Washington
Court won’t review decision to nix license plates with Confederate flag
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it won’t review North Carolina’s decision to stop issuing specialty license plates with the Confederate flag.
As is typical, the court did not comment in declining to hear the case, which challenged the state’s decision. The dispute was one of many the court said Monday it would not hear. It was similar to a case originating in Texas that the court heard in 2015, when it ruled the license plates are state property.
The current dispute stems from North Carolina’s 2021 decision to stop issuing specialty license plates bearing the insignia of the North Carolina chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The chapter sued, claiming that the state’s decision violated state and federal law. A lower court dismissed the case, and a federal appeals court agreed with that decision.
North Carolina offers three standard license plates and more than 200 specialty plates. Civic clubs including the Sons of Confederate Veterans can create specialty plates by meeting specific requirements.
In 2021, however, the state Department of Transportation sent the group a letter saying it would “no longer issue or renew specialty license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag or any variation of that flag” because the plates “have the potential to offend those who view them.”
The state said it would consider alternate artwork for the plates’ design if it does not contain the Confederate flag.
The organization unsuccessfully argued that the state’s decision violated its free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment and state law governing specialty license plates.
In 2015, the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Texas chapter claimed Texas was wrong not to issue a specialty license plate with the group’s insignia. But the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Texas could limit the content of license plates because they are state property.
Indiana
ACLU challenges provision barring instruction to students about ‘human sexuality’
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A new Indiana law’s provision barring teachers from providing instruction on “human sexuality” to students from pre-K through the third grade is unconstitutional and so vaguely written that teachers wouldn’t know whether they are complying with it, a federal lawsuit filed Friday argues.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana’s lawsuit targets a portion of a new law that also requires schools to notify a parent if a student requests a name or pronoun change at school, but it does not challenge the pronoun and name change notification provision.
Republican lawmakers approved the law this year during a session that targeted LGBTQ+ people in the state. It is due to take effect July 1 after Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed it into law in May.
The ACLU’s lawsuit names Indiana’s secretary of education, Katie Jenner, as the defendant and seeks an injunction preventing the “human sexuality” instruction provision from taking effect July 1.
The office of Attorney General Todd Rokita issued a statement saying it “will review the lawsuit and defend what the duly elected legislators find to be the appropriate age for sexuality discussions with Indiana’s elementary school students.”
The suit contends that by prohibiting Indiana teachers from providing “human sexuality” instruction to students from pre-K through third grade, it violates their First Amendment rights.
Because the law defines neither “instruction” nor “human sexuality,” the complaint also contends, those terms “are impossibly vague and lack any ascertainable standards for determining whether or not the law has been violated.”
Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, said it “is written so broadly that it would be next to impossible for teachers to determine what they can and cannot say to students.”
“In addition, teachers have a First Amendment right to express themselves as private citizens outside of the classroom, including in the school’s hallways, playground, or before and after school, but the vagueness of this law would certainly have a chilling effect on those rights,” Falk added in a news release.
The suit also contends that the provision violates the due process clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It was filed on behalf of a teacher with Indianapolis Public Schools, Kayla Smiley, who will be teaching students in grades one through three in the upcoming school year and states that she maintains a classroom library with “age-appropriate books across a diverse spectrum of subjects and concerns, including LGBTQ issues, such as biographies of Harvey Milk, and Elton John.”
The suit adds that Smiley “has no idea whether these books” qualify as instruction on human sexuality.
Vermont
Man pleads guilty in murder for hire conspiracy
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The Colorado man who prosecutors say abducted and killed a Vermont man as part of an international murder for hire conspiracy pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to charges that could land him in prison for life.
Jerry Banks, 35, appeared in Vermont U.S. District Court where he changed his plea to guilty. A sentencing hearing for Banks will be scheduled for a later date.
Banks was charged with murder for hire that led to the January 2018 death of Gregory Davis, of Danville, Vermont, and a charge of kidnapping. He had initially pleaded not guilty. Davis’ body was found by the side of a snowy Vermont back road.
Prosecutors say Banks was part of a conspiracy that began when Davis had been threatening to go to the FBI to report he’d been involved in a fraudulent oil deal with another one of the conspirators, Serhat Gumrukcu, of Los Angeles, who is also facing a murder for hire charge in the case.
The cases of Gumrukcu and Berk Eratay, who faces similar charges, are pending. Both have pleaded not guilty.
A fourth person, Aren Lee Ethridge, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty in July and is awaiting sentencing.
After Davis’ death, investigators worked for more than four years to build a chain connecting the four suspects: Banks, who was friends with Ethridge, who was friends with Eratay, who worked for Gumrukcu.
