Latest news with #EighthCircuit
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SC legislation aims to make it easier to convict people downloading child porn
Attorney General Alan Wilson touted a bill that allows his office to subpoena website used to find child pornography as a "game changer." Here he is on Tuesday, March 4, accompanied by Eighth Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo, Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson, Rep. Jeff Johnson, R-Conway, Krista Hinson and Rep. Robby Robbins, R-Summerville. (Photo by Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA — Finding and convicting people downloading child pornography could become easier in South Carolina. A bill heading to the governor's desk allows the state Attorney General's Office to subpoena websites and internet providers to locate people suspected of accessing child pornography. Attorney General Alan Wilson called the bill unanimously approved in both chambers a 'game changer' for his office. 'It will make it so much easier to go after child predators online,' Wilson told reporters Friday. According to Wilson, his office has made about 3,000 arrests for internet sex crimes since his tenure began in 2011. The cases can be delayed for weeks, sometimes even months, as state prosecutors wait for court authority to get the information needed to track down suspects, he said. The bill would enable the task force to get that information in a day or two if it relates to internet sex crimes. 'It's going to cut the time down tremendously for going after people who are preying on children online,' said Wilson, who's been advocating for this proposal for at least three years. The new authority applies only to subpoenas issued by the Attorney General's Office in cases investigated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Ensuring that the bill was specific about that was crucial, said Sen. Matthew Leber, a co-sponsor of the proposal. 'We wanted to address the problem at hand and not create unintended consequences,' the Johns Island Republican told the SC Daily Gazette. Another co-sponsor is Sen. Jason Elliott, a former prosecutor in Anderson and Greenville counties. This bill is 'a vital step in protecting children,' said the Greenville Republican. Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to sign the legislation. When he does, 'we'll be able to get to work and use this to better serve our state,' Wilson said. SC AG seeks law criminalizing 'artificial' child pornography Also expected to be signed into law are two bills criminalizing the use of technology to create child pornography — whether using actual or computer-generated photos of children. Both received final approval by the Legislature last week after similar bills fell short in 2024. 'We have to catch the laws up,' Wilson told reporters. 'When they were writing child exploitation laws, no one ever dreamed that you could create children, or morph images of innocent children into these types of pictures and videos.' Wilson is expected to be among candidates running for governor in 2026, though he hasn't officially made a decision. One could be coming in the 'not too distant future,' he told reporters Friday. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, another likely candidate, has repeatedly claimed that Wilson doesn't do enough to prosecute child predators. The attorney general responded to the criticisms Saturday, referring to Mace only as a 'would-be candidate' for governor. His response on X included advocating for the bills soon to be law. He also says he quadrupled the size of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. 'Enough is enough,' he wrote. 'I won't allow someone to use lies, misinformation, and half truths (at best) to cast a negative light on hardworking men and women of law enforcement.' The 1st District congresswoman followed up with another criticism, writing on X that 'when predators walk free, that's on him. The buck stops at Alan Wilson. Period.'
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court won't hear arguments on Minnesota gun ban for people 18-20
April 21 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Minnesota Monday that would have prevented its residents ages 18 through 20 from being permitted to carry firearms in public. The court granted a writ of certiorari in regard to Worth v. Jacobson, in which case a judgment was entered in July of 2024 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The case posited that as the state of Minnesota allowed "young people significant access to firearms," and "Young people can use guns under the supervision of an adult at any age, and they can use them without supervision on their property or for hunting beginning at age 14," that "Minnesota burdens their Second Amendment rights when it restricts permits for carrying pistols in public to those aged 21 and older." The Eighth Circuit court had ruled a carry ban violated the Second Amendment "as applied to Minnesota through the Fourteenth Amendment, and, thus, is unconstitutional." The Supreme Court did not issue a ruling, but just rejected Minnesota's appeal to put the carry ban law back into effect.
