Tag Archives: Court: 7th Circuit

Ed Whelan at National Review: There are two good reasons why the DOJ attorney’s argument that vindicating the RFRA rights of the business owners would violate the Establishment Clause was an “unexpected twist.” First, DOJ never made that argument in either of its Seventh Circuit briefs in the two cases. Second, there is good reason that it didn’t, for the argument is inane.

Ben Kesling And Louise Radnofsky at Wall Street Journal (access via Google): One of the cases before the Seventh Circuit was brought by K&L Contractors Inc. and its owners, who argued that the general contractor’s corporate mission mirrors that of its directors and majority owners. Cyril and Jane Korte, who own the company, are Roman Catholics. “A company is an extension” of its owners’ beliefs, said Edward White, K&L’s lawyer

Religion Clause Blog: The second case argued yesterday was Grote v. Sebelius. (Audio of the full oral argument.) In the case an Indiana federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to a for-profit business that manufactures vehicle safety systems and its Catholic owners who claim that their religious liberty rights are infringed by the mandate.

Washington Post: By the government’s own estimate, that means 100 million Americans might not have contraceptive coverage, said Matt Bowman, an Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer representing the Grotes in one of the two cases heard Wednesday. That could undercut the government’s argument that the need to carry out the mandate is so compelling it trumps the couple’s religious beliefs.

FRC Washington Update: Today, Grote, the family-owned auto lighting company, pled its case before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, represented by our good friends at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Of the 60-plus lawsuits filed, Grote was one of first for-profit companies to challenge the constitutionality of the mandate. With almost 500 full-time employees, the owners of Grote are fighting for the ability to operate their business in accordance with their Catholic faith–a cause Hobby Lobby certainly understands.

CNSNews at St. Louis Review: “This is the court directly under the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is helping to represent the Grote family in their suit. “So its decision on this religious freedom issue will be a precursor to whether (the health care act) can be used against religious freedom across the country.” Alliance Defending Freedom, until recently known as the Alliance Defense Fund, is a Christian legal organization founded in 1994 that advocates for the religious liberty of Americans and people around the world. According to Bowman, it is currently involved in 25 lawsuits that seek to overturn the HHS mandate.

Chicago Tribune: Grote Industries, a Catholic-owned manufacturer of vehicle safety and lighting systems in Madison, Ind., made similar arguments before the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday, adding that the distinction between a company and its owner or controlling shareholders exists for “some purposes, but not moral purposes.” “No doubt here the Grote family is being forced to choose,” lawyer Matthew Bowman argued. If they choose to disobey the mandate, they “forfeit the benefits of doing business at all according to their morality.” | Hat tip: How Appealing

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman will be available for media interviews Wednesday immediately following his oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit on behalf of an Indiana-based job provider challenging the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate.

Religion Clause Blog: McCarthy v. Fuller, (7th Cir., April  10, 2013), is a complicated dispute over who is entitled to the possession of documents and artifacts of Sister Mary Ephrem who claimed to have experienced a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in which Mary told Sister Ephrem, “I am Our Lady of America.”

U.S. v. Laraneta, No. 12-1302 (7th Cir. Nov. 14, 2012) (Opinion by Posner joined by Williams and Sykes)

The court held that a possessor of child porn images is not jointly liable for the total amount of restitution owed to victims by distributors of such images, because the amount of harm caused by possession is less than that caused by distribution. The Court also held that there is no right of intervention for child porn victims where claims of restitution are denied, but rather the appropriate remedy is to seek mandamus at the court of appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3771(d)(3).

Steven Aden appeared with an ACLU attorney and hosts Bob Zaltsberg & Mary Catherine Carmichael on Indiana Public Media Noon Edition (WFIU) to discuss a recent 7th circuit ruling. | MP3 audio 50:42 mins

Baptist Press: A pro-life lawyer criticized the decision. “The will of Indiana taxpayers to close loopholes so that their money isn’t used to fund the operations of abortion sellers should be respected,” said Steven Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, in a written statement. “During these tough economic times, it makes no sense to contradict the will of the people of Indiana, who don’t believe abortionists deserve to receive government funding.”

“The will of Indiana taxpayers to close loopholes so that their money isn’t used to fund the operations of abortion sellers should be respected. During these tough economic times, it makes no sense to contradict the will of the people of Indiana, who don’t believe abortionists deserve to receive government funding.”

Washington Post (AP): A federal appeals court has ruled that Indiana can’t cut off funding for Planned Parenthood just because the organization provides abortions. | ACLU press release | Planned Parenthood of Indiana v. Indiana Dept. of Health | LifeNews: Appeals Court Says Indiana Can’t De-Fund Planned Parenthood – “Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case— including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.”

