Daily Archives: April 28, 2014

PBL in Journalism I, 2014
Watch and listen to journalism I students, under the supervision of adviser Sue Skalicky, pursue a project regarding first amendment right. It #39;s about more than the grade -- it #39;s about making...

By: Mary Palmer

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PBL in Journalism I, 2014 - Video

Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Jason Patric

On Monday, Jason Patric prevailed in what is likely a first-of-its-kind legal dispute. The actor's ex-girlfriend Danielle Schreiber demanded a restraining order that would have prevented Patric from using their son's name for "Stand Up for Gus," an advocacy outfit that raises awareness of parental alienation. But a Los Angeles judge decided that to stop Patric from doing things like tweeting Gus' name would be a prior restraint under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

STORY:Jason Patric's Sperm Spawns First Amendment Battle

How the issue got to such a ruling is a twofold story.

First, Patric and Schreiber have been fighting over custody of their four-year-old son, who was born through artificial insemination. Thanks to California law, which grants the mother full custody unless there is a written agreement establishing parental rights before conception, a judge has denied The Lost Boys star access to his son. So as the custody battle heads to an appeals court next month, Gus can be considered in some respects a legal stranger to his father.

Second, in response to the situation, Patric started "Stand Up for Gus" and has been promoting it through media interviews, at fundraising events, on Twitter and on Facebook. Schreiber sought a restraining order preventing Patrric from using the childs name and likeness for alleged commercial purposes without her permission. Usually, celebrities lean upon laws protecting one's likeness to prevent others from exploiting their fame, but in this instance -- and this is why this sort of situation hasn't popped up before -- Patric was using his fame and the name of his in vitro son to promote his cause.

Schreiber's attorney,Patty Glaser, insisted the child's "exploitation" was at stake, while Patric's attorney,Lawrence Iser,focused the judge's attention on the First Amendment. "Our country is founded upon the fundamental rights to speak freely and petition for causes, and the censorship sought by Ms. Schreiber is contrary to those fundamental values," said Iser.

STORY:California Sperm Donor Rights Bill Stalls Despite Actor Jason Patric's Impassioned Plea

At a hearing on Monday, Judge Stephen Moloney agreed that to grant a restraining order would mean a prior restraint. This doesn't necessarily foreclose Schreiber's legal recourse for any improper statements by Patric after they are made, but the judge doesn't see the need to create something that would be tantamount to a gag.

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Judge Won't Stop Jason Patric from Using Son's Name for Advocacy Purposes

A majority of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed disconcerted Monday by the consequences of one of the court's own rulings on the free speech rights of public employees.

Eight years ago, the conservative court majority, by a 5-4 vote, said public employees have no First Amendment protection for speech "pursuant to his official responsibilities." But Monday, in a case involving subpoenaed testimony in a criminal case, the court seemed headed in a different direction.

The case was brought by Edward Lane, an Alabama official who was fired after he testified truthfully that a state legislator was a ghost employee being paid by the taxpayers for no work.

Lane managed a program for at-risk juvenile offenders that was run out of Central Alabama Community College. After he was hired, he conducted an audit and found that one of the program's employees, a state legislator named Suzanne Schmitz, was a no-show employee in his department.

Lane says that people in his office warned him not to tangle with Schmitz because of her influence, but when she repeatedly refused to come to work, he fired her.

Soon after, he says, the FBI was investigating public corruption in Alabama, and Lane was subpoenaed to testify first before a grand jury, and later at Schmitz' two fraud trials. After Lane's first trial testimony, he was fired by the president of the community college, Steve Franks.

"He told me to clean out my office that day, like I had done something wrong," Lane recalled in an interview on the Supreme Court steps Monday. "When I got in my car, I was in tears. I felt no doubt that it was in retaliation" for testifying.

So Lane sued, contending his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated when he was fired for testifying. A federal appeals court ruled that under its own previous rulings, and under a 2006 Supreme Court decision, public employees have no free speech rights when they testify about information they learn on the job.

Lane appealed to the Supreme Court, and in oral arguments Monday the justices signaled that the lower court had gone too far.

