
Lawrence v. Texas
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Lawrence v. Texas,539 U. S.558 is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. The Court struck down the law in Texas in a 6-3 decision and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U. S. state. Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly, the Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment. Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants, the case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae briefs were filed. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several states imposed various eugenics laws against anyone deemed to be a sexual pervert, as late as 1970, Connecticut denied a drivers license to a man for being an admitted homosexual. As of 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law, in 1961, the American Law Institutes Model Penal Code advocated the repeal of sodomy laws as they applied to private, adult, consensual behavior. Two years later the American Civil Liberties Union took its first major case in opposition to these laws, most judges were largely unsympathetic to the substantive due process claims raised. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court struck down a law barring the use of contraceptives by married couples, Eisenstadt v. Baird expanded the scope of sexual privacy rights to unmarried persons. In 1973, the choice whether to have an abortion was found to be protected by the Constitution in Roe v. Wade, the Court rejected this challenge in a 5 to 4 decision. Justice Blackmun, writing in dissent, argued that Eisenstadt held that the Constitution protects people as individuals, Lawrence and Eubanks had been friends for more than 20 years. Garner and Eubanks had a tempestuous on-again off-again romantic relationship since 1990, lacking transportation home, the couple were preparing to spend the night. Eubanks, who had been drinking heavily, left to purchase a soda from a vending machine. Apparently outraged that Lawrence had been flirting with Garner, he called police, four Harris County sheriffs deputies responded within minutes and Eubanks pointed them to the apartment. They entered the apartment toward 11 p. m. with their weapons drawn. In accordance with procedures, the first to arrive, Joseph Quinn. He later reported seeing Lawrence and Garner having anal sex in the bedroom, a second officer reported seeing them engaged in oral sex, and two others did not report seeing the pair having sex. Lawrence repeatedly challenged the police for entering his home, Quinn had discretionary authority to charge them for a variety of offenses and to determine whether to arrest them. He was told that Texass anti-sodomy statute, the Homosexual Conduct law, made it a Class C misdemeanor if someone engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex
15.
Defense of Marriage Act
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DOMAs passage did not prevent individual states from recognizing same-sex marriage, but it imposed constraints on the benefits received by all legally married same-sex couples. Initially introduced in May 1996, DOMA passed both houses of Congress by large, veto-proof majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in September 1996. In United States v. Windsor, the U. S. Supreme Court declared Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the issue of legal recognition of same-sex marriage attracted mainstream attention infrequently until the 1980s. A sympathetic reporter heard several gay men raise the issue in 1967, baker later changed his legal name to Pat Lynn McConnell and married his male partner in 1971, but the marriage was not legally recognized. A1972 off-Broadway play, Nightride, depicted a black–white homosexual marriage, in 1979, IntegrityUSA, an organization of gay Episcopalians, raised the issue when the U. S. Episcopal Church considered a ban on the ordination of homosexuals as priests. The New York Times said the question was all but dormant until the late 1980s when, according to gay activists, brought questions of inheritance and death benefits to many peoples minds. In May 1989, Denmark established registered partnerships that granted same-sex couples many of the associated with marriage. In the same year, New Yorks highest court ruled that two homosexual men qualified as a family for the purposes of New York Citys rent-control regulations. In September 1989, the State Bar Association of California urged recognition of marriages between homosexuals even before gay rights advocates adopted the issue, gary Bauer, head of the socially conservative Family Research Council, predicted the issue would be a major battleground in the 1990s. In 1991, Georgia Attorney General Michael J. Bowers withdrew a job offer to a lesbian who planned to marry another woman in a Jewish wedding ceremony. The Conference of Bishops responded, There is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of a ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship. In a critique of radicalism in the gay movement, Bruce Bawers A Place at the Table advocated the legalization of same-sex marriage. In Baehr v. Miike, the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that the state must show a compelling interest in prohibiting same-sex marriage, the main provisions of the act were as follows, Section 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Defense of Marriage Act, Georgia Representative Bob Barr, then a Republican, authored the Defense of Marriage Act and introduced it in the House of Representatives on May 7,1996. Senator Don Nickles, Oklahoma, introduced the bill in the Senate, the House Judiciary Committee stated that the Act was intended by Congress to reflect and honor a collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality. The Acts congressional sponsors stated, he bill amends the U. S. Nickles said, If some state wishes to recognize same-sex marriage and he said the bill would ensure that the 49 other states dont have to and the Federal Government does not have to. In opposition to the bill, Colorado Rep. Patricia Schroeder said and this is just stirring the political waters and seeing what hate you can unleash. The Democratic Party platform that year did not mention DOMA or marriage, in a June 1996 interview in the gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate, Clinton said, I remain opposed to same-sex marriage
16.
