U.S. Court of Appeals

UPDATED: Hard-Right Group Wants to Push Broad Religious Exemptions into State Constitution

When Texas first passed its Religious Freedom Act in 1999, Scott Hochberg, then a Democratic State Representative, found a strange ally. Texas Right to Life, a pro-life organization still extant, had consistently stood opposite Hochberg's legislation never testified for Hochberg's legislation -- the ... More >>

Millionaires Clash Over Shadyside Mansion

Despite all the Tenth Commandment strictures to the contrary, coveting the mansion next door has led millionaire executive Tony Petrello to years of depositions and lawsuits.

AG Greg Abbott Can't Keep Himself Out Of The Kountze Cheerleader Bible Case

In a development that really only has people asking "What took so long?" Texas attorney general Greg Abbott, ever eager to flail whatever red-meat rightwing issue that crosses his desk, has "offered assistance" to the good folks at the Kountze school district who have received a "menacing and mislea ... More >>

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EPA Can't Block Texas's Clean-Air Rules for Being Too Lax, Appeals Court Says

The federal Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its bounds when it rejected a Texas clean-air plan it thought was too lax, an appellate court has ruled. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the EPA was limited to reviewing whether Texas's controversial plan met the absolute minimums o ... More >>

Texas's Sonogram Law Gets New Lease on Life

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the temporary injunction on Texas's so-called sonogram law, clearing the way for abortion providers to enforce the new mandate. The law, championed by Senator Dan Patrick, requires a sonogram whenever a woman seeks an abortion. The law requires the wom ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Finally, The Super Bowl Is Safe For PG-13 Rated Entertainment Again

The boob that launched a thousand obscenity complaints...​Over seven years after the FCC went into a tizzy over Janet Jackson exposing her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl (making a D-cup out of an A-cup, perhaps), a federal appeals court upheld its finding yesterday that the commission acted ... More >>

Energy Execs Get Nervous: Feds To Reopen Investigation Into Enron Manipulating Electricity Prices

There are some (a lot?) of former Enron traders and execs in town who might have thought they had safely weathered the investigation into whether that company manipulated electricity prices in California in 2000, causing a crisis. They may have to think again. FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory C ... More >>

Continental Told To Butt Out Of Pilot's Bedrooms

"No tears and no hearts breaking, no remorse..."​Continental Airlines kicked up a stir in 2009 when they went after nine pilots for having "sham divorces" in order to get early pension benefits. The airline apparently felt it could determine what is and isn't true love, or true divorce, a ski ... More >>

If You Ran a Red-Light Camera This Morning, You'll Get Mail

The money machine is running again​The red-light cameras have been turned back on and fines are being issued. Much as it pains Mayor Annise Parker to get all the revenue, she will be forced to take it until the city can appeal a judge's ruling. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes late Friday deni ... More >>

Abortion Sonogram Hearing: Novel Arguments from Plaintffs, So Judge Wants More Briefs

Novel arguments from abortion-rights supporters, judge says.​Opponents trying to block the state's new so-called sonogram bill may have a tougher road in Texas than they've had in other states. This morning's hearing in Austin, before U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, did not produce an immedia ... More >>

Jamie Leigh Jones Finally Gets Her Day In Court Against KBR

Jamie Leigh Jones' fight finally finds a courtroom​After years of delays, today Jamie Leigh Jones is finally getting her day in court against Halliburton and KBR. Jones -- we've done a number of stories on her -- has become famous through her attempts to hold the company responsible for the g ... More >>

Silsbee Cheerleader: Bid to Help Assault Victim Gets Overwhlemed

Silsbee High still getting the attention​Word comes via the Bayou blog of an effort to help pay the legal fees of the Silsbee cheerleader who was thrown off the squad for refusing to cheer the player she said raped her. The cheerleader took the school district to court, but the 5th U.S. Circu ... More >>

Doing Time, Wrongly

Finally, a chat with our cover subject.

Eminem's Victory Over Label Could Have Far-Reaching Effects

Now a Recovery in more ways than one.​Eminem quietly scored a major victory in a case involving download royalties this week. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out an appeal filed by Universal Music Group, the world's largest music empire, against Eminem's former production company F.B.T. Productio ... More >>

He's Only a Perv

Court rules video voyeur not a child pornographer

Alan Ray Steen: Just a Perv, Not a Child Pornographer

A tanning bed is not sexy, court rules​The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has formally ruled: Alan Ray Steen is a pervert, he's not a child pornographer. Steen liked to go to tanning salons and stick a video camera over the cubicle wall to tape women; one day the person he taped turned out ... More >>

Imam Zoubir Bouchikhi: Arrested Shortly Before Deportation

Photo and video by Paula BeltránProtests over an imam's treatment​Yesterday Ilyes and Omar Bouchikhi, aged 13 and 11, left school early to attend a protest on behalf of their father, Imam Zoubir Bouchikhi. Bouchikhi, the spiritual leader of a mosque in Southeast Houston who last year was de ... More >>

War On Christmas Revived: Federal Court Gives "No Jesus Pencils!" Principals Another Chance

A setback in the War Against the War on Christmas​Just when you thought the War on Christmas had been won -- and by the good, God-fearing, Constitution-hating forces, too -- along comes another setback. We told you last month about two Texas elementary principals who had failed to convince a ... More >>

Comment Of The Day: War On Christmas Edition

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... More >>

WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Texas Principals Still Face Lawsuit Over Banning Jesus Pencils & Candy Canes

Who knew Jesus was a "Say my name! Say my name!" guy?​Two Texas elementary school principals have failed in their attempt to have the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismiss a suit filed against them for trying to kill the spirit of Christmas, not to mention Jesus, in innocent young children ... More >>

FAIR-y Tales: Fantasy Voter Fraud

Rappers Vs. Uncle Sam: N.W.A., Eminem, Kanye...

