Georgia
Kemp appoints Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin Land to State Supreme Court
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s governor on Thursday announced the appointment of a new justice to fill a vacant seat on the state’s highest court.
Gov. Brian Kemp said Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin Land will fill the spot on the Georgia Supreme Court left by former Chief Justice Michael Boggs, who stepped down at the end of March to return to private practice. Land has served on the state’s intermediate appeals court since July 2022 and was previously a superior court judge in the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit.
Before becoming a judge, Land was an attorney in private practice in Columbus for about 26 years who specialized in complex civil litigation. He has also served in numerous community organizations. A “double dawg,” he earned both an undergraduate degree and a law degree from the University of Georgia.
Arkansas
Federal court says state can enforce ban on critical race theory in school
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can enforce its ban on critical race theory in classrooms, ruling the First Amendment doesn’t give students the right to compel the state to offer its instruction in public schools.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction issued against the ban, one of several changes adopted under an education overhaul that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed in 2023.
The prohibition is being challenged by two teachers and two students at Little Rock Central High School, site of the 1957 desegregation crisis. A federal judge had granted the injunction to the students but not the teachers.
“Just as ordinary citizens cannot require the government to express a certain viewpoint or maintain a prior message, students cannot oblige the government to maintain a particular curriculum or offer certain materials in that curriculum based on the Free Speech Clause,” the judges ruled.
Attorneys for the teachers and students said they were disappointed in the ruling.
“It gives us pause and concern about a steady erosion of individual rights and protections in this great country,” attorney Mike Laux said in a statement. “Nonetheless, major aspects of this lawsuit remain viable, and they will proceed in due course.”
Critical race theory is an academic framework dating to the 1970s that centers on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s institution. The theory is not a fixture of K-12 education, and Arkansas’ ban does not define what constitutes critical race theory.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin praised the court’s ruling.
“With its ruling today, the 8th Circuit continues to ensure that the responsibility of setting curriculum is in the hands of democratically elected officials who, by nature, are responsive to voters,” Griffin said in a statement.
Arkansas is among several Republican-led states that have placed restrictions on how race is taught in the classroom, including prohibitions on critical race theory. President Donald Trump in February ordered federal money for K-12 schools cannot be used on the “indoctrination” of children, including “radical gender ideology and critical race theory.”
“Big win for common sense, education freedom — and parents who just want our schools to teach kids how to think, not what to think,” Sanders, who served as Trump’s press secretary during his first term, posted on X after Wednesday’s ruling.
The judges said they weren’t minimizing the students’ concerns “whether in this case or in the abstract — about a government that decides to exercise its discretion over the public school curriculum by prioritizing ideological interests over educational ones.”
“But the Constitution does not give courts the power to block government action based on mere policy disagreements,” the court said.
Florida
Backstreet Boys’ Brian Littrell sues Florida sheriff’s office over beach trespassers
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Backstreet Boys singer Brian Littrell says a local Florida sheriff’s office isn’t doing enough to protect his multimillion-dollar beachfront property from trespassers and is asking a judge for an order commanding deputies to do so.
The petition filed last month by Littrell’s company in a Florida Panhandle county touches on a perennial tug-of-war between usually-wealthy oceanfront property owners and beach-loving members of the public, especially in Florida, which has 825 miles of sandy beaches.
Under Florida law, any sand on a beach below the high tide water mark is public. Many homeowners own the sand down to the average high-water line, though some counties over the decades have passed local ordinances that let the public use otherwise private beaches for sunbathing, fishing and walking if people have historically had access for those purposes.
Property records show that Littrell’s company purchased the property in Santa Rosa Beach in Walton County in 2023 for $3.8 million.
“The Walton County Sheriff’s Office prides itself on handling every situation, call for service, or interaction with professionalism using a customer service approach,” public information officer Lindsey Darby said in an email. “This has always been our philosophy and will remain so moving forward.”
In the petition, Littrell’s company said that chairs, umbrellas and small tables had been put out on the beach, as well as “No Trespassing” signs, to mark it as private property. But that effort had been in vain “as numerous trespassers have set out to antagonize, bully, and harass the Littrell family by regularly, every day, trespassing,” according to the petition.
The sheriff’s office has refused requests to remove trespassers or charge them, and the family has had to hire private security, the petition said.
Walton County, which has become home to several famous property owners besides Littrell over the past two decades, has been at the center of a recent fight between private property owners and the public over access to beaches.
A 2018 Florida law that stemmed from a Walton County ordinance blocked any local government from passing ordinances dealing with public beach access until affected homeowners were notified, a public hearing was held and a court had determined whether a private beach was historically open to the public.
Florida lawmakers this year approved legislation that restored control back to local authorities, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law last month in Santa Rosa Beach, the beach town where Littrell’s house is located.
