Justices won't hear dispute involving NC
TV network
WASHINGTON (AP) - A lawsuit against a North Carolina city for allegedly discriminating against an African-American-owned television network will go forward after the Supreme Court declined to get involved in the case.
The Supreme Court's announcement Monday that it would not get involved in the dispute leaves in place a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit earlier this year that revived the lawsuit. A trial court had initially dismissed it.
Black Network Television claims the City of Greensboro rescinded a $300,000 economic development loan because of race. The city says race had nothing to do with it. Appeals court judges ruled 2-1 that the lawsuit had been improperly dismissed.
Gay rights work discrimination case declined
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place a lower court ruling that a federal employment discrimination law doesn't protect a person against discrimination based on their sexual orientation.
The court on Monday declined to take up the question of whether a law that bars workplace discrimination "because of...sex" covers discrimination against someone because of their sexual orientation.
President Barack Obama's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took the view that it does. But President Donald Trump's administration has argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination based on gender but doesn't cover sexual orientation. Federal appeals courts are split on the issue. That means the issue is likely to come to the court again.
The case the Supreme Court declined to take involved Jameka Evans, a gay woman who worked as a hospital security officer in Georgia. Lower courts said she couldn't use Title VII to sue for discrimination.
The Supreme Court didn't explain why it was declining to hear the case. But the hospital where Evans worked, Georgia Regional Hospital, told the court there were technical legal problems with the case.
Court won't review appeal in sheriff's death
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court is letting a death sentence stand for a southeastern Kansas man who fatally shot a sheriff during a 2005 drug raid.
The high court declined Monday to review Scott Cheever's case a second time. Cheever faces lethal injection for killing Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels as Samuels tried to serve a warrant at Cheever's rural home about 75 miles northeast of Wichita.
Cheever acknowledged shooting Samuels, but his attorney argued Cheever was too high on methamphetamine for the crime to be premeditated.
The Kansas Supreme Court in 2012 ordered a new trial for Cheever because prosecutors used a court-ordered mental evaluation from a different trial against him. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2013.
The Kansas court then upheld Cheever's death sentence last year.
Published: Wed, Dec 13, 2017
