Results for “Court of Appeals”

…ably offend people outside the theater. There was no legal binding precedent for such a challenge. Indeed the Supreme Court had just recently reaffirmed the power of the government to ban and prosecute obscenity

the judges would not have to view the film. Judge Aldrich immediately interjected: “Are you trying to bribe us to decide the case so we don’t have to see the film?...I will admit that’s the best bribe I have ever been offered.”

…le continuing to press me hard on its implications. At one point Judge Aldrich asked me what I would do if the Supreme Court ruled against my theory. “Will that be the end of the road…?”

I continued to press my principle in the court of public opinion and in a series of other obscenity cases over the next several decades. Ultimately my view would prevail

and despite the Supreme Court’s continued insistence—most recently in the violent video games case—that “obscenity” is not protected by the First Amendment

the lead defense lawyer—William Kunstler—was held in contempt of court and sentenced to four years imprisonment. I was part of the legal team assembled to prepare the appeal of that contempt order. We won.

provocative or pornographic; they do not suggest promiscuity. They are photos of a prepubescent girl in innocent poses at her bath. In contrast

…lled what she would do. Her later appearances were made by a near-adult and were far more within her own control. The court simply ignored the argument by the 10 year old should not be bound by foolish decisions made by an ambitious mother when Brooke was too young to say no.

there was an immediate reaction. Conservative journalists had a field day lambasting the very notion that a court could strike down as unconstitutional a long-standing punishment that is explicitly referred to in the Constitution.

it must be confronted with the concrete responsibility of determining the immediate fates of many hundreds of condemned persons at the same time. In this way

it held that a condemned person’s constitutional rights were not violated “by permitting the jury to impose the death penalty without any governing standards” or by permitting the imposition of the death penalty in “the same proceeding and verdict as determined

which now might be 5-4 against us. And the large number of condemned inmates who faced execution on a theory similar to that which had lead the sentencing judge in Arizona to sentence the Tison brothers to die even though they had not killed the Lyons family or intended their de...

I decided to point the Court to the record evidence that the brothers were not at the scene of the crime and did not foresee that their father and Randy would kill the Lyons’ family:

we would win. The justices seemed to acknowledge that if there was no evidence that Ricky and Raymond had the “specific intent” to kill the Lyons’ family “that’s the end of the case.” I was confident that when the justices reviewed the entire record of the case

since the Arizona courts had not found that the condemned brothers had shown a “reckless disregard for human life.” 60 The majority therefore