New York Times
21-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case on Age Limits for Carrying Guns
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down an opportunity to weigh in on whether the government may restrict 18- to 20-year-olds from buying or carrying guns, a question that has divided the lower courts. The case concerned a Minnesota law that makes it a crime for people under 21 to carry guns in public. Last year, the Eighth Circuit struck down the law, ruling that the Second Amendment required letting those as young as 18 be armed. 'The Second Amendment's plain text does not have an age limit,' wrote Judge Duane Benton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. He relied on the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971. The amendment, Judge Benton wrote, 'unambiguously places 18- to 20-year-olds within the national political community.' Lower courts have struggled to apply recent Supreme Court decisions that transformed Second Amendment law by introducing a new test to judge the constitutionality of gun control measures. As Justice Clarence Thomas put it in his 2022 majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, such laws must be struck down unless they are 'consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.' Keith Ellison, Minnesota's attorney general, had urged the justices to return the case to the appeals court for reconsideration in light of United States v. Rahimi. In that case, decided last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can temporarily disarm people subject to restraining orders for domestic violence. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lakeville Area Schools OKs $30,000 settlement on Black Lives Matter posters
Following a lawsuit involving posters featuring Black Lives Matter, the Lakeville Area Schools Board of Education approved a $30,000 settlement April 8. In a lawsuit filed more than two years ago, a group of residents alleged their First Amendment rights were violated when the school district allowed posters featuring 'Black Lives Matter' to be placed in classrooms, while not permitting the display of posters that read 'All Lives Matter' or 'Blue Lives Matter.' In a 5-1 vote, with board member Amber Cameron absent and member Carly Anderson opposed, the board approved the settlement April 8. 'We appreciate the many different perspectives shared. Lakeville Area Schools remains committed to continuing to partner with our families and community to provide a safe, respectful, engaging, rigorous, and collaborative learning environment where every student belongs, is valued and can succeed,' the district said in a statement provided Wednesday. Ahead of voting, Anderson said she felt the settlement approval was a premature decision, referencing the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in June to reverse the lawsuit's dismissal by a lower court. 'The Eighth Circuit decision was based on assuming that everything that the claimants were claiming could be possible in any scenario. And so to me, I believe we should have gone through the discovery process, which would have meant gathering all the information relevant to the case. In that situation, what I've understood from our legal counsel is that we are on very good footing, that they felt like what our district did was within the grounds of government speech, and that we had an excellent case,' Anderson said. In January, the Lakeville school board voted to remove the series of posters from district buildings. The posters are part of a series of 'inclusive' posters ordered by the district in 2021, two of which said 'Black Lives Matter,' and were distributed to staff members when requested. Upper Midwest Law Center represented plaintiffs Bob and Cynthia Cajune, Kalynn Kay Aaker, and Aaker's minor children in the lawsuit, which argued that the district violated their First Amendment rights 'by engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.' 'With the Eighth Circuit's decision clearly signaling that the school district's policy was constitutionally unsound, Lakeville Schools wisely reversed their policy and removed the posters from district facilities,' Upper Midwest Law Center said in a statement on its website. 'Because that was what the plaintiffs had sought in the lawsuit, they agreed to dismiss their claims in the settlement in return for the District paying $30,000 in legal fees to the Upper Midwest Law Center.' Lakeville North basketball coach John Oxton announces retirement High school hockey coach, Lakeville officer returns home 2 months after injury Jury convicts alleged ringleader of massive Feeding our Future fraud scheme Another Buck Hill skier wins Alpine worlds medal: Paula Moltzan High School Football: Cretin-Derham Hall hires Ben Burk as football coach
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Iowa law banning books including 1984 and Ulysses blocked by US federal judge
A lawsuit brought by publishers and authors including John Green and Jodi Picoult has led to a portion of a law banning Iowa school libraries and classrooms from carrying books depicting sex acts being halted. On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the measure, writing that it had been applied unconstitutionally in many schools and that books of 'undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value' had been caught up in it, including Ulysses by James Joyce, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is the second time that US district judge Stephen Locher, a Joe Biden appointee, has blocked the ban. The law, Senate File 496, was first approved by Iowa's Republican-led legislature and governor Kim Reynolds in 2023, however, Locher placed an injunction on it in December 2023 after authors and publishers sued the state. The preliminary injunction was reversed by the US Eighth Circuit appeals court last August, leading publishers and authors to file a second complaint, arguing that the ban violates free speech and 'goes far beyond prohibiting books that are obscene as to minors because it prohibits books with even a brief description of a sex act for students of all ages without any evaluation of the book as a whole'. In his decision, Locher wrote that the ban has resulted in 'forced removal of books from school libraries that are not pornographic or obscene', and that unconstitutional applications of the law 'far exceed' constitutional applications. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The ultimate fate of the ban still hangs in the balance, as Iowa officials could appeal this week's ruling. In response to Locher's decision, Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird, a Republican, said that parents 'shouldn't have to worry about what materials their kids have access to when they're not around.' 'This common sense law makes certain that the books kids have access to in school classrooms and libraries are age-appropriate,' she added. 'I'm going to keep on fighting to uphold our law that protects schoolchildren and parental rights.' The Iowa law is among several book banning measures enacted across the US in recent years. Publisher-led lawsuits have also been brought in Florida and Idaho. Other books unconstitutionally caught up in the law, wrote Locher, include Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