United States v. Windsor
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Later in 2008, New York recognized their marriage following a court decision. Spyer died in 2009, leaving her estate to Windsor. Windsor sought to claim the estate tax exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA, the Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsors claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes. On November 9,2010, Windsor filed a lawsuit against the government in the U. S. On February 23,2011, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 in Windsor. On April 18,2011, Paul Clement, representing the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a 2–1 decision, affirmed the district courts judgment on October 18,2012. BLAG petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court to review the decision, on March 27,2013, the court heard oral arguments. On June 26,2013, the U. S. Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision declaring Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment. On the same day, the court issued a separate 5–4 decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry—a case related to Californias constitutional amendment initiative barring same-sex marriage. Edith Edie Windsor was born in Philadelphia on June 20,1929, during her childhood, her father lost both his candy-and-ice-cream store and his house during the Great Depression, and she at times experienced anti-Semitism. After graduating from Temple University, she married Saul Windsor and they divorced less than one year afterward, and she confided in him that she longed to be with women. Edie Windsor soon moved to New York City to pursue a degree in mathematics at New York University. She would eventually become one of the first female senior systems programmers at IBM, thea Clara Spyer was born in Amsterdam on October 8,1931, to a wealthy Jewish family that escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to the United States before the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Spyer enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College, but was expelled after a campus guard saw her and another woman kissing. She received a degree from the New School for Social Research. In addition to her psychology practice in Manhattan, Spyer was an accomplished violinist. She met Windsor in 1963 at a West Village restaurant, Spyer proposed to her in 1967 but presented her with a diamond brooch instead of an engagement ring, fearing that Windsor would be stigmatized at work if her colleagues knew about her relationship
17.
Obergefell v. Hodges
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Obergefell v. Hodges,576 U. S. Nelson and found such bans to be constitutional. This created a split between circuits and led to an almost inevitable Supreme Court review and this legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, and its possessions and territories. Prior to Obergefell, thirty-six states, the District of Columbia, the status of same-sex marriage in American Samoa remains uncertain. The U. S. Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges is not the culmination of one lawsuit. Ultimately, it is the consolidation of six cases, originally representing sixteen same-sex couples, seven of their children, a widower, an adoption agency. Those cases came from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, all six federal district court rulings found for the same-sex couples and other claimants. One case came from Michigan, involving a couple and their three children. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse held a commitment ceremony in February 2007, a son was born on January 25,2009, and adopted by Rowse in November. A daughter was born on February 1,2010, and adopted by DeBoer in April 2011, a second son was born on November 9,2009, and adopted by Rowse in October 2011. Michigan law allowed only by single people or married couples. Richard Snyder, the defendant, was then governor of Michigan. The plaintiffs amended their complaint accordingly on September 7, during a hearing on March 7,2013, Judge Friedman decided he would delay the case until the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, hoping for guidance. On October 16, Friedman set trial for February 25,2014, having failed to establish such an interest in the context of same-sex marriage, the cannot stand. Two cases came from Ohio, the first ultimately involving a couple, a widower. In June 2013, following the U. S. Supreme Courts decision in United States v. Windsor, James Jim Obergefell and they married in Maryland on July 11. The lead defendant was Ohio Governor John Kasich, as the case progressed, on July 22, District Judge Timothy S. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine indicated he would not appeal the preliminary order, on August 13, Black extended the temporary restraining order until the end of December and scheduled oral arguments on injunctive relief, which is permanent, for December 18. Meanwhile, on July 22,2013, David Michener and William Herbert Ives married in Delaware, on August 27, William Ives died unexpectedly in Cincinnati, Ohio
18.
