The Circle School v. Pappert

Pennsylvania law mandates that all public, private, and parochial schools display the national flag in every classroom and provide for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem at the beginning of each school day. Like similar statutes in other states, the law allows private and parochial schools to opt out of its requirements on religious grounds, and gives students the option of refraining from participating in the recitation and saluting the national flag on religious or personal grounds. However, it also requires school supervising officials ...

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Teenage Sex and Mandatory Minimums

There must be something in the water in Georgia. Yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court wrestled with how mandatory minimum sentencing laws treat teenagers who are caught engaging in consensual sex. In the case before the court, Marcus Dwayne Dixon, a black 18-year-old high school football player, was accused and acquitted of raping a white 15-year-old female classmate. But Dixon was convicted of misdemeanor statutory rape and aggravated child molestation, one of the so-called "seven deadly sins" for which Georgia law requires at least a 10-year prison term. A star ...

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