legislation

The chairman of the Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee has declared dead a bill that would have shielded business owners from being forced to service same-sex weddings if that would be against their religious beliefs, the Associated Press reports. The bill, which was passed by the House, would have barred governmental sanctions and anti-discrimination lawsuits in those circumstances.

As I noted in my prior post on this legislation, LGBT-rights advocates criticized the bill for allowing governmental workers to cite their religious beliefs in refusing to provide governmental services to gay couples.

As Kansas "braces for the federal courts striking down Kansas' ban on gay marriage," a House legislative committee has passed a bill that would shield business owners from being forced to service same-sex weddings if that would be against their religious beliefs, the Associated Press reports. The bill would bar governmental sanctions and anti-discrimination lawsuits in those circumstances.

LGBT-rights advocates criticized the bill for allowing governmental workers to cite their religious beliefs in refusing to provide governmental services to gay couples, the AP further reports. The bill requires "agencies to seek a work-around - if it isn't an 'undue hardship,'" according to the AP.

Mayor Michael Nutter's administration opposes legislation pending in the Philadelphia City Council that would create legislative oversight of contracts for the legal representation of Philadelphians too poor to afford their own lawyers in family court and criminal court, The Legal Intelligencer's P.J. D'Annunzio reports. Instead of having individual attorneys take court appointments, the administration is trying to contract with a new private law firm to do that work.

A City Council committee passed ordinances that would authorize City Council to review contracts involving legal representation of poor Philadelphians of more than $100,000, among other proposed changes.

According to The Legal, Michael Resnick, Nutter's director of public safety, testified in opposition: "The point of my testimony is that we contract for other services that implicate constitutional rights, we do it well, and we don't need the charter to be changed."

West Virginia's MetroNews reports that the WVU Law Innocence Project is "pushing legislation at the capitol which would require all police interrogations to be video recorded. Supporters of the bill believe it will reduce the chances of false confessions and ultimately false convictions."

Recording confessions is now considered a best practice to prevent innocent people from falsely confessing to crimes they didn't commit or being wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit.

West Virginia has passed legislation establishing protocols to ensure investigating officers don't influence witnesses during lineups, MetroNews also reported.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports to repeal Kansas' ban on same-sex marriage have been accepted by a legislative committee. Kansas also is considering a bill to "provide legal protection to people who, because of religious opposition to gay marriage, would deny business and services to same-sex couples," the newspaper reports.

The Indiana House Judiciary Committee heard testimony today about legislation that would start the process to amend Indiana's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. But the vote was delayed by the committee chair, the Associated Press reports.

Reuters reports on the concerns raised as the U.S. Senate consider legislation to curb patent trolls. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said he is "wary of unintended consequences," while bill sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy said the legislation balances the rights of patent holders against patent trolls who buy up patents just to pursue litigation. Among other measures, the legislation would require losers in patent litigation to pay the winner's fees if a judge decides the litigation never should have been brought.

While New Jersey has authorized same-sex marriage through court action, Democrats in the New Jersey Senate were hoping to codify same-sex marriage by statute. But The Newark Star-Ledger reports "Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg said Sunday that she decided to follow the advice of Lambda Legal, a gay rights law group, to take the bill off the agenda." Lambda Legal disfavored the religious exemptions in the now-pulled legislation.

Even though same-sex marriage has been authorized in New Jersey in court decisions, "key Senate Democrats" are seeking to codify the court decisions, The Newark Star-Ledger reports. Legislators want to protect the right to same-sex marriage from being removed by future courts. For example, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), told the newspaper that one of the rationales for the court decision to legalize same-sex marriage was that "gay couples in civil unions would be denied federal benefits because they were not married. If the federal government gave them benefits, Lesniak said, the rationale for the decision could be undercut, which is why it needs to be written into law."