Initiative
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In political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote. The initiative may take the form of an initiative or an indirect initiative. In a direct initiative, a measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition, in an indirect initiative, a measure is first referred to the legislature, and then put to a popular vote only if not enacted by the legislature. It is a form of direct democracy, the Canadian province of British Columbia has a citizen initiative law known as the Recall and Initiative Act. The original proposal was put to voters in a referendum held in October 1991 and was supported by over 83% of voters and it was subsequently put into force by the incoming NDP government. The first referendum was held under this legislation on September 2011 on the subject of repealing the Harmonized Sales Tax, details of its use in BC are available on the Elections BC website. The rejected Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe included an indirect initiative right. The precise mechanism had not been agreed upon, critics underlined the weakness of this right of initiative, which did not ultimately entail any vote or referendum. A similar scheme under the name, European Citizens Initiative, has been put forward in the now ratified European Lisbon Treaty. It follows very similar rules to the ones outlined in the European Constitution and these citizens would thereby obtain the same right to request the Commission to submit a legislative proposal as the Council has had since the establishment of the European Communities in 1957. This, however, does require that the signatures come from a significant number of Member States and it is suggested that this significant number will need to be around a quarter of member states, with at least 1/500 of the citizens in those member states supporting the initiative. With the variety of languages within the European Union, this creates a significant hurdle for people to navigate. In 2013 the subjects of ongoing open initiatives of the European Citizens Initiative are e. g. about water and sanitation as a human right, unconditional Basic Income, or to End Ecocide in Europe. It remains to be if the ECI evolves into a full initiative or remains in its present state of a de facto petition. Since March 1,2012, groups of at least 50,000 Finnish citizens with suffrage have had the right to send a citizens initiative to the Parliament of Finland. A limited, indirect form of initiative was added to the French Constitution on 28 March 2003 as part of decentralization reforms. However, the only power these local referendum initiatives confer on citizens is the ability to add propositions to their local assemblys meeting agenda, the decision as to whether to submit citizen propositions to a popular vote rests with the local assembly. All German states have the right to initiative, however, there is no constitutional citizens initiative in Germany at a federal level
19.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
20.
Roy Romer
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Roy Rudolf Romer was the 39th Governor of Colorado and served as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2001 to 2006. Romer was born in Garden City, Kansas and he grew up in the southeastern Colorado town of Holly. Romer received a degree in agricultural economics from Colorado State University in 1950. He later received a law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1952 and he also studied ethics for one year at Yale Divinity School, and was a legal officer in the U. S. Air Force. He and his wife, Bea, have seven children and 19 grandchildren and his son Paul Romer is an economist, and his son Chris Romer, was elected to a Colorado State Senate seat from Denver in November 2006. In the 1950s and 1960s, Romer was an attorney in Denver and he was also active in the management of his familys agricultural operations throughout Colorado. Romer has continued and is also the owner, with one of his sons, of a chain of John Deere equipment stores in Colorado, Virginia and he helped develop Colorados Centennial Airport, ran a flying school and owned and operated a ski area. Romer served in the Colorado House of Representatives from 1958 to 1962, Romer was Colorado State Treasurer from 1977 to 1987, and a member of the governors cabinet. Romer was first elected as governor in 1986, and re-elected in 1990 and 1994, in 1997, Romer, along with Utah Governor Michael O. Leavitt and Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer, led a bipartisan team of 19 state governors in the founding of Western Governors University. Romer chaired the Democratic Governors Association in 1991, in 1992, he was co-chairman of the Democratic National Platform Committee. Romer served as vice chair of the Democratic Leadership Council. In