High Court

The state Supreme Court has barred a Montgomery County judge from hearing the custody dispute involving a mother who fled the country with her two children and the millionaire father who searched the world to bring them home. The high court issued the order last week in response to a petition filed on behalf of the mother, Ellen Dever, by her attorneys, Richard A. Sprague and William H. Lamb. The justices, who did not state a reason for removing Judge Rhonda Lee Daniele, also barred any other Montgomery County judges from the case.

A federal judge has ordered a new trial for a man serving life for a notorious robbery and murder 24 years ago, ruling that the city prosecutor purposely excluded African Americans from the jury that convicted him. In a one-paragraph order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz wrote that the District Attorney's Office must retry Edward Sistrunk within 90 days or set him free. Donna Zucker, chief of the district attorney's federal appeals unit, said Katz's ruling would be appealed to the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

WASHINGTON - States cannot ban the sale or rental of ultraviolent video games to children, the Supreme Court ruled, 7-2, Monday, rejecting such limits as a violation of young people's First Amendment rights and leaving it to parents and the multibillion-dollar gaming industry to decide what children can buy. The high court threw out California's 2005 law covering games sold or rented to those under 18, calling it an unconstitutional violation of...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed convicted murderer and onetime counterculture guru Ira Einhorn a legal defeat yesterday when justices denied, without comment, his request that the high court seize control of his legal odyssey. The decision clears the way for Einhorn, who was convicted in absentia in 1993, to seek a new trial in Common Pleas Court. On Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge D. Webster Keogh is scheduled to rule on Einhorn's request for a new trial in the 1977 death of his onetime girlfriend Holly Maddux.

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to examine the rights of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans forced into mass detention camps during World War II. The case is the first of a series now pending in which Japanese-Americans seek monetary damages for the internment, which was ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and defended as a military necessity. Specifically, the high court agreed to review a request by the Reagan administration to block a 1983 lawsuit from coming to trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Is empathy a desirable quality in a U.S. Supreme Court justice? President Obama said he was searching for it. But as a qualification for a jurist, it gives conservatives the willies and can produce mixed results. We expect judges to resist empathy and impose the law evenhandedly. We are appropriately outraged when a judge goes easy on a defendant with whom he identifies - the suburban white kid, say, who gets community service, whereas his urban black counterpart goes off to jail.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan has given the Senate Judiciary Committee a welcome opportunity to make this week's hearings on her Supreme Court nomination a substantive discussion of legal issues and judicial philosophy - and a departure from the charade they have become in recent years. Kagan has opened the door to such a discussion with her own words. In a 1995 Harvard Law Review article, she called modern confirmation hearings a "farce" notable for their "vacuity," in which "senators do not insist that any nominee reveal what kind of Justice she would make, by disclosing her views on important legal issues.

Anyone seeking evidence of the potential impact of the presidential race on the Supreme Court and its handling of controversial social and religious issues need look no further than its decision Monday banning student-led prayers at public school sporting events. The court split along what have become predictable lines, with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, two conservative swing votes, joining the court's liberal-to-moderate bloc in voting to ban the prayers. But court experts say that with as many as four justices approaching the age at which they may step down, the next president has the potential to reshape the court for years to come.

The state Supreme Court has removed a Philadelphia judge from a death-penalty case for altering a transcript to remove a disparaging remark she made about the defendant. In a concurring statement with the high court's April 28 order, Justice Max Baer declared the admitted actions of Common Please Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes "reprehensible. " Hughes, 55, already is scheduled to retire and is set to become the chief executive officer of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross on May 16. In a statement issued Friday evening, chapter chairman Michael Coslov said that the high court's decision "in no way will affect Judge Hughes' ability to be a strong, effective leader for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Red Cross, nor her ability to help those in need.

TRENTON - In a case with wide implications for Shore restoration following Hurricane Sandy, the state Supreme Court heard an appeal Monday of a $375,000 jury award to a Long Beach Island couple who said construction of a barrier dune in 2010 deprived them of their ocean view. The Army Corps of Engineers built a 22-foot-high dune for storm protection in front of Phyllis and Harvey Karan's house after Harvey Cedars condemned a portion of their beach five years ago. A Superior Court jury awarded the couple damages in 2011, finding that the dune construction, while benefiting many of the surrounding homeowners, had substantially diminished the value of the Karans' $1.9 million home.

