High Court

The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of Terence McCracken Jr., who contends that he was wrongly convicted of killing a delicatessen customer during a 1983 robbery in Collingdale. McCracken's attorney, John McDougall, said the Supreme Court must decide whether Delaware County Common Pleas Court was correct in 1987 in ordering a retrial or whether Superior Court was correct when it denied him a new trial last year. "I've been going through a long time of desperate anticipation of this decision," McCracken said yesterday when told of the Supreme Court order - approved Friday but not made public until yesterday.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a Philadelphia ordinance that requires handgun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to police. The ruling, issued Monday, also upheld restrictions on gun possession by people subject to a domestic violence order and those ruled to be a danger to themselves or others. The high court, in a one-page order, let stand two lower court rulings that allowed such ordinances. The National Rifle Association appealed to the Supreme Court. - Robert Moran

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...

TRENTON - Two months after Democrats rejected Gov. Christie's nominee for one of two vacant seats on the State Supreme Court - a historically unprecedented move that marked a major setback for his administration - the Republican is sending another nominee to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. And the votes aren't there to confirm this one, either, Democratic sources are saying. If Christie can't muscle through the confirmation of Bruce Harris - a Yale Law graduate, an African American, and a gay Republican who plans to recuse himself on the issue of same-sex marriage - then what?

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court decided Monday not to stop the release of Federal Reserve Board documents identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the 2008-09 financial crisis. The high court, without comment, refused to hear an appeal from an association of bankers trying to keep the information from becoming public. News Corp.'s Fox News Network L.L.C. and Bloomberg L.P. had sued separately for details about loans that commercial banks and Wall Street firms received and the collateral they put up. Other news agencies, including The Associated Press, filed briefs with the appellate court in their support.

The state Attorney General's Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to assume control of the appeals in the Jay C. Smith murder case in order to expedite the 11-year-old legal proceedings. Deputy Attorney General Robert A. Graci filed a brief with the Supreme Court late Friday afternoon, arguing that only the state's highest court has the ultimate authority to give Smith what he is seeking - the dismissal of all charges against him. Smith, the former principal of Upper Merion High School, was convicted in Dauphin County Court in 1986 for the murder of English teacher Susan Reinert and her two children.

An 83-year-old Bucks County man will begin serving a lengthy sentence for sexually abusing two children, and an inmate's right to carry rosary beads into a Graterford Prison visiting area will be restudied, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. Richard Wildermuth, a retired florist who was sentenced in Bucks County Court to a mandatory five years in prison for the rape of two girls, lost an appeal before the high court yesterday. The court, citing the lack of a "substantial federal question," let stand a 1985 Pennsylvania appeals court ruling that Wildermuth's sentence was not cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Constitution.

A divided New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday ordered the state to continue to provide emergency shelter to nearly 800 homeless families for 30 more days while a lower court considers a lawsuit challenging the state's homeless policy. The court ruled 4-3 to grant the extension sought by the state's public advocate after a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division of Superior Court rejected the request last week. The public advocate, Alfred Slocum, sued the Department of Human Services, arguing that the state should be barred from evicting homeless families from temporary shelters as long as the families make a determined search for a home but find that they are too poor to afford one. As part of its ruling, the high court ordered the appellate division to rule within the 30-day extension period.

Gov. Casey yesterday nominated Juanita Kidd Stout to the state Supreme Court, making his surprise announcement at a luncheon honoring the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If confirmed by the Senate, Stout, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, would be the first black woman ever to serve on the state's highest court, and only the second woman in its history, according to the governor's office. Stout was seated on the dais when Casey made his announcement while addressing a crowd of 1,500 at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier to haul businesses into court, ruling in separate cases that investors can sue them for purposefully withholding damaging information about a product and that employees can sue them for retaliation without having to make a written complaint. The court ruled unanimously to let a lawsuit by a group of investors against Matrixx Initiatives Inc., the maker of the now-discontinued Zicam nasal cold remedies, proceed, while ruling in the other case, on a 6-2 vote, to let Kevin Kasten's retaliation lawsuit against Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp.