In law, standing or locus standi is a condition that a party seeking a legal remedy must show they have, by demonstrating to the court, sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. A party has standing in the following situations:
Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court under which prior restraint on publication was found to violate freedom of the press as protected under the First Amendment. This principle was applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence. The Court ruled that a Minnesota law that targeted publishers of "malicious" or "scandalous" newspapers violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Legal scholar and columnist Anthony Lewis called Near the Court's "first great press case".
Breach of the peace, or disturbing the peace, is a legal term used in constitutional law in English-speaking countries and in a public order sense in the several jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It is a form of disorderly conduct.
An abstention doctrine is any of several doctrines that a United States court may apply to refuse to hear a case if hearing the case would potentially intrude upon the powers of another court. Such doctrines are usually invoked where lawsuits involving the same issues are brought in two different court systems at the same time.
Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), is a United States Supreme Court case that allows suits in federal courts for injunctions against officials acting on behalf of states of the union to proceed despite the State's sovereign immunity, when the State acted contrary to any federal law or contrary to the Constitution.
Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that United States federal courts were required to abstain from hearing any civil rights tort claims brought by a person who is currently being prosecuted for a matter arising from that claim.
The Rooker–Feldman doctrine is a doctrine of civil procedure enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in two cases, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923) and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The doctrine holds that lower United States federal courts—i.e., federal courts other than the Supreme Court—should not sit in direct review of state court decisions unless Congress has specifically authorized such relief. In short, federal courts below the Supreme Court must not become a court of appeals for state court decisions. The state court appellant has to find a state court remedy, or obtain relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.
Third party standing is a term of the law of civil procedure that describes when one party may file a lawsuit or assert a defense in which the rights of third parties are asserted. In the United States, this is generally prohibited, as a party can only assert his or her own rights and cannot raise the claims of right of a third party who is not before the court. However, there are several exceptions to this doctrine.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City, New York, in the United States. It was founded in 1966 by Arthur Kinoy, William Kunstler and others particularly to support activists in the implementation of civil rights legislation and to achieve social justice.
The Office of the Missouri Attorney General was created in 1806 when Missouri was part of the Louisiana Territory. Missouri's first Constitution in 1820 provided for an appointed attorney general, but since the 1865 Constitution, the Attorney General has been elected. As of January 2021, there have been 43 attorneys general in Missouri. Eric S. Schmitt was appointed to become the 43rd Attorney General in January 2019 filling the mid-term vacancy created by Josh Hawley's election to the United States Senate. Following Schmitt's 2022 election to Missouri's other United States Senate seat, his successor as attorney general will be appointed by Governor Mike Parson.
Chicago Life Insurance Co. v. Needles, 113 U.S. 574 (1885), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court. It involved the writ of error regarding a denial of a motion and final judgment rendered perpetually enjoining Chicago Life Ins. Co. from further prosecution of its business. From that judgment, a writ of error was prosecuted to the supreme court of the state, where, among other things, was assigned for error the refusal of the court of original jurisdiction to adjudge that the said statutes of Illinois were in violation of the Constitution of the United States. The judgment of the inferior court was in all things affirmed by the supreme court of the state, and from that judgment of affirmance the present writ of error is prosecuted.
Nitke v. Gonzalez, 413 F.Supp.2d 262 was a United States District Court for the Southern District of New York case regarding obscene materials published online. The plaintiff challenged the constitutionality of the obscenity provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). She claimed that it was overbroad when applied in the context of the Internet because certain contents deemed lawful in some communities and unlawful in others will be restricted due to the open access of the Internet. The plaintiff also sought a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the obscenity provision of the CDA. The court concluded that insufficient evidence was presented to show there was substantial variation in community standards, as applied in the "Miller test", and to show how much protected speech would actually be impaired because of these differences. The relief sought was denied, and the court ruled for the defendant. The Supreme Court subsequently affirmed this ruling without comment.
NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ruling, and also overturned certain laws enacted by the state of Virginia in 1956 as part of the Stanley Plan and massive resistance, as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The statutes here stricken down by the Supreme Court had expanded the definitions of the traditional common law crimes of champerty and maintenance, as well as barratry, and had been targeted at the NAACP and its civil rights litigation.
The Anti-Injunction Act, is a United States federal statute that restricts a federal court's authority to issue an injunction against ongoing state court proceedings, subject to three enumerated exceptions. It states:
American Civil Liberties Union v. Miller was a court case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 1997 between the ACLU and Georgia governor Zell Miller. The case was an early precedent on the ability of individuals to use the World Wide Web anonymously.
Sprint Communications, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U.S. 69 (2013), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in which a unanimous Court held that federal court abstention under the Younger v. Harris doctrine is not in order simply because a pending state-court proceeding involves the same subject matter. The case involved a dispute between Sprint Corporation and Windstream Communications.
Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25 (1959), was a case in which the Supreme Court created a new doctrine of abstention.
Gamble v. United States, No. 17-646, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case about the separate sovereignty exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows both federal and state prosecution of the same crime as the governments are "separate sovereigns". Terance Martez Gamble was prosecuted under both state and then federal laws for possessing a gun while being a felon. His argument that doing so was double jeopardy was found unpersuasive due to the exception. In June 2019, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court decision 7–2, with the majority opinion stating that there was not sufficient cause for overturning the dual sovereignty doctrine.
Richard Barry Sobol was an American lawyer who specialized in civil rights law. He worked primarily on desegregation cases in Louisiana.
Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case brought by Texas abortion providers and abortion rights advocates that challenged the constitutionality of the Texas Heartbeat Act, a law that outlaws abortions after six weeks. The Texas Heartbeat Act prohibits state officials from enforcing the ban but authorizes private individuals to enforce the law by suing anyone who performs, aids, or abets an abortion after six weeks. The law was structured this way to evade pre-enforcement judicial review because lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of state statutes are typically brought against state officials who are charged with enforcing the law, as the state itself cannot be sued under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
