High Court

The New Jersey Supreme Court should block Gov. Christie's latest attempt to roll back its landmark rulings on affordable housing. Christie provoked a standoff over the court's Mount Laurel decisions in 2011, when he attempted to unilaterally abolish the bipartisan board created to carry out the court's affordable-housing directives. Christie wants to transfer the functions of the Council on Affording Housing, which is independent of the governor, to the state Department of Community Affairs, which is run by a member of his cabinet.

THE ESCALATING battle between the Nutter administration and the city's largest union is shaping up to be a lightning rod for public-sector labor interests unhappy with the mayor. Seeking legal permission to impose contract terms on blue-collar District Council 33, the administration on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to fast-track its case. The union struck back Wednesday by blasting Nutter for what it sees as an attempt to erase decades of progress for organized labor. And the stage is being set for a dramatic legal battle that could change the nature of labor negotiations across the state.

Child protection workers did not prove that a Cape May County mother abused her infant even though the child tested positive for cocaine at birth, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Wednesday. The decision overturned two lower-court decisions in the 2007 case. Drug tests alone do not substantiate abuse and protection workers must show actual or imminent harm, the justices wrote. The court also found that state child welfare laws do not apply to a fetus.

The Nutter administration asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to immediately hear its argument for imposing a contract on 6,800 blue-collar municipal workers. The city filed suit last week in Common Pleas Court seeking to impose terms on AFSCME District Council 33 - including modest raises, potential furloughs, reduced overtime, and a new pension model for future employees - that would end a nearly four-year standoff. Nutter said in a statement Tuesday that he was petitioning the Supreme Court to take immediate jurisdiction because the "matter is of such pressing public consequence to city employees and taxpayers.

WASHINGTON - Governors who reject health insurance for the poor under the federal health care overhaul could wind up in a politically awkward position on immigration: A quirk in the law means some U.S. citizens would be forced to go without coverage, while legal immigrants residing in the same state could still get it. It's an unintended consequence of how last year's Supreme Court decision changed the Medicaid provisions of President Obama's health...

With its speeches, balls, and parades, Inauguration Day presents Washington at its grandest and, some would say, most grandiose. Amid the pomp, I found myself thinking about someone who wasn't in the crowd this year: Francis J. Lorson, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 69. There is often great incongruity between one's fame and the quality of one's service, a fact of Washington life that Frank's career illustrated. For 30 years, he labored behind the scenes at the Supreme Court, rising from assistant clerk to chief deputy clerk.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Florida man's floating home was a house, not a boat, and not covered under maritime law, in a case that could affect thousands of people around the country who make their home on floating structures in marinas, bays, and coves. The court ruled 7-2 for Fane Lozman, who argued that the two-story craft approximately 60 feet in length that he towed to the marina in Riviera Beach, Fla., should not have been affected by maritime law. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who included a picture of Lozman's craft in the opinion, said maritime law affects vessels that are "watercraft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.

After going weeks without officially responding to a scathing exposé of Philadelphia Traffic Court's ticket-fixing culture, a controlling faction of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided to instead shoot the messenger. In doing so, the court invites speculation that some of its members' highest priority may be to avoid embarrassment - rather than move more aggressively to remedy problems in the lower courts they administer. The high court's recent replacement of Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille as overseer of the city courts - a role that prompted him to push for local reforms - certainly does nothing to address atrocious Traffic Court practices documented by a report presented to the high court in November.

Pennsylvania should give extra money to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to pay for a team of prosecutors and detectives with the sole mission of cracking down on witness intimidation, a state Senate advisory panel recommended Monday. In a 105-page final report, the committee, made up of judges, law professors, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and other experts, also urged that state law be rewritten to permit the Victim Assistance Program to also help relocate witnesses to crimes.

New Jersey Democrats have long argued that they would approve only "diverse" nominees to the state Supreme Court. But now, as liberal opposition builds against Gov. Christie's most recent picks, the definition of diverse appears to be changing. One of the two nominees, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge David Bauman, was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and would be the first Asian American on the high court. Yet the Legislature's black caucus, the state Latino Action Network, and a broad coalition of more than 50 groups, including teachers' unions and Planned Parenthood, are opposing Bauman and the other nominee, Robert Hanna, who is white, primarily because they would not make the court more diverse - and specifically, because they're not African American or Latino.