AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) A judge has granted class status for an American Civil Liberties Union of Maine lawsuit over the system that provides attorneys to those who can’t afford them. The lawsuit contends there’s a failure to train, supervise and adequately fund a system to ensure the constitutional right to effective counsel.
The memo from the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services says 23 people whose requests for legal help were granted by a judge spent an average of about 60 days waiting for an attorney.
The wall separating church and state is one of the foundational principles of the United States. Sonia Sotomayor, one of three liberal justices on the Supreme Court, is accusing her conservative majority colleagues of tearing it down. Sotomayor did not mince words in a dissent to a ruling by the nin ..
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday wrote in a dissent to a ruling by the nine-member court that the state of Maine cannot deny public funds to religious schools, arguing that the wall separating “church and state” is one of the US’ foundational principles.
“There is nothing neutral about Maine’s program,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion joined by five other justices.
“The state pays tuition for certain students at private schools so long as the schools are not religious,” Roberts wrote. “That is discrimination against religion.”
In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote: “What a difference five years makes.”
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Supporters of Tuesday’s major U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the state of Maine and religious school tuition are hailing a win for religious liberty and parental choice in education, while opponents say the principle of separation of church and state has lost.