High Court

While the emergence of tea party candidates is getting headlines in this fall’s midterm elections, another trend with free-speech implications has popped up, as well — candidates and supporters going to court, not just the ballot box, to challenge opponents’ ads and claims. The nation’s founders and courts have provided wide protection for political speech. Generally, the idea has been that vigorous, perhaps caustic, and even erroneous speech (if not malicious or negligent)

A series of decisions by the U. S. Supreme Court continues to effect criminal sentences throughout the country causing some states to fear that thousands of defendants' sentences might be lowered. Beginning in 1999, the Supreme Court dealt with claims by federal and state prisoners that judges were unconstitutionally increasing sentences based on factors which are not admitted by the defendant or determined to exist by juries. Under the Sixth Amendment any fact which exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by a jury, not a judge, beyond a reasonable doubt.

While a lawsuit filed by firefighters against the city of Nicholasville waits in the Jessamine County court system, a case that went before a much higher court last week addressed the same issue and also involved the city. The debate in both cases focuses on whether state education incentive money should have been incorporated into calculations for overtime pay for firefighters. The Kentucky Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case between 12 governments — including the city of Nicholasville — and the Kentucky Labor Cabinet last Wednesday, April 13. The city and county governments claim they don’t owe overtime pay since the matter at hand relates to state money, according to Lexington lawyer Doug McSwain, who represents the appellants.

Dear Editor, I read your article on Toxic Topix. I am so glad that someone else agrees that Topix is indeed TOXIC!  As you stated, the site is useful for the "mature" users that are interested in local and regional news in their area. As for the forums and discussion boards, members of my family and I have been a victim of slander and the most despicable lies! When I log on to Topix, I generally check on local news from my hometown. I was shocked to see that MY NAME was on the discussion board.

HARRODSBURG - Initially, Lee Anderson was to spend the rest of his life locked up for committing one of the most brutal crimes in Harrodsburg's modern history. Now, he's got a chance at parole in 2030. He will be 42 years old. Mercer Circuit Judge Darren Peckler resentenced Anderson Tuesday to life without a parole hearing for 25 years for the 2006 murder of retired teacher Louise Pulliam. It was the maximum sentence Peckler could impose after the Kentucky Supreme Court earlier this year vacated the life without parole sentence Peckler originally passed on Anderson.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a Winchester man accused of causing the death of his 10-year-old daughter. In an opinion dated April 15, the Kentucky Supreme outlined its decision to reverse the conviction of Patrick Watkins, but affirmed the conviction of Watkins’ wife, Joy, the child’s stepmother. The couple began serving life sentences on Oct. 9, 2008, after a jury found them guilty of beating and burning Michaela Watkins on March 11, 2007.

The Jessamine Humane Society is struggling financially, and humane society officials asked the county for more help on Tuesday. Representing the humane society, Nicholasville attorney David Marshall, told the Jessamine County Fiscal Court that despite the funding the county currently provides, the humane society's budget is in a serious deficit. While this situation is not new, Marshall said that it's getting more serious all the time. "The county is growing, and the needs of the humane society are growing, too," he said.

In his crusade over the Ten Commandments, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore says he is obeying an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not deceive. Liberal lawyers and media have created an environment in the country in which too many people have been "deceived" into thinking that any insinuation of God in general or Judeo-Christian principals in particular into public places, either in words or monuments, is a violation of the separation of church and state, Moore said in a recent telephone interview from his office at the Foundation for Moral Law at Montgomery, Ala. "People have been deceived into thinking something is true when it is not," Moore said.

The United States Supreme Court made segregated schools the law of the land with its Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896. That ruling established two school systems - one for whites, one for blacks. Fifty years ago on May 17, 1954, that decision was overturned by the momentous Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling that mandated the integration of the public school system. To mark the anniversary of the decision, called one of the Supreme Court's landmark rulings by the American Bar Association, a Brown vs. Board forum is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Boyle County Circuit Courtroom.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. " Those who signed the document surely had no idea that the first 10 words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would be so broadly and liberally interpreted. What did they mean? Only the framers could answer that question with certainty, for it is their intent that is being debated. Perhaps it is the debate itself that they were encouraging. Those who crafted the Constitution knew that healthy debate is important to the ability of our "government of the people" to function as such.