Results tagged “supremecourt”

Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be sworn in as the Supreme Court's 111th justice and first-ever Hispanic judge and third xx-chromosome carrier. With a Senate vote of 68-31, Sotomayor was also the first nominee by a Democrat in a long 15 years. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will administer the oath of office on Saturday. Associated Press reports, "the Senate chamber was heavy with history as senators took the rare step of assembling at their desks on for the vote, rising from their seats to call out 'aye' or 'nay.'"

What are notables saying about the California State Supreme Court upholding prop. 8? Let's find out.

After much speculation this week, the California State Supreme Court will announce its official decision on Prop 8, the gay marriage ban, on Tuesday, May 26 Here's what will go down the day before the ruling is announced:

We dare you to watch the Courage Campaign's Fidelity video and not get all weepy. We were able to keep it together until it got to the big crowd shots around the end, and then suddenly there was something in our eye.

Oh this Prop 8 stuff just gets hairier and hairier. We were thumbing through some articles about the people who backed Prop 8; that includes groups like the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which despite the word "liberty" in their name wants to wield control over California marriages -- every single one -- vetoing whichever couples they don't like. They plan to use Prop 8 to continue stopping marriages and to nullify the approximately 18,000 that they don't currently like -- and possibly more in the future. And the Amicus Brief that they filed in Prop 8's favor contained this scintillating quote:

While his Holiness is more or less meh when it comes to non-consensual sex between a man and a boy, same-sex marriage just ain't cool in his book. So stop, says Pope Benedict.

Heads have been exploding throughout California ever since this morning's delightful news about same-sex marriage was announced. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, in particular, is beaming--at least according to a press released sent out an hour after the ruling was announced.

According to ABC 7--who just mercifully brought The View to a screeching halt to inform viewers--the California State Supreme Court struck down the gay marriage ban. So: same-sex marriage is now legal, at least according to the California Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the state supreme court flicked away San Francisco's feeble attempt to bad handguns. Or, in the words of CBS 5, the court "unanimously rejected the city's appeal of a lower-court ruling that sharply limited the ability of localities to regulate firearms." This is the final nail in the Prop H coffin, an initiate that voters passed in 2005.

Ha ha. Our mayor is better than yours. Why? Because Gavin Newsom wrote a thoughtful post for the Daily Kos regarding today's state Supreme Court gay marriage percolation. Cool, right? Sure, we're confused, jealous, and sad that he didn't turn to SFist first. But while we go hit the bottle to squelch this ego blow, we urge you to read his words of inspiration and shocking clarity:

And speaking of l'herb.

Bad news cancer fighters, arthritic sufferers, and those of you who worked so hard at getting your medical marijuana ID card under false pretenses: employees who partake in the kind medical bud at home can be fired for testing positive for the drug at work. Which? Wow.

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and veggies in South Central. On the entertainment front, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime over the show titled Californication and Rami Kashou of Project Runway chatted with LAist about his Palestinian heritage and, of course, designing beauty.

Like a pesky gnat, the U.S. Supreme Court swatted away an appeal by former San Francisco Police Department Chief Earl Sanders yesterday. He claimed to have been nailed to the wall unfairly over his part in a little known thing called fajitagate.

In a case closely watched by Silicon Valley corporate types, a federal jury in San Francisco returned a guilty verdict against Brocade Communications CEO Gregory Reyes for knowingly backdating stock options, so they would count as having been issued at a time when the stock price was lower. While backdating is not in and of itself against the law, the SEC says that backdating and not telling your investors about it constitutes criminal fraud. Reyes was convicted on all 10 charges filed against him; 9 of which call for a 20-year sentence. Reyes is 44.

Because kangaroos are so adorably bouncy and keep their little blessings inside of their pouches, the California Supreme Court just overturned the Senate’s May decision to end the ban "on importing and selling kangaroo parts." Namely, the David Beckham-inspired Adidas soccer cleats might not be for sale in California. (That and other Kangaroo-skin featured items.) Although the Senate recently allowed "kangaroo-derived products made by the sporting goods" industry to sell their stuff willy-nilly, the Supreme Court’s counter will most likely be overturned.

Photo of Dan Carbone and friend, by Mike Kuchar

--One person is dead after a Caltrain hit a car in Palo Alto this afternoon. [CBS 5, Merc News.]

We are deeply, deeply regretful that the cityblog format had not been launched back in 2001 and 2002, when we were totally obsessed with the Diane Whipple dog mauling case.

Here's todays wrap up of the news

As entertaining as the Gavin years have been, SFist always kind of wished they were around for the Dog Mauling case, you know the one where a couple of Presa Canario dogs killed Diane Whipple in the hallway of the apartment complex they all lived in. Now that was a trial-- there was the creepy couple who owned the dogs (Marjorie Knoller and her husband Robert Noel), their prison pen pal and Nazi skinhead Paul "Cornfed" Schneider who they also adopted, the lawyer who got on all fours and pretended she was a dog, and rumors of all sorts of nasty pornographic pictures involving Knoller and the dogs. Oh, and how could we forget the fact that one of the lawyers on the case was a then unknown Kimberly Guilfoyle. Now that, my friends, was good times.

So it had to happen and it did-- somebody sued the federal government about all those extra security measures going down in the airports. The dude who did it, John Gilmore, did so under the guise that the policy violated his right to be free of unreasonable searches. He lost most of the cases and the Supreme Court, perhaps due to Judge Rehnquist undergoing some sort of bad acid flashback, rejected the case.

he Calfornia Supreme Court yesterday decided to weigh in on Gay Marriage by agreeing to decide whether or not a ban on gay marriage is constitutional or not. At issue is whether or not the ban is discriminatory. How did we get here? Let's go take the Way Back Machine and see.

Oh, who cares about news when the title of the NEXT HARRY POTTER BOOK HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! WE'RE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All right, enough of that.

-Gun related deaths: Not just for Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco anymore.

>-Berkeley loves them some traffic circles.

--Homicides are down about 10% (.pdf, page 4) (76 for the year as opposed to 86 at this time last year). Good! What's the SFPD solve rate on those homicides? [sorry for the .pdf links to the Examiner -- for some reason, none of today's articles are online yet.]

She's going out like Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, and Stephen King -- after her erstwhile "retirement," former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's coming back in the game. The former Justice is (.pdf) sitting by special designation on the Ninth Circuit appellate federal court in San Francisco this week. She was on the bench today and will be there again on Friday.

-SF Board of Supervisors Committee approves plan for more foot patrols in troubled areas. -Daly and Newsom go at it again over anti-violence measures.

Okay, we've really only got two things to say in this post, but we're so mad at ourselves for not referencing There's Something About Mary in discussing the Great Gavin Gel Gambol, so, um.... Gavin's still using gel!