United States

The Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, removed Romano, a town and village justice, from office, in part, because of his insensitivity to victims of domestic violence.  The justice engaged in egregious misconduct in his courtroom, at an arraignment, where a defendant was charged with violating a protection order and assaulting his wife.  After reviewing the charges, Romano stated, from the bench, “What’s wrong with that?  You’ve got to keep them in line once in a while.”  The Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence in the record supported the Commission’s fi

Here, the parties were married for two years when the plaintiff filed a domestic violence petition against the defendant. She stated that defendant punched her in the stomach and leg, choked her, threw her to the floor, fisted her in the face, and threated to drown her in the bathtub. The plaintiff did not specify the dates of the abuse. The trial court issued an ex parte domestic violence temporary order of protection. The defendant argued that the plaintiff’s petition was legally insufficient as it did not specify when the abuse occurred.

This is a proceeding for the disciplining of Schwartz, a trial court judge. Judge Robert Schwartz initiated a romantic relationship with an assistant public defender with cases before him. The assistant public defender informed her supervisor of Judge Schwartz’s planned recusal via a voice message. In the following days, Judge Schwartz provided dishonest reasons for his recusal from some cases involving the assistant public defender, and entered rulings in some other cases involving the assistant public defender.

A pregnant minor applied for judicial bypass to have an abortion without notifying her parents. The trial court denied her application, finding that she was neither mature nor well-informed enough to consent to an abortion without parental notification. The Supreme Court reversed, finding that Doe showed that she was sufficiently well-informed. The trial court specifically denied Doe’s application because she was allegedly unaware of the intrinsic benefits of alternatives to abortion such as parenting and adoption.

A pregnant minor applied for judicial bypass to have an abortion without notifying her parents. The trial court denied the application on a form, but made no ruling and no findings of fact on one of the bases for judicial bypass—whether notifying her parents would lead to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of the minor. Under the Texas Family Code, the court was required to issue a ruling and written findings of fact and conclusions of law within two business days after the application was filed.

The court upheld an elected clerk’s three-year suspension from the practice of law for various acts, including sexual advances toward female employees in the clerk’s office.  Six female employees made allegations that he sexually harassed them.  Respondent attempted to argue that his actions toward the employees did not meet the standard for “13” as defined by the EEOC.  The Court found that it did not need to rely on a federal agency’s definition to “find that the respondent’s creation and perpetuation of a work environment infected with inappropriate and unwelcome sexual ad

The plaintiff, the mother of 10-year-old girl, sued the defendant, the Tabernacle Baptist Church, alleging that her daughter had been repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by an employee of the church.  The plaintiff alleged that the church knew or should have known that its employee had recently been convicted of aggravated sexual assault on a young girl, was currently on probation for this offense, and that a condition of his probation was that he not be involved with children.  In spite of this fact, the church hired the offending employee and entrusted him with duties that e

Mr. Jackson, a teacher and basketball coach, brought suit against the Birmingham Board of Education (“Board”), alleging that the Board retaliated against him because he had complained about sex discrimination in the high school’s athletic program. Specifically, Mr. Jackson complained to his supervisors that the girls’ basketball team was not receiving equal funding and equal access to athletic equipment and facilities. After the Board terminated Mr. Jackson’s coaching duties, he filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

In Jackson v. VHS Detroit Receiving Hospital, Inc., 814 F.3d 769 (6th Cir. 2016), the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a female mental health technician presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.

The defendant appealed a 12-year prison sentence, arguing that his sentence was excessive given that there was no evidence he used violent force or penile penetration.