Tag Archives: Court: 3rd Circuit

AP: “The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a high school football coach who wants to bow his head and kneel during prayers led by his players despite a school district policy prohibiting it . . . the 3rd …

Student Press Law Center: The Student Press Law Center, a national non-profit devoted to defending student journalists’ First Amendment rights, filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging a federal appeals court to clarify that schools cannot discipline students for criticizing their …

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman will be available for media interviews Wednesday following a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Brown v. City of Pittsburgh. ADF attorneys are representing a nurse who is challenging a Pittsburgh ordinance that prohibits speech in specified zones outside abortion clinics.

An insurer has no duty to indemnify the owner of a strip club for a bouncer’s assault (pdf) on a patron because the policy’s assault-and-battery exclusion was triggered by the bouncer’s conviction on a criminal assault charge, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The Thomas More Law Center reports: “The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yesterday filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, …

ACLJ has issued this press release. It reports: In a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, a three-judge panel upheld a lower court decision giving Khouzam the right to challenge Egypt’s “diplomatic assurances” that it …

Shannon P. Duffy reports on the Legal Intelligencer: Parents have no right to sue under the federal No Child Left Behind Act because Congress designed the law only to regulate school districts and never included any “rights creating” language that …

ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull: “We’re in big trouble in this country if a high school football coach can’t even show respect during the prayer of his players . . . ”

SCOTUS Blog reports: “The Solicitor General’s office on Tuesday filed this petition for certiorari in FCC v. CBS (08-653) — the case concerning the Super Bowl halftime incident in 2004 involving singers Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a publisher’s appeal of a ruling that had sealed the court record of an abortion bias case.

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4717 ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND MEDIA ADVISORY October 22, 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS:  (480) 444-0020 or www.telladf.org/pressroom Attorneys with ADF available to media after Penn. free speech hearing Pro-life counselors arrested and threatened with arrest for …

A New Jersey high school football coach is taking a team prayer case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: A three-judge appellate panel heard arguments today on whether to reopen a case concerning an Islamic Philadelphia police officer who wants to wear a religious head scarf while on duty. Last year, a U.S. District Court …

The Split Circuits Blog has this post that begins: Per Combs v. Homer-Center School Dist., — F.3d —-, 2008 WL 3863701 (3rd Cir. Aug 21, 2008): Smith’s hybrid-rights theory has divided our sister circuits. Some characterize the theory as dicta …

Six Christian families across Pennsylvania intend to continue their federal court battle in hopes of receiving an exception from state law mandating that they supply their local school districts with documentation about the home-schooling of their children.

The Split Circuits Blog reports: Per U.S. v. Stevens, 533 F.3d 218 n.22 (3rd Cir. Jul 18, 2008): [T]he question of whether Congress exceeds its constitutional authority when regulating intrastate activities was one that had, until just recently, divided the …

We hold that the Funeral Protest Provision is a reasonable, content-neutral regulation of the time, place, and manner of speech.

The Alliance Defense Fund recently announced that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the district court victory by Christian DeJohn, who is a sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

“The case law in this area establishes that parents simply do not have a constitutional right to control each and every aspect of their children’s education and oust the state’s authority over that subject.”

Not only is the Third Circuit’s ruling in DeJohn not “activist,” it is not political, as some have charged. DeJohn is squarely in line with 50 years of Supreme Court decisions placing special emphasis on the importance of free speech in higher education

At 2:30 PM Arizona time, ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson will debate Tempe University professor Dr. Mark Lamont Hill on the Fox News Channel about the recent win at the 3rd Circuit regarding Temple’s speech code.

Attorney David Hacker is with the Alliance Defense Fund. He says DeJohn knew about Temple’s ‘Speech Code,’ which, he says, “is a harassment policy that is so vaguely worded and so broad in its language that, really, university administrators were able to punish any sort of speech that they deemed offensive.

