In 2015, Alabama amended its gun legislation to prohibit anyone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor offense of domestic violence or is subject to a domestic abuse protective order from possessing a firearm.
Since 1987, Alabama has had a judicial bypass law, which allows pregnant minors to obtain a court’s permission to have an abortion without parental consent. In 2014, the Alabama legislature passed House Bill 494 to amend the law. The original judicial bypass statute provided for an ex parte hearing with only the judge, the minor, and her attorney present. The 2014 amendments added to the proceedings parties who are permitted or required to “examine” the minor and represent the interests of the unborn child, the state, and the minor’s parents.
Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, female minor children in the custody of Alabama’s Department of Youth Service (“DYS”), brought an action against DYS and its executive director, alleging federal claims of sexual harassment and abuse under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq. (“Title IX”) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and state claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring and supervision of DYS employees, and intentional misrepresentation.
Plaintiffs, minor female children in the custody of Alabama’s Department of Youth Services (“DYS”), brought an action against DYS and its executive director, in which they alleged that the defendants failed to adequately respond to “a sexually hostile education environment” and sexual abuse and harassment. The plaintiffs brought federal claims under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq. (“Title IX”) and 42 U.S.C.
Plaintiff, a mother of a stillborn child, sued physicians and a medical group, alleging that they wrongfully caused the death of her son and caused her emotional distress. The trial court held that a wrongful death action could not be maintained for the death of a fetus before viability. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed this holding, while agreeing with the trial court that Plaintiff could not recover damages for emotional distress.
The defendant was charged with chemical endangerment of a child for ingesting cocaine while pregnant, which resulted in her child testing positive for cocaine at birth. The defendant was convicted after a guilty plea, but challenged her conviction on appeal, arguing that the legislature did not intend for Alabama’s chemical endangerment statute to apply to unborn children. Additionally, she alleged that if the statute applied to unborn children, the law was: (1) bad public policy because it does not protect unborn children and (2) unconstitutionally vague.
Doe, a 14 year old eighth grader, was raped at school by 15 year old eight grader CJC who had a prior history of sexual harassment at school. The school’s policy on sexual harassment was to accept only three types of evidence as demonstrative of sexual harassment: catching the harasser in the act, physical evidence of the harassment, or an admission of guilt by the harasser. Doe was instructed by a teacher’s aide to lure CJC into a bathroom as a “rape-bait” sting to catch him in the act of sexual harassment.
The defendant was convicted of third-degree domestic violence, harassment, and harassing communications based on evidence that he attacked his ex-wife, Karen Kelly, while they were driving in a car. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court improperly admitted testimony from the treating physician concerning what Ms. Kelly told him as he was treating her broken nose. Specifically, the physician testified that Ms.
N.C., a minor, filed a personal injury action against her physical education teacher, her school principal, and the Tallapoosa County Board of Education. N.C. alleged that after her seventh grade physical education class, she was pulled into the boys’ locker room and raped by A.H., a 12th grade student whom her teacher, Caldwell, had appointed as a teacher’s aide. N.C.’s complaint alleged that Caldwell had actual knowledge that A.H. was sexually harassing students and had negligently or wantonly supervised N.C. and the other students in her class.