January 1997, Romer was elected to serve as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. From 1992 to 1993, Romer served as chair of the National Governors Association, in 1994–1995 he chaired the Education Commission of the States, and in 1995, was part of a bipartisan effort by the nations governors to reform Medicaid. In law, his name is associated with the anti-discrimination suit Romer v. Evans that was brought to the Supreme Court during his tenure as Governor of Colorado. Though he was opposed to the amendment to the Constitution of Colorado in question, he defended the law in state, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the states defense of Amendment 2 has a rational relationship to legitimate state interests. The Court then invalidate Amendment 2 under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, the state ultimately failed to give a Rational basis to the purpose of the law. The lawsuit alleged David Grant attempted to lure the districts 700,000 students to a pornographic website, Roy Romer and the Los Angeles Unified School District subsequently settled the suit by paying Grant $360,000.00 in exchange for the domain name royromer. com. On June 7,2000, he became Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, on October 12,2006, the Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously named David L. Brewer III as his successor
21.
Wellington Webb
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Wellington E. Webb is an American politician. He served as the first African American Mayor of Denver, Colorado, the Webb family relocated from Chicago to the Northeast section of Denver in August of 1954, where the imposing six-foot, five-inch youth became active in sports. He is a graduate of the citys Manual High School, Webb was an all-conference basketball player at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado, in 1960. He obtained his B. A. in sociology from Colorado State College in 1964 and his M. A. in sociology from the school, now known as the University of Northern Colorado. He is married to Wilma Webb, and they have four children, Webb is the former president of the Democratic Mayors and the past president of the U. S. Conference of Mayors and National Conference of Black Mayors and he lectures frequently on civic issues and was a guest lecturer at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government. Webb collaborates closely with his wife, former Colorado State Representative Wilma J. Webb, in 2001, Webb served on the selection committee for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. In 1972, Webb was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives, in 1977, Webb was selected by President Jimmy Carter to serve as regional director of the U. S. Department of Health Education and Welfare. In 1981, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm appointed Webb to his cabinet as executive director of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, Webb was elected Denver city auditor in 1987, and served until 1991. Wellington Webbs 1991 bid for mayor included his Sneaker Campaign, in which he walked door to door through a portion of Denver. Webb served as mayor of Denver for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003 and he was also mayor at the time of the completion of Denver International Airport, started by his precessor, Federico Peña. In his three terms as mayor of Denver, Webb focused on four areas, parks and open space, public safety, economic development. Accomplishments during his administration include a record 40 percent decrease in crime since 1991 as unemployment dipped below 2 percent, Webbs development projects include the new Denver International Airport, a new sports stadium, expansion of the Denver Art Museum and a new African American Research Library. Webb was mentioned in the documentary Bowling for Columbine during a speech by National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, in April 1999, shortly after the high school shootings at Columbine High School near Denver, Heston claimed that Webb had asked him not to come to Denver. Webb was well known as the only African-American candidate for the DNC chairmanship, the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building, completed in Fall 2002, was named in honor of Webb. It houses some forty municipal agencies and divisions from the City and County of Denver, in February 2007, Webb published his autobiography, The Man, the Mayor and the Making of Modern Denver, co-written by former Colorado journalist Cindy Brovsky. In 2008, Webb supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden as one of Colorados presidential electors, biography by DenverGov. org - Focuses mostly on Webbs service as city auditor The Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building - Information and pictures South Platte project
22.