HARRISBURG — After a protracted legal battle, the state Supreme Court upheld Pennsylvania's latest legislative redistricting plan, saying the new maps comply with the state constitution. The court ordered the revised maps to take effect for the next statewide round of legislative elections in 2014. The redrawn maps had been the subject of more than a dozen legal challenges, from state Senate Democrats as well as residents in Bucks, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties. Those groups argued that the new blueprint still unnecessarily split too many counties, municipalities, and other political subdivisions, often for political reasons.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday moved to suspend the remaining elected judge on Philadelphia Traffic Court for three months without pay, citing her refusal to cooperate with an investigation. The high court gave Christine Solomon until April 29 to object, which her lawyer vowed to do. If the court rejects her defense and suspends her, that would mean Traffic Court would be entirely staffed by nonelected judges. Solomon was the only elected judge left serving after a federal grand jury in January indicted nine other current and former Traffic Court judges, charging them with engaging in rampant ticket-fixing.

WASHINGTON - Molecules and chocolate-chip cookies, baseball bats, and Amazonian tree sap were all part of a spirited Supreme Court discussion Monday as the nine justices wrestled with the question of whether one should be able to get a patent for a human gene. If you slice up pieces of microscopic molecules, have you created new ones or just separated existing body parts, not unlike kidneys or livers, which are products of nature and not usually granted patents? And, more important in this matter, can you profit by preventing others from researching those molecules or providing lower-cost testing services?

A story in Thursday's Inquirer incorrectly reported which local counties would be unaffected by a state Supreme Court decision overturning a law allowing municipalities to abolish the jury commissioner post. Philadelphia and Delaware Counties have eliminated the jury commissioner post via a method that has not been invalidated by the high court. The Inquirer wants its news report to be fair and correct in every respect, and regrets when it is not. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, contact assistant managing editor David Sullivan (215-854-2357)

TRENTON - Environmental officials are entitled to conduct searches of private property where they have grounds to suspect environmental laws have been violated, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The court said in a unanimous opinion that homeowners and others who acquire permits under the state Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act agree as part of the process to allow such inspections, so long as they are conducted at reasonable times. In its 56-page opinion, the court said the government's right to search for wetlands violations carries restrictions.

HARRISBURG - The state Supreme Court says it will hear - and fast-track - a case that will determine whether the justices, or any Pennsylvania judges, can serve on the bench past age 70. The court agreed Thursday to consider a challenge by Montgomery County Court Judge Arthur Tilson to the state constitution requirement that judges retire in the calendar year in which they turn 70. The one-page order said oral argument would be held in Harrisburg...

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Comcast Corp. in a class-action lawsuit involving Philadelphia cable-TV customers who claimed they'd been harmed by the company's anti-competitive business practices. The decision overturned a decision by the Philadelphia federal courts to certify about two million Comcast cable-TV customers as a class to sue the cable company for $875 million in damages. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion. He was joined by Justices John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

HARRISBURG - Who will fill the seventh seat on Pennsylvania's highest court, and when? What role will politics play? Within hours of Monday's resignation by a state Supreme Court justice facing criminal sentencing, those questions swirled through legal and political circles from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. The resignation by Justice Joan Orie Melvin, who is to be sentenced May 7 for illegal use of state staff and resources for her campaigns, sparked calls for swift action on a successor, along with rumors about who might get the nod. Gov. Corbett said he would nominate someone "as soon as practical" after Melvin's effective resignation date, May 1. But Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille hinted that his court might take matters into its own hands by naming a semiretired senior judge to fill the post until a new justice is elected in 2015.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court justices questioned and debated Tuesday the proper reach and power of federal law in the regulation of generic drugs and whether a Philadelphia company is liable for $21 million in damages for horrific injuries suffered by a New Hampshire woman who took one of the company's medications. Mutual Pharmaceuticals Co. asked the justices to overturn a jury decision in favor of Karen Bartlett, 53, who had a rare reaction to the painkiller sulindac, in which her skin essentially peeled away and she was left nearly blind.