Supreme Court of questionable sensibility
Case 1:
The question of the Ten Commandments in courthouses has finally been answered by the High Court. As expected, the justice system must operate within the bounds of the Constitution without any competing guidelines.
The ruling was delivered 5-4, however, which is only one vote away from condoning the use of the Ten Commandments before the Constitution in judicial decisions.
Justice Souter delivered this opinion on behalf of the majority:
“The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion. … When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates the central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality.”
Case 2:
In a unanimous decision, the court sent the case of services/software used for copyright infringement back to the lower court, which had previously found in favor of the services.
Souter delivered this response:
“We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.”
It is now for the lower court to decide what constitutes ‘affirmative steps’.