High Court

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a Plymouth Superior Court...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to address one of the biggest controversies surrounding the response to the Sept. 11 attacks - the government's aggressive use of electronic surveillance. The justices will decide whether a challenge to a 2008 federal law that broadened the government's power to monitor international communications may proceed. The challenge was brought by lawyers, journalists, and human rights groups who say the law allows the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails.

Relatives and friends of the grandmother and stepmother charged with running a 9-year-old girl to death as a punishment have been defending and attacking the women on Facebook and in at least one case nearly divulging what could be considered evidence. A judge has warned prosecutors and defense lawyers not to discuss the murder case, and so far they have obeyed. But experts say the hundreds of messages posted online since Savannah Hardin died in February show the legal system has yet to catch up with the social media explosion.

NEW YORK - Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are backing Montana in its fight to prevent the US Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision from being used to strike down state laws restricting corporate campaign spending. The states, including Massachusetts, are asking the high court to preserve Montana's state-level regulations on corporate political expenditures, according to the brief written by the New York attorney general's office that was released Monday.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said yesterday it plans to rush an appeal in the case of a US-born terrorism suspect so that the Supreme Court can decide by summer whether the government may hold US citizens indefinitely and without charges. The administration wants the high court to quickly hear the case of Jose Padilla, a former gang member and convert to Islam who was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 in connection with an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decided yesterday not to stop the release of Federal Reserve Board documents identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the financial crisis. The high court, without comment, refused to hear an appeal from an association of bankers trying to keep the information from becoming public. News Corp.’s Fox News Network LLC and Bloomberg LP had sued separately for details about loans that commercial banks and Wall Street firms received and the collateral they put up. Other news agencies, including the Associated...

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The Kansas Supreme Court yesterday threw out the state's 1994 death penalty law, ruling that it was unfair because it gave prosecutors an advantage when jurors were asked to balance aggravating and mitigating circumstances at sentencing. The 4-to-3 decision throws out the sentences of all six men on the state's death row, including a serial killer and two brothers convicted in a mass shooting in Wichita. According to the law, if jurors think the arguments for and against putting a defendant to death are equal, the prosecution is deemed to...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s Supreme Court said yesterday that it will soon begin examining an expired amnesty covering the president and key allies. The decision launches a process that could unseat the US-allied leader just as the Obama administration needs stability in Islamabad to help crack down on the Taliban. Highlighting the dangers, a suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban lawmaker in the Swat Valley - the latest in a series of bombings as the army presses offensives in militant strongholds close to the Afghan border.

WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the Bush administration's wartime detention powers, rejecting an appeal from US citizen Jose Padilla who until recently had been held as an enemy combatant without traditional legal rights. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and two others worried about the government's handling of Padilla and said they would be watching to ensure he receives the protections "guaranteed to all federal criminal defendants. " Three other justices wanted the court to consider immediately whether President Bush overstepped his...

WASHINGTON — A split Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a law school can legally deny recognition and funding to a Christian student group that will not let gays join, with one justice saying the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group’s “discriminatory practices.’’ The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from...

The Supreme Court has refused to take up a Boston University student's constitutional challenge to a $675,000 penalty for illegally downloading 30 songs and sharing them on the Internet. The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., who was successfully sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally sharing music on peer-to-peer networks. In 2009, a jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000, or $22,500 for each song he illegally downloaded and shared.

Maine's highest court has ruled that a Portland hospital can't withhold documents related to the death of the alleged victim in a manslaughter trial. The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday denied the appeal by Mercy Hospital, which was fighting the disclosure of information related to the death of 46-year-old Roger Downs Jr. The hospital said the information is confidential. Ernest Weidul is charged with manslaughter in Downs' May 2010 death. The prosecution says Downs died from injuries caused by Weidul.

Ukraine's highest court on Tuesday postponed hearing former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's appeal of her conviction and seven-year sentence on charges of abusing her powers in signing a gas deal with Russia. Prosecutors argued that the appeal should be postponed because Tymoshenko is undergoing medical treatment for a back condition in a hospital in Kharkiv, the city where she is imprisoned, and would be unable to appear in court in Kiev, the capital. In ruling in favor of the prosecution, the High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases set a new date of June 26, which...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal over whether the family of a man allegedly killed by former Boston mob boss and FBI informant James ‘‘Whitey" Bulger should get millions of dollars from the government. The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Edward Brian Halloran's estate, which wants more than $2 million in damages from the FBI. Bulger and another gang member are alleged to have shot Halloran on the waterfront in 1982. Bulger was an FBI informant at the time, and two judges ordered the FBI to pay damages to the...

The Supreme Court says a farming family has to pay tax on the bankruptcy sale of their farm. The high court on Monday voted 5-4 for the IRS in its fight with Lynwood and Brenda Hall over their bankruptcy sale of their 320-acre farm in Willcox, Ariz. The Halls were forced to sell their family farm for $960,000 to settle their bankruptcy debts. That sale brought about capital gains taxes of $26,000.The Halls wanted the taxes treated as part of the bankruptcy, paying part of it and having the court discharge the rest.

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a...

Lawyers for a British prisoner who lost more than 100 pounds during a hunger strike asked the state Supreme Court yesterday to prevent prison officials from force-feeding him, saying the practice violates his free-speech rights. The prisoner, William Coleman, stopped eating in September 2007, contending that he was convicted on a fabricated rape charge. He has since begun accepting liquid nutrition and returned to a healthy weight, his lawyers said, but he appealed for the right to continue the protest as he chooses.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to address one of the biggest controversies surrounding the response to the Sept. 11 attacks - the government's aggressive use of electronic surveillance. The justices will decide whether a challenge to a 2008 federal law that broadened the government's power to monitor international communications may proceed. The challenge was brought by lawyers, journalists, and human rights groups who say the law allows the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails.