Results for “THE COURT”

he always presided and got to assign the opinion to one of the three judges on a panel (or nine when on rare occasions the entire court heard the case “en banc”). Following the oral argument

who had been appointed to Represent Gideon. (My friend John Hart Ely was working for the Fortas firm during the summer the briefs were being prepared and I reviewed and edited several drafts with John.) Bazelon’s opinions—more often dissents than majority—had established the co...

…ld her that shots had been fired in Dallas. We turned on a small television set that had been in my cubicle ever since the World Series a couple of months earlier. Nothing was yet on the news. A few minutes later everyone in the world knew that President Kennedy had been shot....

I must recount one vignette regarding Justice Goldberg that caused me considerable disappointment. One of the great villains of the day to all liberals was J. Edgar Hoover

the uttering of the prohibited words on a Pacifica radio station that broadcast Carlin’s routine led to a Supreme Court decision setting out standards for what could and could not be said during certain hours of the day and night.

I decided to argue that it was none of the government’s constitutional business to act as a board of censors—to tell its adult citizens what they could and could not watch in the privacy of a movie theater that was off limits to children and that did not advertise in a pandering...

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.”

while 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

whose mother controlled 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...

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