Tag Archives: Roberta Kaplan

Courthouse News Service reports: They may not be able to prove racketeering, but victims of a purported multilevel-marketing scheme can sue President Donald Trump for luring them in without disclosing that he was being paid millions to do so. Four anonymous Americans brought the suit at issue last year, seeking to hold the Trump Corp., the president himself and three …

Politico reports: A new organization aiming to step up the legal pressure on President Donald Trump’s business empire is launching this week with the backing of several liberal icons, including the lawyer who scored the first big Supreme Court win for same-sex marriage and a TV producer best known for a hotly-disputed story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard …

The Associated Press reports: A federal appeals court is hearing arguments about a Mississippi law that would let merchants and government employees cite religious beliefs to deny services to same-sex couples. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves halted the law before it could take effect last July 1, ruling it unconstitutionally establishes preferred beliefs and creates unequal treatment for LGBT people. …

BOOM. Another win for Roberta Kaplan. Chris Geidner reports at Buzzfeed: A federal appeals court on Friday denied Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant’s request that the state be allowed to enforce a recently passed anti-LGBT religious exemption law while the state appeals a trial court’s order halting enforcement of that law. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in denying the request …

Hate group leader Tony Perkins is ever so pissed that “intolerant liberals” have a problem with legalized discrimination. He writes: While most Mississippians were getting ready for bed, Judge Carlton Reeves’s office was buzzing. The controversial judge, responsible for striking down the state’s marriage amendment, was busy working on an encore. Under the cloak of darkness, he released a 60-page …

Mississippi News Now reports: Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says he doesn’t know if his office will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that blocked a state law dealing with religious objections to gay marriage. Hood is the only Democrat in statewide office, and his staff had defended the law that was passed by the Republican-majority Legislature and signed by a …

All hail Roberta Kaplan! From the Washington Post: U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves late Thursday night issued an injunction blocking a bill by the Mississippi legislature that would have allowed private citizens and some public officials professing a “sincere religious belief” to deny services to gays and lesbians. Just minutes before House Bill 1523 was to take effect at …

Another win for DOMA champion Roberta Kaplan. Chris Geidner reports at Buzzfeed: A federal judge on Monday ruled that Mississippi’s recently passed law that allows county clerks to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses based on their religious beliefs was, effectively, an impermissible attempt to get around the Supreme Court’s marriage decision. “[T]he Supreme Court’s ruling will be enforced,” U.S. …

Some GOOD news out of Mississippi! From the Jackson Clarion-Ledger: A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to bar Mississippi from carrying out its law preventing same-sex couples from adopting, according to a court order filed Thursday. The order was issued the day after the state Senate passed the Religious Liberty Accommodation Act, which would allow businesses to deny services …

Clip description: The Human Rights Campaign has launched an unprecedented “People’s Brief” to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roberta Kaplan, the leading civil rights litigator who won a landmark Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor striking down Section 3 of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, is the author and lead counsel on the brief. The historic …

Chris Geidner reports at Buzzfeed: Two of the biggest figures in the battle for marriage equality are joining forces to give the Supreme Court their take on the marriage cases before the justices. The Human Rights Campaign, headed since 2012 by Chad Griffin, is joining with Robbie Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor in her challenge to DOMA, to submit an …

Yesterday the Fifth Circuit declined to consolidate the Mississippi case with the cases out of Louisiana and Texas, but today the court did schedule Mississippi to be heard on the same day as the other two. Also yesterday the Fifth Circuit granted Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant an indefinite stay extension while the appeal is being considered. A lower court’s stay …

The Fifth Circuit Court today agreed to have the same panel of judges hear oral arguments in the marriage cases out of Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana. However the court refused the Campaign For Southern Equality’s request to consolidate all three cases. Texas and Louisiana are scheduled to be heard on January 9th. The expedited date for the Mississippi hearing has …

The Campaign For Southern Equality and DOMA attorney Roberta Kaplan have petitioned the Fifth Circuit Court for an expedited review of the ruling that overturned Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, Gov. Phil Bryant and state Attorney General Jim Hood appealed that ruling to the Fifth Circuit, which is already scheduled to hear oral arguments in the Texas and …

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and state Attorney General Jim Hood today filed notice that they will appeal yesterday’s marriage ban ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court, whose jurisdiction includes that state, Louisiana, and Texas. The Fifth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the Texas and Louisiana cases on January 5th and it seems likely that Mississippi will be …

Via the Clarion-Ledger: County circuit clerks across the state of Mississippi are preparing for the possibility of potentially thousands of same-sex couples arriving at courthouses to apply for marriage licenses. If U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves strikes down Mississippi’s gay marriage ban and does not put a temporary hold on same-sex marriages, county clerks will likely be flooded with long …

From the Clarion-Ledger: If U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves doesn’t grant the preliminary injunction sought against Mississippi’s gay marriage ban, it will surprise most of the people in his courtroom on Wednesday. Reeves grilled the state’s defense of its gay marriage ban on almost every issue raised during the roughly five hours of arguments presented in a hearing for …

Via the Clarion-Ledger: New York-based attorney Roberta Kaplan presented a rapid-fire case for her clients, which include two Mississippi same-sex couples with children: Carla Webb and Joce Pritchett; and Rebecca Bickett and Andrea Sanders. At times excusing herself for speaking too quickly, Kaplan rattled off her reasons why she believes the state’s gay-marriage ban violates the constitution and her clients’ …

DOMA attorney Roberta Kaplan and her team are making oral argument today in Mississippi’s marriage equality case. Kaplan has demanded a summary judgment while the case proceeds.