​Mike Myers will probably go down in history as the most uncomfortable white guy next to a black guy in TV history, thanks to Kanye West's unscripted outburst during that infamous Hurricane Katrina telethon. It began with Myers reading his part of the script verbatim. Two-thirds into the PSA, ... More >>

Prisoners Still Can't Get No Relief from Courts, Rita

​In the end, it wasn't about how awful the conditions were for inmates trapped inside a Beaumont federal prison during Hurricane Rita. To the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was all about jurisdiction. Two years ago, more than 400 former and current inmates sued the U.S. government, claimin ... More >>

Rep. Pete Olson, Standing Up Against Those Pesky Pollution Rules

Texas can police its own air, thankyouverymuch.​Republican U.S. Congressman Pete Olson may not officially be the poster boy for the oil and gas industry, but one could argue that he's really bucking for the job. Last week, Olson of Sugar Land announced that he and a few other politicians on Capit ... More >>

Fake-Botox Doctor Gets Some Prison Time

Nicole Kidman uses only the best Botox​Gayle Rothenberg was convicted way back in 2007 of injecting patients with fake Botox. Today she finally got sentenced.Rothenberg will serve five and a half months in prison, three years of supervised release, and pay reparations of almost $100,000 to patient ... More >>

Lawyers Who Filed Racism Suits Against Dillard's Owe The Company $143K, Court Rules

​Local attorneys Cletus Ernster III and Damon Chargois were in the forefront of lawyers suing the department store chain Dillard's on claims of racism, a story we wrote about back in 2004.They said their black customers were unfairly targeted by store security, and treated roughly in any incidents ... More >>

Jeff Skilling Gets Even More Desperate To Prove Houston's Full of Hatahs

​Today is the big day before the U.S. Supreme Court for Jeff Skilling, former Enron exec, former Manhattan party animal, current federal inmate.Among other things, Skilling's lawyers are arguing that his federal trial should have been moved from Houston because we all were so affected by Enron tha ... More >>

Baylor Chooses A Sex-Obsessed Pornographer As Its New President

​Baylor has ended its search for a new president, and the straitlaced Baptist school has chosen a famous smut peddler.Kenneth Starr, the out-of-control special prosecutor who felt the need to salaciously include every last sordid detail about Bill Clinton's extra-marital activities, is the new ... More >>

Federal Judge Dismisses Suit Involving Alleged Spy Shot By HPD Officers

​In the court of law, it never really mattered whether Roland Carnaby was a spy, as he claimed just before police gunned him down along the highway following a high-speed chase. After all, his widow, Susan, was suing the City of Houston and a pair of its police officers in federal court for excess ... More >>

TDCJ Inmate Wonders What's A Dude Gotta Do To Get His Wicca On In Prison

​Charles Roberts -- aka Alabama, aka Hell Boy (according to a lawsuit he filed from prison) -- was recently transferred to Huntsville from Edinburg after he claimed, via lawsuit, that the prison didn't allow him to practice his Wiccan religion. Michelle Lyons, the director of public information fo ... More >>

Fake-Botox Doctor's Conviction Overturned

Photo by EverJeanGayle Rothenberg, the prominent Houston doctor who was convicted of using fake Botox on her patients, has had that conviction overturned by the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals.The appellate court ripped into Rothenberg's trial, saying prosecutors presented evidence -- and the judg ... More >>

Harvard, Meet The Polk County Poh-leece

Photo courtesy Polk CountyA couple of students from Harvard Law School recently got a taste of the Polk County Sheriff's Office and spent some time in the county jail after going out on assignment for their internships at a Houston legal clinic. The students had driven to Livingston to interview a P ... More >>

The City Of Houston Takes On Orbitz And Priceline

The City of Houston and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority are currently suing multiple travel websites such as Orbitz and Priceline over tax revenues it claims the sites owe it. Online travel sites pay wholesale prices to hotels for rooms and then customers book those rooms at a mark-up fro ... More >>

The Chron, Enron Hatah

A federal court quotes a dog

The Houston Chronicle Is Responsible For Jeff Skilling's Prison Term, Court Finds

As everyone knows, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of Enron's Jeff Skilling this week, although it overturned his sentence in a move that might slightly reduce it.Skilling's most passionate local supporter in the blogworld, attorney Tom Kirkendall of Houston's Clear Thinkers, ... More >>

Human Smuggler Gets A Longer Sentence

Judge Sam Kent Indicted On Sex Charges (Begone, Mental Image, Begone!)

The Tragic Tale of Janet Jackson’s Evil Breast Has a Happy Ending

Touch and Go

Draining the Swamp

A scorched-earth management philosophy is sucking the life out of our region's wetlands

Best Court Ruling

U.S. District Judge David Hittner

Innocence Lost

The D.A.'s policy cuts into an inmate advocacy program

Payback Time?

Dick DeGuerin beat the IRS. Now there's a bigger war over basic rights.

Out of the Closets

Archiving Houston's queer history, one T-shirt at a time

A Civil Action

Despite the county's outlook, the Oregon police shooting case is still very much alive

Static

The Insider

No Time for Sergeants

The Houston Police Department puts high-ranking cops out on the street

The Insider