AP: A federal appeals court in Chicago has heard arguments on the constitutionality of provisions in Wisconsin’s law restricting collective bargaining by public employees.

Ed Whelan at National Review Bench Memos: In the New Republic, Seventh Circuit judge Richard A. Posner has a very long essay (more than 5000 words) attacking Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, the new treatise co-authored by Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner (and the subject of various posts of mine, beginning here, over the past month). As I hope to elaborate in additional posts over the next week or so, Posner’s attack is remarkably slipshod and untrustworthy. Here are some opening observations . . .

Richard A. Posner at the New Republic: Judges like to say that all they do when they interpret a constitutional or statutory provision is apply, to the facts of the particular case, law that has been given to them. They do not make law: that is the job of legislators, and for the authors and ratifiers of constitutions. They are not Apollo; they are his oracle. They are passive interpreters. Their role is semantic.

Religion Clause Blog: In Teesdale v. City of Chicago, (7th Cir., Aug. 10, 2012), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a suit brought by a group from a nearby Baptist church that sought to proselytize for several years at the annual festival of Chicago’s St. Symphorosa Catholic Church.

Reuters: Appeals court overturns ban on video-sharing site
A video-sharing website that allows users to post links to copyrighted videos hosted on third-party sites is not infringing copyright laws, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
Flava Works v. Gunter, No. 11-3190 (7th Cir. Aug. 2, 2012)

Richard Garnett at National Review: Take the time to read the opinions — especially Judge Richard Posner’s dissent — in Doe v. Elmbrook School District.

How Appealing links to reports and the ruling in Doe v. Elmbrook School District.

Voteview Blog: In a recent interview with NPR, Judge Richard Posner said that changes in the contemporary Republican Party has made him “less conservative.” Below, we use DW-NOMINATE Common Space scores to plot Judge Posner’s ideological location compared to the parties in Congress over the last forty years (the 92nd, 102nd, and current 112th Congresses). This is possible thanks to the work of Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, Jeffrey A. Segal and Chad Westerland, who have developed Judicial Common Space scores (JCS): estimates of the positions of justices and judges along the liberal-conservative ideological dimension which are directly comparable to DW-NOMINATE Common Space scores for members of Congress and presidents.

Robert Sherman, an atheist, discovered that among the grants the Department chose to issue was a $20,000 transfer to Friends of the Cross (Friends) for
the restoration of an enormous Latin cross known as the Bald Knob Cross.

We hold that, on the record before us, the District’s use of the rented church space was neither impermissibly coercive nor an endorsement of religion on the part of the District.

Fields v. Smith, Nos. 10-2339 & 10-2466 (7th Cir. Aug. 5, 2011)

Journal Sentinel Online: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s decision to block the judicial nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor has drawn a pointed letter of protest from a group of legal academics around the country.
Johnson has singlehandedly held up consideration of Victoria Nourse for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

JSOnline: wo of President Barack Obama’s nominees for posts among the group, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler Jr. to fill a district court seat in Madison and law professor Victoria Nourse to fill a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, remain in limbo and appear unlikely to get the jobs.

Family Research Council praised the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for its 3-0 ruling today that dismisses a lawsuit against the National Day of Prayer . . .

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys won an important decision Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit against Indian Prairie School District on behalf of high school students prohibited from expressing their religious views about homosexual behavior on T-shirts. The court rejected Indian Prairie’s argument that school officials could justifiably put the First Amendment aside and censor T-shirts with the message “Be Happy, Not Gay” to prevent some students’ from having their feelings hurt.

ACLU: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral arguments today in a case defending the right of transgender people to receive medical care while they are incarcerated. Under Wisconsin law, prison doctors are prohibited from prescribing hormone treatment to transgender inmates. The law is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and Lambda Legal.”

CNSNews: “‘This is a child pornography case that does not involve a child,’ Peel’s lawyers told the court in their brief. They are claiming violations of the First Amendment and of the Constitution’s bar against ex post facto convictions for violating laws that were not in place when an alleged crime occurred.”

United States v. Peel, No. 07-3933 (7th Cir. Feb. 12, 2010)

Religion Clause Blog: “In the case, the 7th Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, invalidated a University of Wisconsin policy that withheld student activity fee funding for worship, proselytizing or religious instruction by recognized student groups.”

ADF Attorney David Hacker writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Perhaps emboldened by its #5 ranked football team, the University of Wisconsin is asking the United States Supreme Court to review a case involving the allocation of student activity fees to religious organizations . . . Last week, the University filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari at the Supreme Court in Badger Catholic v. Walsh, asking the high court to take the case and reverse the well-reasoned decision by Chief Judge Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit . . . The University contends in Badger Catholic, that allowing the students to use student activity fees for student-led prayer, worship, proselytizing, and religious instruction violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

Courthouse News Service: “Worshippers who claim to be orthodox Baha’i believers are not tied to a 1966 judgment barring an earlier splinter group from associating with the Baha’i faith, the 7th Circuit ruled.” Opinion here.

