Lots of stuff – at least marginally law-related – has happened in the last few days, so I thought it’d be worth doing a quickie round-up to keep you busy.
In the first act of new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Parliament, he apologized to the Stolen Generations, Aboriginal children (mostly mixed descent) who were removed from their families by the Australian government and made wards of the state from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. You can hear some interesting interviews from BBC Radio World Service here.
Justice Scalia sat down for an interview with BBC Radio’s Law in Action and discusses originalism, torture, and the death penalty. You can read the article and listen to the interview at BBC here. (Via How Appealing.)
The Fourth Circuit has ruled that an employee is not entitled to extra days off due to his faith. Prof. Turley’s thoughts are here, and the court’s opinion is here. The court’s opinion seems to turn on whether accommodating the employee’s request for so many days is reasonable – a concept familiar to everyone who wrote that recent motion for summary judgment.
In other religion news, the NYT reports that courts are more frequently dealing with custody battles involving separated parents with severe differences of religion. Courts have been reluctant to get too involved because of the obviously difficult position of deciding which of two religions is better for a child’s well-being. In one heartbreaking tale, a father petitioned for custody when his Amish wife wanted to take their daughter out of school after 8th grade; the girl has disappeared, probably hidden within the Amish community, and he has not seen her in 2-1/2 years.
Finally, some spice at the end of the day: Texas continues down the path to hell with a Fifth Circuit decision striking down portions of a statute that makes it a crime to sell sex toys. You can read the opinion here. (Via Decision of the Day.) In related news, an enterprising Jackson, MO, reporter went through all this effort going undercover to expose an adult store selling sex toys (”three dimensional devices,” if you will) only to be totally blown off by police who, understandably, have better things to do with their time. (Via Savage Love.)
-Sai Jahann
