9-0 Supreme Court upholds First Amendment

Outside Boston City Hall stand three flag poles. The Massachusetts state and American flags occupy two of the poles, while the third pole is available for the public to use during ceremonies. Since 2005, Boston had approved 284 ceremonies which included 50 unique flags such as flags honoring medical and other service workers, the Pride…

Read More

Supreme Court Throws Out NY Firearm Restriction

The Supreme Court held that a citizen does not need the government’s permission to exercise constitutional rights. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (June 23, 2022), the Court invalidated a law in the state of New York (“proper-cause requirement”) which banned average citizens from carrying firearms for self-defense unless an individual…

Read More

SCOTUS Upholds First Amendment Protections for Religious Expression

The Supreme Court of the United States held that quiet personal prayers by school employees are protected acts under the plain language of the First Amendment. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (June 27, 2022), high school football coach Joseph Kennedy “knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet personal prayer.” An important fact is…

Read More

SCOTUS overturns Roe v. Wade

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States published Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (June 24, 2022), overruling Roe v. Wade (1973). Firstly, it should be noted that overruling Roe does not make abortion illegal in the United States. Rather, Dobbs merely cedes this issue back to individual states to decide through the democratic process. For the foreseeable future, states like…

Read More

Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to convict someone of a violation of the Kansas Offender Registration Act

On June 17, 2022, the Kansas Supreme Court held that circumstantial evidence is sufficient to convict someone of a violation of the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA), K.S.A. 22-4902 et seq. In State v. Darnell Huey (June 17, 2022), Huey had recently been released from prison and was ordered to register as a violent offender in the county…

Read More

More public defenders still needed in Kansas

There are too few defense attorneys in Kansas, meaning the caseloads of public defenders are unsustainable. This has been a problem for many years, but it looks like some changes are finally on the horizon. As reported by the Kansas News Service on May 9, 2022, public defenders are finally getting a pay bump, and efforts are…

Read More

United States Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi

In April 2021, the United States Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi, 141 S.Ct. 1307 (2021), which held that the Constitution allows judges to sentence juveniles to life in prison without making special findings so long as the judge had the option of imposing a lesser sentence. Jones argued that a sentencing judge should still be…

Read More

Kansas Supreme Court sided with prosecutor Adam Y. Zentner

The Kansas Supreme Court sided with prosecutor Adam Y. Zentner in State v. Gregory Stuart Rosa, 304 Kan. 429 (2016). A jury convicted Rosa for possessing methamphetamine. On appeal, Rosa argued that a jury should not be permitted to infer that the drugs belonged to him, even though the drugs were found in his home and…

Read More