Supreme Court

My ruling on The Supreme Court: surprising, smart, sturdy and yet superficial. You can't cram more than 200 years of history into four hours without the saga suffering. Even so, cogent commentary drives this four-hour documentary on the nation's highest court. PBS unfurls the handsome production from 9 to 11 tonight and Feb. 7. On TV The Supreme Court airs from 9 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court again stepped squarely into the culture wars yesterday by agreeing to hear a high-profile gun ban case, one that might make firearm ownership a significant issue in the coming election year. At stake is a law that prohibits residents of the District of Columbia from owning handguns. The justices will decide sometime next spring whether such a ban violates the Constitution. If they rule that way, it could eventually spell trouble for gun bans in other cities.

MASON CITY, Iowa -- Listen to any politician for long, and you can expect to catch him in a fib. But at a stop in Algona, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. opened with a whopper that no voter familiar with the Delaware Democrat would ever believe. "I'll be brief," he promised - and then talked for half an hour. Mr. Biden has often been ridiculed for needless verbosity. Critics lamented that during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., he needed 13 minutes to ask one question.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Adding to the intense political pressure on President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered yesterday the release of an important opposition figure who has been imprisoned since 2004 after being convicted of inciting mutiny. The order to release Javed Hashmi is the latest setback for Musharraf, who is struggling to retain his positions as army general and the country's political leader. The three-judge panel that made the ruling was chaired by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who emerged victorious from a months-long showdown with Musharraf.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A high court stacked with loyalists set the stage yesterday for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to resign as army chief and to lead the country as a civilian, tossing out all legal challenges to his re-election last month. Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is expected to step down from his military post as early as this weekend, shedding the uniform he has called his "second skin." While that would satisfy a key demand, the move is unlikely to mollify opponents, who continued yesterday to demand that he lift the state of emergency he declared Nov. 3. Thousands of anti-Musharraf political activists, human rights workers and lawyers have been arrested under the decree, which suspended Pakistan's constitution and basic civil liberties.

washington -- The Supreme Court is set to decide as early as tomorrow whether the government can invoke the doctrine of "state secrets" to quash a legal claim from an apparently innocent victim of bungling by the CIA that resulted in his being abducted, imprisoned and tortured. Only after five months of such treatment did CIA agents seem to realize that the man in custody, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was not the wanted terrorist Khalid al-Masri. The case has attracted wide public attention in Europe, but el-Masri has been unable to gain a court hearing in the United States because, at least so far, the government has successfully invoked the argument that it cannot be taken to court when doing so might expose "state secrets."

WASHINGTON -- The court ruling transfixed this city but probably has been barely noticed elsewhere. It should be noticed. It touches the vitality of representative government.Last week, a federal appeals court ruled, 2-1, that some air quality standards promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency were so ill-defined and unprincipled that the EPA must have exceeded its powers in setting them. It must have because -- this is the dynamite in the court's decision -- Congress would have acted unconstitutionally if it had delegated such unfettered authority under the Clean Air Act.That is, if Congress intended the EPA to exercise almost uncircumscribed discretion, Congress made a mockery of the separation of powers by delegating essentially legislative powers to an executive branch agency.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration came to the defense yesterday of the Supreme Court's controversial 1966 Miranda decision, arguing that Congress had no power to tell courts to accept confessions by criminals who had not been given "Miranda warnings" about their rights.In a case that appears headed for the Supreme Court, the Justice Department asked the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., to reconsider and scuttle a ruling last month by three of its members. That decision said that under a 1968 law passed by Congress, voluntary confessions can be admitted in federal cases even if a Miranda warning was not given.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court set the stage yesterday for a major ruling on Congress' power to pass new civil rights laws and, in particular, to protect women against sexual violence by allowing them to sue their attackers.Taking on new cases for decision in the term that formally opens Monday, the court said it will rule on the constitutionality of the Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress five years ago.A federal appeals court struck down the key part of that law in March, saying Congress had intruded on states' authority to deal with domestic violence.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration urged the Supreme Court yesterday to reopen the constitutional debate over "Miranda warnings" and to end the debate by reaffirming that requirement as binding on police.In a much-awaited legal brief filed last night at the court, with Attorney General Janet Reno adding her signature to it for emphasis, administration lawyers argued: "The Miranda decision should not be overruled."It added: "Miranda has proved workable in practice and is in many respects beneficial to law enforcement."