Colorado Supreme Court
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The Colorado Supreme Court is the highest court in the U. S. state of Colorado. Located in Denver, the Court consists of a Chief Justice, furthermore, the Colorado Supreme Court has general supervisory and budget authority over the judicial branch, the court rule making process, and the regulation of attorneys. At the end of term, Justices face a retention election at which voters can choose to retain or not retain a Justice. If a Justice were not retained, the vacancy would be filled by the Governor at the expiration of their current term, no appellate judge has ever lost a retention election since the system was put in place in 1966. The Justices are not elected as partisan officials, although they are appointed by a partisan elected official. The Chief Justice is selected by the Justices from amongst themselves, as of July 1,2006, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is paid $125,656 per year, and Associate Supreme Court Justices are paid $122,972 per year. In August 2010 the building was imploded to make way for a court building. Construction of the new building began in September 2010 and that new building, dubbed the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, opened in early 2013. Named for a governor of Colorado, the building is located at 2 East 14th Avenue in Denver. The State Supreme Court Building was a box-like structure raised off the ground by two columns located on the east and west ends of the building. The only parts of the building actually on the level were the columns. The underside of the featured a 150-foot mural designed by Colorado artist Angelo di Benedetto. It depicted several notable figures, including Hammurabi, Moses and Martin Luther King, the figures represented persons who are believed to have made significant contributions to law and justice. Directly beneath the mural was a large window embedded into the ground that looked down into the law library. Persons in the library were able to look up onto the mural via the ground level glass window, the mural was removed before the building was demolished, but its ultimate fate is uncertain. The courtroom itself was located on the floor of the building. The entrance to the courtroom consisted of two large brass colored metallic doors with a design on them. The courtroom was dimly lit with two glass windows depicting previous Supreme Court Justices
23.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states
24.
Davis v. Beason
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Davis v. Beason,133 U. S. Congress had passed the Edmunds Act in 1882, which made polygamy a felony, over 1,300 Mormons were imprisoned. The Act also required test oaths requiring voters to swear they were not bigamists or polygamists, a statute of the Idaho Territory required a similar oath, in order to limit or eliminate Mormons participation in government and their control of local schools. Mormons initiated a challenge to Idahos oath test, davis, a resident of Idaho, was convicted in the territorial district court of swearing falsely after taking the voters oath. Davis appealed his conviction via a habeas corpus writ, claiming that the Idaho law requiring the oath violated his right to the exercise of his religion as a member of the LDS Church. Justice Field, writing for the Court, condemned polygamy, writing that Few crimes are more pernicious to the best interests of society and he went on to echo Reynolds v. those who have been convicted of certain offenses. Has the Court concluded that the social harm of polygamy is a legitimate concern of government
25.
Yale Law School
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Yale Law School is the law school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. The schools small size and prestige make its admissions process the most selective of any law school in the United States, Yale has the lowest acceptance rate among all law schools. Roughly 8 in 10 admits ultimately matriculate, which marks the best yield rate among the top U. S. law schools, established in 1824, Yale Law offers the J. D. LL. M. M. S. L. and Ph. D. degrees in law, Yale Law has been ranked the number one law school in the country by U. S. News and World Report every year since the magazine began publishing law school rankings, through 2017. Yale Law School is widely considered to be the preeminent law school in the nation and is one of the most prestigious law schools in the world, Yale Law has produced a significant number of luminaries in law and politics, including United States presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton. Former president William Howard Taft was a professor of law at Yale Law School from 1913 until he resigned to become chief justice of the United States in 1921. Each class in Yale Laws three-year J. D. program enrolls approximately 200 students, Yales flagship law review is the Yale Law Journal. Another feature of Yale Laws culture since the 1930s, among both faculty and student graduates, has been an emphasis on the importance of spending at least a few years in government service, a similar emphasis has long been placed on service as a judicial law clerk upon graduation. Its 7.6,1 student-to-faculty ratio is the third lowest among U. S. law schools, Yale Law does not have a traditional grading system, a consequence of student unrest in the late 1960s. Instead, it grades first-semester first-year students on a simple Credit/No Credit system, for their remaining two-and-a-half years, students are graded on an Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail system. Similarly, the school does not rank its students and it is also notable for having only a single semester of required classes, instead of the full year most U. S. schools require. Students publish nine law journals that, unlike those at most other schools, although the Journal identifies a target maximum number of members to accept each year, it is not a firm number. Other leading student-edited publications include the Yale Law and Policy Review, the Yale Journal on Regulation, the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and the Yale Journal of International Law. In November 2013, it was announced that a $25 million donation would bring student dormitory living back onto campus, with renovations to begin in 2018. Yale Law has been ranked the number one law school in the country by U. S. News and it is currently ranked as the second best law school in U. S and fourth in the world by the 2016 QS Rankings. Additionally, a 2010 survey of scholarly impact, measured by per capita citations to faculty scholarship, the School began in the New Haven law office of Seth P. Staples in the 1800s, who began training lawyers, by 1810 he was operating a law school. He took on a student, Samuel J. Hitchcock as a law partner
26.