Buffalo Grove Patch: “Buffalo Grove atheist activist Rob Sherman says ‘the war continues’ to keep prayer out of public schools . . . [David Cortman], Senior Legal Counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the court brief in the case, said the opinion is on sound legal footing. ‘It highly unlikely the 7th Circuit Court will revisit the ruling,’ said Cortman.”

OneNewsNow: “A federal appeals court has upheld an Illinois law that allows public school students to engage in voluntary prayer and reflection as part of a moment of silence during the school day . . . ‘The plaintiff claimed that simply because another student would be able to pray silently, that somehow created a constitutional crisis and injured them in some way — which we are certainly at a loss to figure out,’ says [David Cortman] with the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State / Wall of Separation: “[L]ast week, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals . . . held the legislature had a secular purpose in passing the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act and upheld the law as constitutional . . . Not surprisingly, Religious Right groups like the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, are hailing the decision.”

Courthouse News Service: “Illinois public schools must give students a moment of silence before class each morning after the 7th Circuit reversed a lower court’s finding that the so-called ‘Silent Reflection Act’ violated the First Amendment . . . The ACLU supported Sherman’s challenge to the act. The Illinois Department of Education was supported by the Alliance Defense Fund.” Sherman v. Koch, No. 09-1455 (7th Cir. Oct. 15, 2010)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Friday upheld an Illinois law that allows public school students to engage in voluntary prayer and reflection as part of a moment of silence during the school day.

American Jewish Committee: “AJC is urging a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.”

Law.com: “The court on Sept. 28 announced Kagan would be assigned as the circuit justice for the 6th and 7th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals — the same circuits her predecessor John Paul Stevens handled before retiring in June.”

Annex Books v. City of Indianapolis, No. 09-4156 (7th Cir. Oct. 1, 2010)

SOB crime study does not support hours-of-operation ordinance

Before Easterbrrok, Chief Judge, and Flaum and Rovner, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam.

The 7th Circuit held that the study, Do ‘Off-Site’ Adult Businesses Have Secondary Effects? Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, and Empirical Evidence, 31 L. & Policy 217 (2009) by Richard McCleary & Alan C. Weinstein [SSRN | PDF] does not adequately support an Indianapolis ordinance requiring “adult bookstores to be closed all day on Sunday and between midnight and 10 a.m. on other days.” According to the court, the study “suffers [two] shortcomings . . . it concerns a dispersal ordinance rather than an hours-of-operation limit, and the authors did not attempt to control for other potential causes of change in the number of arrests near adult establishments.” Annex Books offered local evidence “suggesting [the] number of arrests near plaintiffs’ stores did not go down when the revised ordinance took effect, and in some areas arrests rose.” Therefore, the 7th Circuit upheld the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction against Indianapolis.

Christianity Today Political Advocacy Tracker: “Labor Day may be the symbolic start of the campaign season, but for some Christian political activists, the campaign begins with a 40-day prayer vigil that will culminate before the November elections . . . Pray & Act is endorsed by scores of pastors as well as leaders of advocacy groups, including Jim Daly (Focus on the Family), Mike Huckabee (former governor of Arkansas), Richard Land (ERLC), Penny Nance (Concerned Women for America), [Douglas Napier] and [Alan Sears] (Alliance Defense Fund) . . . Alliance Defense Fund won a victory for a Catholic student organization that was denied funds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “ADF filed suit, and a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction against the university, so the Badger Catholics could receive funding while the case proceeded. Last year, a different judge issued a final ruling partially in Badger Catholic’s favor. The university appealed that decision to the 7th Circuit, which on September 1 affirmed the lower court’s decision and ruled that the university violated the First Amendment by its discrimination.”

Law.com: “The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State Bar of Wisconsin didn’t violate members’ First Amendment rights by using mandatory dues for a public image campaign, but it also held that compulsory dues spending must be germane to the State Bar’s purposes.” Kingstad v. State Bar of Wisconsin, No. 09-4080 (7th Cir. Sept. 9, 2010)

ADF’s Weekly Update is on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGRgy6UjYM

“Because the public image campaign at issue in this case is germane to those constitutionally legitimate purposes, however, we affirm the judgment in favor of the state bar.”

OneNewsNow: “A federal appeals court has ruled that officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison violated the First Amendment by refusing to fund events of a student Catholic organization while providing funding for the events of other student organizations . . . ‘This is a great victory for religious freedom,’ says [Jordan Lorence], senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund and the attorney who argued before the Seventh Circuit last fall on behalf of the Catholic student group.”

