Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear a new case about the rights of Guantanamo detainees, this time involving prisoners who remain in custody even after the Pentagon determines they're not a threat to the United States.

The high court said it will take a challenge from Chinese Muslims at the U.S. naval base in Cuba who no longer are classified as enemy combatants. Last year, the court said in a 5-4 ruling that federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, depending on security concerns and other circumstances.

But a federal appeals court overturned a judge's order to do just that in the case of the Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, saying judges lacked authority to order detainees released into the United States...

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked Washington state officials from releasing the names of people who signed a ballot measure on gay rights.

Kennedy's ruling Monday temporarily blocks a federal appeals court ruling last week that ordered the release of the names. Kennedy said his order would remain in effect while he considers a request by a pro-marriage group that asked him to reverse the appeals court ruling.

The case involves Referendum 71, a ballot initiative that asks Washington voters to approve or reject the state's so-called "everything but marriage" law, which grants registered domestic partners the same legal rights as married heterosexuals...

The Supreme Court took no action Tuesday on a controversial appeal asking the justices to keep under wraps classified photographs of War on Terror detainees that have been likened to the infamous pictures at Abu Ghraib prison.

The court's consideration of the case coincides with congressional efforts to pass a law giving the secretary of defense the authority to exempt the photographs from Freedom of Information Act disclosures. A measure to do that passed a joint conference committee of the House and Senate last week.

The justices were scheduled to discuss the matter in their closed-door meeting Friday but may have been persuaded to postpone judgment by the government, which last week sent a letter to the court asking them not to move on the case...

The battle for "Choose Life" license plates continues in Illinois.

Messages displayed on license plates must be approved by the Illinois legislature -- and "Choose Life" has been rejected. That led to a lawsuit which was won on the federal district court level, but overturned on appeal.

The Illinois Right to Life Committee has been involved in the legal battle. Spokesman Bill Beckman tells OneNewsNow his group decided to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. But Beckman feels that may not be the last word...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is taking up a long-running legal fight over a cross honoring World War I soldiers that has stood for 75 years on public land in a remote part of California.

The cross, on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve, has been covered in plywood for the past several years following federal court rulings that it violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

The justices were to hear arguments Wednesday in a case the court could use to make an important statement about its view of the separation of church and state. The Obama administration is defending the presence of the cross, which court papers describe as being 5 to 8 feet tall...

WASHINGTON, DC - The Supreme Court won't get involved in a dispute between breakaway Episcopalians and their former national church over who owns a California parish and its property.

The high court refused yesterday to hear an appeal from the St. James Anglican Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles. It is one of several dozen individual parishes and four dioceses nationwide that voted to split from the national church after the 2003 consecration of the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson...

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear arguments in a case involving a Florida teenager who says he was humiliated by his teacher and sent to the principal's office for refusing to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Cameron Frazier says he was singled out by his math teacher when he refused to participate in the Pledge. Most -- if not all -- states have laws requiring public schools to administer the 31 word oath daily.

Florida's law allows for students to remain silent for the Pledge, but only with prior parental consent. Even with that permission, students are required to stand with their classmates...

The Supreme Court began its new term Monday by rejecting several cases, including one attempting to force Illinois to issue "Choose Life" license plates, and pondering how long a suspect's request for a lawyer should be considered valid.

The high court rejected the case by the anti-abortion group Choose Life Illinois Inc., which leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that states Illinois officials were within their rights in trying to keep viewpoints on abortion off plates...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Setting the stage for a dramatic battle over gun rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted an appeal challenging the ability of state and local governments to enforce strict limits on handguns and other weapons.

The high court returned from its summer recess, meeting in private to consider thousands of pending appeals that have piled up the past three months.

The Second Amendment case from Chicago was the most anticipated of the petitions, and oral arguments will be held sometime early next year. Nine other cases were also accepted for review...

NEW YORK (AP) - Justice Antonin Scalia has defended the Supreme Court's accommodation of religion in the public sphere in recent rulings, saying the founding fathers would want it that way.

Scalia told the Jewish newspaper Hamodia that it was never U.S. constitutional, social, or legal tradition to exclude religion. He said the First Amendment "certainly does not mean that government cannot accommodate religion, and indeed favor religion"...