Bill of attainder
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A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial. Bills of attainder passed in Parliament by Henry Vlll on the 29 January 1542 resulted in the executions of a number of historical figures. For these reasons, bills of attainder are expressly banned by Article I, section 9, unlike the United States Constitution, there is no specific provision forbidding the Commonwealth Government from passing bills of attainder. One of the aspects of Judicial Power is the ability to make binding and authoritative decisions on questions of law. The wielding of Judicial Power by the Legislative or Executive Branch includes the direct wielding of power, the State Constitutions in Australia contain few limitations on government power. Bills of attainder are considered permissible because there is no entrenched separation of powers at the state level, the States cannot structure their legal systems to prevent them from being subject to the Australian Constitution. In the province of Quebec, the Michaud Affair is one case in which a provincial parliament expressed public disapproval of an individual. However, the motion passed on 13 December 2000 by the National Assembly was worded as an opinion of the Assembly rather than a bill of attainder per se, the word attainder, meaning taintedness, is part of English common law. His property could consequently revert to the Crown or to the mesne lord, any peerage titles would also revert to the Crown. Attainder functioned more or less as the revocation of the chain of privilege and all rights. Due to mandatory sentencing, the due process of the courts provided limited flexibility to deal with the circumstances of offenders. On the other hand, when a legal conviction did take place, in some cases the Crown would eventually re-grant the convicted peers lands and titles to his heir. It was also possible, as political fortunes turned, for a bill of attainder to be reversed and this sometimes occurred long after the convicted person was executed. Unlike the mandatory sentences of the courts, acts of Parliament provided considerable latitude in suiting the punishment to the conditions of the offenders family. Parliament could also impose non-capital punishments without involving courts, such bills are called bills of pains, the first use of attainder was in 1321 against both Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester and his son Hugh Despenser the Younger, Earl of Gloucester. They were both attainted for supporting King Edward II during his struggle with the queen and barons, in the case of Catherine Howard, in 1541 King Henry VIII was the first monarch to delegate Royal Assent, to avoid having to assent personally to the execution of his wife. After defeating Richard III and replacing him on the throne of England and it is noteworthy that this bill made no mention of the Princes in the Tower. After the committee stages, the Bill of Attainder passed both the Houses of Lords and Commons and was engrossed on 4 December 1660 and this aroused some protests in British public opinion at the time, including from people with no Jacobite sympathies
27.