CitizenLink / Family News in Focus features an audio report with quotations from ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence on the recent 7th Circuit ruling in Badger Catholic, Inc. v. Walsh. | Related ADF News Release.

Inside Higher Ed: A news release Monday from the Alliance Defense Fund, which backs the rights of religious students nationally and in this case, said that the court had found that the university “cannot deny funding to Catholic student group.” . . . The statement from the Alliance Defense Fund, which sued Madison, praised the appeals court’s ruling. “The constitutional rights of Christian student organizations should be recognized by university officials just as they recognize those rights for other student groups,” said Jordan Lorence, senior counsel. “The university funded the advocacy and expression of other student organizations but singled out Badger Catholic for exclusion based purely upon its viewpoint. The Seventh Circuit rightly regarded this as unconstitutional.”

“The Lins argue that the IJ and the Board erred by rejecting their claim that, because they have two children born in the United States, they have a reasonable fear of persecution if they are returned to Fujian province in the People’s Republic of China.”

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Wednesday that University of Wisconsin-Madison officials violated the First Amendment by refusing to fund events of a student Catholic organization while providing funding for the events of other student organizations.”

“A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that the University of Wisconsin-Madison must pay for student activities involving prayer, worship and proselytizing.”

Law.com: “The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on a technicality a lower court that upheld the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct, which bars judges and candidates in judicial elections from making statements that are ‘inconsistent with the impartial performance of judicial office.’ The court dismissed the case, brought by Indiana Right to Life Inc., as unripe. The defendants were the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications and the Indiana Disciplinary Commission.” Bauer v. Shephard, No. 09-2963 (7th Cir. Aug. 20, 2010)

Bauer v. Shephard, No. 09-2963 (7th Cir. Aug. 20, 2010)

Election Law Blog: Judge Easterbrook Writes Important Judicial Speech Code Decision About Indiana’s Rules

ADF Attorney Joel Oster writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “[A] recent decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of appeals in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest, Illinois, threatens to gut the protections of RLUIPA . . . According to the court, the town was justified in discriminating against the city because ‘commerce and industry’ are ‘necessary and desirable elements of the community’. But what about the church? Is not the work of the church necessary and desirable for the community? Of course it is. But to certain government officials who only understand the value of the dollar, providing moral direction and the other benefits of churches is worthless.” | More information on the case is available here.

“Whether in China’s prudish culture the pulling down of an 18-year-old girl’s pants by officers who were using force to try to extract urine from her, jailing her until her family paid a fine equal to a third of her year’s wages, and feeding her tainted food in the jail amounted to persecution is an issue in the first instance for the Board to decide.”

Eugene Volokh reports on the ruling in United States v. Skolen at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Christian Newswire: “Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and the Foundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties legal organization in Montgomery, Alabama, filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit today defending the federal statute creating the National Day of Prayer, 36 U.S.C. § 119 . . . ”

“In River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest, Illinois, (7th Cir en banc, July 2, 2010), the 7th Circuit in an en banc decision interpreted the equal terms provision of RLUIPA by creating a modified version of the test used by the 3rd Circuit. The 7th Circuit’s test treats a regulation as violating the Equal Terms provision ‘only if it treats religious assemblies or institutions less well than secular assemblies or institutions that are similarly situated as to the regulatory criteria.’” | Via Religion Clause. | View opinion in Google Viewer

NY Times: “In the 15 years since, Judge Wood, 59, has done just that, playing the role of philosophical outlier, a left-leaning woman in a world of right-leaning men, including Judge Posner and Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, a sharp-tongued intellectual who is now the court’s chief. The three have a long history together; all are former law professors at the University of Chicago, where an ambitious young state senator named Barack Obama made a name for himself lecturing on constitutional jurisprudence . . . ”

The Blog of LegalTimes: “A White House official confirmed today that Judge Ann Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit is among about 10 people under consideration for the Supreme Court.”

“With talk that Seventh Circuit judge Diane Wood may be a contender for a Supreme Court nomination, and against the backdrop of reports of her blatant expressed hostility against orthodox Christian viewpoints, it’s vital to show how that hostility played out in at least one important opinion.”

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney David Langdon will be available for media interviews Wednesday after a hearing before the full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest.

OneNewsNow: “School officials are awaiting a federal court decision concerning the ‘period of silence’ law in Illinois schools . . . David Cortman [said] ‘During that time [students] could think about whatever they want to, and heaven forbid they could pray, and some local atheists — with the help of our friends at the ACLU — decided to bring a challenge based on the so-called “separation of church and state,”‘ Cortman explains.”

Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog: “In United States v. Mann