Should the Supreme Court allow state and local gun control laws to be challenged under the Second Amendment? Yes 60% No 37% Not sure 3% (700 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has asked President Barack Obama to quickly send tens of thousands more troops to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Should the president do it? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

WASHINGTON - -The Supreme Court set the stage for a historic ruling on gun rights and the Second Amendment by agreeing Wednesday to hear a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns. At issue is whether state and local gun-control ordinances can be struck down as violating the "right to keep and bear arms" in the Second Amendment. A ruling on the issue, expected by summer, could open the door to legal challenges to gun-control measures in other cities and states. The case also will decide whether the Second Amendment protects a broad constitutional right, similar to the First Amendment right to free speech or the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

For decades, the final word in federal cases originating in Maryland has come from an anti-defendant and pro-business appeals court dominated by Republican-appointed judges. The Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is so conservative that even the rightward-leaning U.S. Supreme Court has overruled it in some major cases, most recently over the rights of terrorism detainees. But President Barack Obama is not wasting any time in shifting the court in a more liberal direction.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court again stepped squarely into the culture wars yesterday by agreeing to hear a high-profile gun ban case, one that might make firearm ownership a significant issue in the coming election year. At stake is a law that prohibits residents of the District of Columbia from owning handguns. The justices will decide sometime next spring whether such a ban violates the Constitution. If they rule that way, it could eventually spell trouble for gun bans in other cities.

The Supreme Court says it will review a lower court's blockbuster opinion in Parker v. District of Columbia, the first federal appellate opinion to overturn a gun control law - Washington, D.C.'s - on the ground that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals. Oral arguments likely will be held this spring, with a decision expected before June 30. I am co-counsel for the plaintiffs and am one of the attorneys who initiated the lawsuit. The stakes are immense. Very few legal questions stir the passions like gun control.

In the endless war of words about gun rights, the academic community has done little but pock the discourse with vague, theoretical utterances. Unfortunately, the courts have been listening. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia became the first federal tribunal to strike down a local gun-control law, holding that the Founding Fathers would have allowed all private citizens to arm themselves. In so doing, Judge Laurence H. Silberman adopted the National Rifle Association's selective history of the Second Amendment.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A high court stacked with loyalists set the stage yesterday for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to resign as army chief and to lead the country as a civilian, tossing out all legal challenges to his re-election last month. Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is expected to step down from his military post as early as this weekend, shedding the uniform he has called his "second skin." While that would satisfy a key demand, the move is unlikely to mollify opponents, who continued yesterday to demand that he lift the state of emergency he declared Nov. 3. Thousands of anti-Musharraf political activists, human rights workers and lawyers have been arrested under the decree, which suspended Pakistan's constitution and basic civil liberties.

WASHINGTON -- Can a murderer escape a death sentence because he rejected a plea deal after receiving bad advice from his lawyer? The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide that issue in the case of an Idaho man who slit the throat of a police informant 20 years ago. The case is the latest effort by the justices to decide whether a defense lawyer's mistakes warrant overturning a criminal's conviction or sentence. It is also the latest move by the high court to reconsider a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined yesterday to allow a lawsuit to go forward that questions the government's use of rendition, the practice of capturing suspected terrorists and sending them to other countries for a more intense form of interrogation than is permitted under U.S. law. In doing so, the court implicitly endorsed the Bush administration's use of a sweeping legal defense that prevents claims of abuse and torture at the hands of U.S...

washington -- The Supreme Court is set to decide as early as tomorrow whether the government can invoke the doctrine of "state secrets" to quash a legal claim from an apparently innocent victim of bungling by the CIA that resulted in his being abducted, imprisoned and tortured. Only after five months of such treatment did CIA agents seem to realize that the man in custody, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was not the wanted terrorist Khalid al-Masri. The case has attracted wide public attention in Europe, but el-Masri has been unable to gain a court hearing in the United States because, at least so far, the government has successfully invoked the argument that it cannot be taken to court when doing so might expose "state secrets."