Mark Waggoner, representing the former college president who fired Lane, repeatedly quoted back to the justices their own words from that 2006 decision, Garcetti v. Ceballos.

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Justices Troubled By Their Earlier Ruling On Public Employee Speech Rights

Courthouse News editor sees nationwide plagueand hell get a chance to make his case

Its been a routine for generations of legal beat reporters: Every weekday afternoon, at courthouses across the United States, a reporter steps behind the records counter and thumbs through the lawsuits filed that day, looking for news.

This custom is endangered, though, and not just because files have moved online, or because there arent as many legal beat reporters as there used to be. Many state courts now keep new civil cases out of sight of the press and public for days, and sometimes even weeks, after theyre filed.

Its a nationwide plague, said Bill Girdner, the founder and editor of Courthouse News Service.

But now, a federal trial court in California will have to determine whether the standard delays at a local courthouse are permissibleafter a higher court ruled that Girdners complaints raise First Amendment concerns.

Based in Pasadena, CA, Courthouse News is a wire service that specializes in civil litigation and covers the courts for both its own website and around 3,000 subscribers, including the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and other major news organizations.

In 2011, Courthouse News sued the Superior Court of Ventura County, CA, after the court stopped letting the newswires local correspondent see every new civil suit on the day it was filed. A federal judge dismissed the case. But Courthouse News appealed, and on April 7 a panel of three Ninth Circuit judges ruled that the trial court had to hear the case.

Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaws opinion said the case presents an important First Amendment question and thus should be heard in federal court.

Though the government may sometimes withhold information without violating the expressive rights protected by the First Amendment, the First Amendment right of access to public proceedingswhere it appliesis inextricably intertwined with the First Amendment right of free speech, Wardlaw wrote.

The opinion doesnt specifically find that Courthouse News is entitled to records access under the Constitutionthats what the trial court will have to determine. But Wardlaw notes that federal appellate courts have widely agreed that the First Amendment right of access extends to civil proceedings and associated records and documents.

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Federal judge: Delayed access to court records raises First Amendment concerns

CHARLOTTE, N.C. A group of Charlotte-area ministers have helped launch the country's first faith-based challenge to a same-sex marriage ban, claiming in a lawsuit filed Monday that North Carolina's laws block them from practicing their religion.

The local religious leaders, who include a rabbi, are joined by colleagues from Asheville and Raleigh along with a national denomination, the United Church of Christ. All of them support the rights of same-sex couples to marry.

They say state prohibitions, including a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2012, violate their First Amendment right of freedom of religion.

"The core protection of the First Amendment is that government may not regulate religious beliefs or take sides in religious controversies," says Jonathan Martel, a Washington, D.C., attorney helping with the case.

"Marriage performed by clergy is a spiritual exercise and expression of faith essential to the values and continuity of the religion that government may regulate only where it has a compelling interest."

The lawsuit was expected to be formally announced in 10:30 a.m. Monday press conference at Holy Covenant United Church of Christ. Church pastor Nancy Allison is one of the persons suing Attorney General Roy Cooper and other state officials, asking that the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina strike the laws down.

It becomes the 66th legal challenge to marriage bans now in the courts, three of them in North Carolina. But it is the first to attack same-sex marriage bans on religious grounds, said Charlotte attorney Jake Sussman, lead counsel for the group.

It also marks the first time an entire denomination has joined the marriage battle. UCC, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, has more than 1.1 million members and 5,100 local churches. North Carolina is home to more than 24,000 members and 155 churches, including Holy Covenant in Charlotte and Trinity Reformed in Concord.

Joining the denomination and clergy as plaintiffs are same-sex couples in Charlotte, Asheville, Concord and Huntersville. They say the state laws violate their equal-protection and due-process rights under the 14th Amendment.

Betty Mack and Carol Taylor of Asheville have been in a committed relationship for 41 years, the lawsuit says. The women, both in their 70s, say they want to be married in their Unitarian Universalist church, and that they have requested a license but have been turned down.

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United Church of Christ sues over North Carolina ban on same-sex marriage