Warren Court
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The Warren Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States during the period when Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, Warren was succeeded as Chief Justice by Warren Burger. Warren led a majority that used judicial power in dramatic fashion. The Warren Court expanded civil rights, civil liberties, judicial power, the period is recognized as the highest point in judicial power that has receded ever since, but with a substantial continuing impact. Prominent members of the Court during the Warren era besides the Chief Justice included Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. William O. Douglas, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Warren brought a strong belief in the remedial power of law. According to historian Bernard Schwartz, Warrens view of the law was pragmatic, seeing it as an instrument for obtaining equity, a related component of Warrens leadership was his focus on broad ethical principles, rather than narrower interpretative structures. Tushnet suggests Warrens principles were philosophical, political, and intuitive, Warrens leadership was characterized by remarkable consensus on the court, particularly in some of the most controversial cases. Fallon says that, Some thrilled to the approach of the Warren Court, many law professors were perplexed, often sympathetic to the Courts results but skeptical of the soundness of its constitutional reasoning. And some of course were horrified, professor John Hart Ely in his book Democracy and Distrust famously characterized the Warren Court as a Carolene Products Court. Warrens greatest asset, what made him in the eyes of many of his admirers Super Chief, was his skill in manipulating the other justices. Over the years his ability to lead the Court, to forge majorities in support of major decisions, Warren realized his weakness and asked the senior associate justice, Hugo L. Black, to preside over conferences until he became accustomed to the drill. A quick study, Warren soon was in fact, as well as in name, when Warren joined the Court in 1954 all the justices had been appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or Truman, and all were committed New Deal liberals. They disagreed about the role that the courts should play in achieving liberal goals, the Court was split between two warring factions. Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson led one faction, which insisted upon judicial self-restraint and insisted courts should defer to the prerogatives of the White House. Warren was a liberal justice than anyone had anticipated. Warren was able to craft a series of landmark decisions because he built a winning coalition. When Frankfurter retired in 1962 and President John F. Kennedy named labor union lawyer Arthur Goldberg to replace him, William J. Brennan, Jr. a liberal Democrat appointed by Eisenhower in 1956, was the intellectual leader of the faction that included Black and Douglas. Brennan complemented Warrens political skills with the legal skills Warren lacked
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Cincinnati
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Cincinnati is a city in the U. S. state of Ohio that serves as county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the side of the confluence of the Licking with the Ohio River. With a population of 298,550, Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and its metropolitan statistical area is the 28th-largest in the United States and the largest centered in Ohio. The city is part of the larger Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington combined statistical area. In the 19th century, Cincinnati was an American boomtown in the heart of the country, it rivaled the larger cities in size. Throughout much of the 19th century, it was listed among the top 10 U. S and it was by far the largest city in the west. By the end of the 19th century, with the shift from steamboats to railroads drawing off freight shipping, trade patterns had altered and Cincinnatis growth slowed considerably. Cincinnati is home to two sports teams, the Cincinnati Reds, the oldest franchise in Major League Baseball. The University of Cincinnati, founded in 1819, is one of the 50 largest in the United States, Cincinnati is known for its historic architecture. In the late 1800s, Cincinnati was commonly referred to as Paris of America, due mainly to such ambitious projects as the Music Hall, Cincinnatian Hotel. The original surveyor, John Filson, named it Losantiville, in 1790, Arthur St. Ethnic Germans were among the early settlers, migrating from Pennsylvania and the backcountry of Virginia and Tennessee. General David Ziegler succeeded General St. Clair in command at Fort Washington, after the conclusion of the Northwest Indian Wars and removal of Native Americans to the west, he was elected as the mayor of Cincinnati in 1802. Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819, exporting pork products and hay, it became a center of pork processing in the region. From 1810 to 1830 its population tripled, from 9,642 to 24,831. Completion of the Miami and Erie Canal in 1827 to Middletown, Ohio further stimulated businesses, the city had a labor shortage until large waves of immigration by Irish and Germans in the late 1840s. The city grew rapidly over the two decades, reaching 115,000 persons by 1850. Construction on the Miami and Erie Canal began on July 21,1825, the first section of the canal was opened for business in 1827. In 1827, the canal connected Cincinnati to nearby Middletown, by 1840, during this period of rapid expansion and prominence, residents of Cincinnati began referring to the city as the Queen City
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Hollingsworth v. Perry