Kemp appoints Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin Land to State Supreme Court
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s governor on Thursday announced the appointment of a new justice to fill a vacant seat on the state’s highest court.
Gov. Brian Kemp said Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin Land will fill the spot on the Georgia Supreme Court left by former Chief Justice Michael Boggs, who stepped down at the end of March to return to private practice. Land has served on the state’s intermediate appeals court since July 2022 and was previously a superior court judge in the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit.
Before becoming a judge, Land was an attorney in private practice in Columbus for about 26 years who specialized in complex civil litigation. He has also served in numerous community organizations. A “double dawg,” he earned both an undergraduate degree and a law degree from the University of Georgia.
Arkansas
Federal court says state can enforce ban on critical race theory in school
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can enforce its ban on critical race theory in classrooms, ruling the First Amendment doesn’t give students the right to compel the state to offer its instruction in public schools.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction issued against the ban, one of several changes adopted under an education overhaul that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed in 2023.
The prohibition is being challenged by two teachers and two students at Little Rock Central High School, site of the 1957 desegregation crisis. A federal judge had granted the injunction to the students but not the teachers.
“Just as ordinary citizens cannot require the government to express a certain viewpoint or maintain a prior message, students cannot oblige the government to maintain a particular curriculum or offer certain materials in that curriculum based on the Free Speech Clause,” the judges ruled.
Attorneys for the teachers and students said they were disappointed in the ruling.
“It gives us pause and concern about a steady erosion of individual rights and protections in this great country,” attorney Mike Laux said in a statement. “Nonetheless, major aspects of this lawsuit remain viable, and they will proceed in due course.”
Critical race theory is an academic framework dating to the 1970s that centers on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s institution. The theory is not a fixture of K-12 education, and Arkansas’ ban does not define what constitutes critical race theory.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin praised the court’s ruling.
“With its ruling today, the 8th Circuit continues to ensure that the responsibility of setting curriculum is in the hands of democratically elected officials who, by nature, are responsive to voters,” Griffin said in a statement.
Arkansas is among several Republican-led states that have placed restrictions on how race is taught in the classroom, including prohibitions on critical race theory. President Donald Trump in February ordered federal money for K-12 schools cannot be used on the “indoctrination” of children, including “radical gender ideology and critical race theory.”
“Big win for common sense, education freedom — and parents who just want our schools to teach kids how to think, not what to think,” Sanders, who served as Trump’s press secretary during his first term, posted on X after Wednesday’s ruling.
The judges said they weren’t minimizing the students’ concerns “whether in this case or in the abstract — about a government that decides to exercise its discretion over the public school curriculum by prioritizing ideological interests over educational ones.”
“But the Constitution does not give courts the power to block government action based on mere policy disagreements,” the court said.
Florida
Backstreet Boys’ Brian Littrell sues Florida sheriff’s office over beach trespassers
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Backstreet Boys singer Brian Littrell says a local Florida sheriff’s office isn’t doing enough to protect his multimillion-dollar beachfront property from trespassers and is asking a judge for an order commanding deputies to do so.
The petition filed last month by Littrell’s company in a Florida Panhandle county touches on a perennial tug-of-war between usually-wealthy oceanfront property owners and beach-loving members of the public, especially in Florida, which has 825 miles of sandy beaches.
Under Florida law, any sand on a beach below the high tide water mark is public. Many homeowners own the sand down to the average high-water line, though some counties over the decades have passed local ordinances that let the public use otherwise private beaches for sunbathing, fishing and walking if people have historically had access for those purposes.
Property records show that Littrell’s company purchased the property in Santa Rosa Beach in Walton County in 2023 for $3.8 million.
“The Walton County Sheriff’s Office prides itself on handling every situation, call for service, or interaction with professionalism using a customer service approach,” public information officer Lindsey Darby said in an email. “This has always been our philosophy and will remain so moving forward.”
In the petition, Littrell’s company said that chairs, umbrellas and small tables had been put out on the beach, as well as “No Trespassing” signs, to mark it as private property. But that effort had been in vain “as numerous trespassers have set out to antagonize, bully, and harass the Littrell family by regularly, every day, trespassing,” according to the petition.
The sheriff’s office has refused requests to remove trespassers or charge them, and the family has had to hire private security, the petition said.
Walton County, which has become home to several famous property owners besides Littrell over the past two decades, has been at the center of a recent fight between private property owners and the public over access to beaches.
A 2018 Florida law that stemmed from a Walton County ordinance blocked any local government from passing ordinances dealing with public beach access until affected homeowners were notified, a public hearing was held and a court had determined whether a private beach was historically open to the public.
Florida lawmakers this year approved legislation that restored control back to local authorities, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law last month in Santa Rosa Beach, the beach town where Littrell’s house is located.