Leonard Link has this post titled: Another Chapter in the Culture Wars: 3rd Circuit Panel Invalidates Former Temple University Sexual Harassment Policy. It discusses the 3rd Circuit’s Temple University speech code ruling.  The post indicates: Alliance Defense Fund is behind …

The ADF Center for Academic Freedom has this post discussing its recent victory against Temple University’s speech code. Related: 3rd Circuit upholds ruling against Temple University “speech code” Temple: Another Court Decision Striking Down a Campus Speech Code

Baptist Press reports: Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called for action on the bill after a federal appeals court struck down a $550,000 fine by the Federal Communications Commission against CBS . . . Land …

Eugene Volokh has this post on the Volokh Conspiracy discussing yesterday’s 3rd Circuit ruling that upheld a lower court ruling which struck down Temple University’s speech code. Related ADF press release: 3rd Circuit upholds ruling against Temple University “speech code.” …

Julie Hilden has this commentary on Findlaw.  She writes: . . . The panel ruled in CBS’s favor. Unfortunately, however, its ruling is largely limited to the particular context of FCC policy as it stood at the time of the …

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Monday upheld a federal judge’s ruling against Temple University’s former “speech code.”

Chuck Colson has this article on the Christian Post. He writes: The nudity angered many viewers, and gave the world a cynical new term: “wardrobe malfunction.” Jackson’s wardrobe is not the only thing that malfunctioned; so did the Third Circuit …

OneNewsNow.com reports: Pat Trueman, special counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund and former chief of the Justice Department’s child exploitation and obscenity enforcement unit, is not surprised the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again struck down the law. [Child Online Protection …

Shannon P. Duffy has this article on the Legal Intelligencer providing a review of yesterday’s 3rd Circuit COPA ruling. Related: 3rd Circuit: Child Online Protection Act facially violates First and Fifth Amendments

Jan LaRue has this commentary on the Culture and Media Institute site. She writes: The Third Circuit’s decision throwing out the FCC’s “wardrobe malfunction” fine against CBS is exasperating, because CBS really ought to pay a price for making Super …

COPA provides for civil and criminal penalties – including up to six months imprisonment – for anyone who knowingly posts “material that is harmful to minors” on the Web “for commercial purposes.”

“In finding CBS liable for a forfeiture penalty, the FCC arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy excepting fleeting broadcast material from the scope of actionable indecency.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has upheld restrictions placed on the movements of members of Repent America in their protest of a Philadelphia PrideFest event.

Shannon P. Duffy reports on the Legal Intelligencer: Sources say the White House has tentatively signed off on a package of five judicial nominees proposed by Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert Casey that would fill all of the vacancies …

“This case has been a secret case in the tradition of the Star Chamber in medieval England,” Clothier and Berman wrote in their petition for rehearing . . .

The ACLU Blog reports: “A sense of déjà vu pervaded the courtroom in Philadelphia yesterday as the ACLU presented its challenge to the Child Online Protection Act . . . again. This is not the first or the second, but …

“A woman who has an abortion cannot be fired for doing so because the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act also protects the decision to terminate a pregnancy, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a case of first impression.”

Religion Clause Blog reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied cert. in Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism v. Long Branch, NJ, (Case No. 07-1111).  Thus, the 3rd circuit ruling remains in force. It held that in RLUIPA zoning challnges a …

A group of young men who stripped down to thong underwear and formed a roadside pyramid to stage a protest when President George W. Bush was visiting Lancaster County in July 2004 have lost their bid to revive a civil rights suit against the Pennsylvania state troopers who arrested them.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a petition for re-hearing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the case of a football coach who was prohibited by school officials from silently bowing his head or “taking a knee” while his players offered a pre-game prayer.

. . . we hold . . . a reasonable observer would conclude that Borden was Endorsing religion when he engaged in these acts.

The issue: Whether a Jewish Community Center qualifies for the “religious exemption” from Title VII’s anti-discrimination requirements.

In an action involving a teacher who was allegedly terminated from her employment based on her refusal to participate in a religions “libations” ceremony, judgment dismissing plaintiff’s complaint is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Three civil rights plaintiffs who won a preliminary injunction but never took the case to a final judgment are nonetheless entitled to a full award of attorney fees . . .

Bradford, Pennsylvania cited private property owners who made various signs from