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Hollingsworth v. Perry refers to a series of United States federal court cases that legalized same-sex marriage in the State of California. The case began in 2009 in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California and this decision overturned ballot initiative Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriage. After the State of California refused to defend Proposition 8, the sponsors of Proposition 8 intervened and appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was litigated during the governorships of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, and was known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown. It eventually reached the United States Supreme Court as Hollingsworth v, the salient effect of the ruling was that same-sex marriage in California resumed under the district court trial decision from 2010. The case was docketed with the Supreme Court at 570 U. S. ___, in May 2008, the California Supreme Court held in the case In re Marriage Cases that state statutes limiting marriage to opposite-sex applicants violated the California Constitution. The following month, same-sex couples were able to marry in California, in November 2008, Californias electorate adopted Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that restored the opposite-sex limitation on marriage. Following the adoption of Proposition 8, several lawsuits were filed that challenged the validity of the amendment under various state constitutional provisions. On May 26,2009, the California Supreme Court held, in Strauss v. Horton, that Proposition 8 was a lawful enactment, the couples legal team was led by David Boies and former U. S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who had opposed each other in Bush v. Gore. They were listed on the 2010 Time 100 for their nonpartisan, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the filing because they felt a federal challenge at this time might do more harm than good. Olson and AFER rebuffed this argument and defended the timing of the lawsuit, following a pre-trial hearing on July 2,2009, the three legal groups moved to intervene in the lawsuit, as did the City of San Francisco in a separate filing. The plaintiffs opposed allowing the groups or the City to intervene, on August 19, Judge Walker denied the legal groups motions to intervene but granted the Citys, albeit in a limited capacity. In May 2009, the Alameda County Clerk-Registrar, Patrick OConnell, denied Kristin Perry, for the same reason, Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County Clerk, denied Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo a marriage license. The couples sued the two county clerks and several officials, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown. Several groups sought to intervene as plaintiffs, including the groups who had prosecuted the In re Marriage Cases, San Francisco also filed a motion to intervene in the case. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said that his office is singularly well-prepared to help put anti-gay discrimination on trial based on the facts, Walker permitted only San Francisco to intervene, as it could speak to the impact of Proposition 8 on local governments. He also ordered the general to assist San Francisco in analyzing Proposition 8s impact
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
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The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although it was composed of four associate justices and one chief justice. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court traces its history back to the court of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay. Under the terms of charter, Governor Sir William Phips established the Superior Court of Judicature as the provinces local court of last resort. When the Massachusetts State Constitution was established in 1780, legislative and judicial records show that the high court. The SJC sits at the John Adams Courthouse, One Pemberton Square, Boston, Massachusetts 02108, which houses the Massachusetts Appeals Court. The proper legal citation for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is Mass, rex v. Preston – Captain Thomas Preston, the Officer of the Day during the Boston Massacre, was acquitted when the jury was unable to determine whether he had ordered the troops to fire. The defense counsel in the case was an attorney named John Adams. – Six soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre were found not guilty, Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison – The Court declared slavery unconstitutional in the state of Massachusetts by allowing slaves to sue their masters for freedom. With this case, he fulfilled his promise, slavery in Massachusetts was denied legal standing. This legalized the existence of non-socialist or non-violent trade organizations, though trade unions would continue to be harassed legally through anti-trust suits, goodridge v. Department of Public Health – The Court ruled 4-3 that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution. The decision was stayed for 180 days to allow the time to amend the law to comply with the decision. In December 2003, the state Senate asked the SJC whether civil unions would comply with their ruling, the SJC replied that civil unions were insufficient, and civil marriage was required. The legislature made no action, and the stay expired on May 17,2004. The state began issuing licenses to same-sex couples the same day. This decision was one of the first in the world to find that same-sex couples have a right to marry, the Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts with the consent of the Governors Council. The Justices hold office until the retirement age of seventy. The currently serving justices are, William Cushing, Horace Gray, several further attempts to legislate the courts existence were vetoed, and it was not until 1699 that the provincial assembly enacted laws creating courts that satisfied the Privy Council
