Supreme Court Notebook

Court orders new look at health care challenge
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has revived a Christian college’s challenge to President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, with the acquiescence of the Obama administration.
The court on Monday ordered the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to consider the claim by Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that Obama’s health care law violates the school’s religious freedoms.
A federal district judge rejected Liberty’s claims, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the lawsuit was premature and never dealt with the substance of the school’s arguments. The Supreme Court upheld the health care law in June.
The justices used lawsuits filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business to uphold the health care law by a 5-4 vote, then rejected all other pending appeals, including Liberty’s.
The school made a new filing with the court over the summer to argue that its claims should be fully evaluated in light of the high court decision. The administration said it did not oppose Liberty’s request.
Liberty is challenging both the requirement that most individuals obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, and a separate provision requiring many employers to offer health insurance to their workers.
The appeals court could ask the government and the college for new legal briefs to assess the effect of the Supreme Court ruling on Liberty’s claims before rendering a decision.
Liberty’s case joins dozens of other pending lawsuits over health reform, many involving the requirement that employer insurance plans cover contraception, which are working their way through the federal court system.
The case is Liberty University v. Geithner, 11-438.

Court rejects appeal over insanity defense
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is refusing to consider whether a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from convicted killer John Joseph Delling of Idaho, one of four states that bar defendants from claiming that they were legally insane or unable to appreciate that what they did was wrong. The other states are Kansas, Montana and Utah.
Delling was convicted of killing two college students in 2007. Delling suffers from acute paranoid schizophrenia and says he was in the grip of severe delusions when he killed the two men and wounded a third.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have heard the case.

Court rejects plea to block taping of police
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an Illinois prosecutor’s plea to allow enforcement of a law aimed at stopping people from recording police officers on the job.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that found that the state’s anti-eavesdropping law violates free speech rights when used against people who tape law enforcement officers. The law sets out a maximum prison term of 15 years.
Opponents of the law say the right to record police is vital to guard against abuses.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2010 against Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to block prosecution of ACLU staff for recording police officers performing their duties in public places. It’s one of the group’s long-standing monitoring missions.

Court rejects appeal of ex-La. congressman
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place the corruption conviction of a former Louisiana congressman who hid money from bribes in his freezer.
The justices on Monday rejected without comment an appeal by former Rep. William Jefferson, who is serving a 13-year term in federal prison.
The Louisiana Democrat was convicted in 2009 after FBI agents investigating allegations of corruption found $90,000 in cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer.
A federal appeals court upheld all but one of the 11 counts on which a jury convicted Jefferson.

Court: Who counts as a supervisor?
WASHINGTON (AP) — When does your coworker also count as your supervisor? The Supreme Court may soon draw a legal line separating colleagues from managers, at least when it comes to harassment claims.
At issue Monday was a federal court split on whether to be considered a supervisor, a person must be able to hire and fire people.
That's what the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said while hearing a complaint from a Ball State University caterer, who says she was racially harassed. Maetta Vance says her tormentor was a supervisor, making the university liable. But the lower courts said that since the woman could not fire Vance, she was only a co-worker, and threw out the case.
Justices will announce whether they think that was the right decision sometime next year.

Court won’t get into fight over grape patents
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal from a California table grape organization over a lawsuit seeking to invalidate several government table grape patents.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the California Table Grape Commission, which is fighting to keep in place patents on Sweet Scarlet, Autumn King and Scarlet Royal varieties of table grapes.
Delano Farms Co. and other farms say the patents are invalid, and won a lower court decision that would allow them to go to court to fight their case. The commission wants that case thrown out, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed.
The case now goes back to the lower courts.