BY JASON BOLEMAN  A former Virginia high school student’s First Amendment claim against a county’s school board has been reinstated after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the former student’s complaint “plausibly alleges a First Amendment claim.”  The ...

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RALEIGH (AP) — A North Carolina Superior Court judge put a small-town newspaper editor behind bars last month after one of his reporters used an audio recorder for note-taking purposes at a murder trial — a punishment the paper and ...

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GRAHAM (AP) — Judges in North Carolina have announced new procedures for reporters to access hearings less than two weeks after a newspaper publisher was handcuffed and ordered out of a courtroom. The News & Observer reports that Alamance County ...

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  The First Amendment prohibits courts from hearing defamation claims when they involve an internal religious dispute regarding ecclesiastical matters, a divided North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled in a case of first impression, affirming a ruling in favor ...

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American Humanist Association v. Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-188-17, 48 pp.) (Stephanie Thacker, J.) (Roger Gregory, C.J., concurring in part & dissenting in part) No. 15-2597; Oct. 18, 2017; U.S.D.C. at Greenbelt, Md. 4th Cir. ...

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Of all the private industries in America, the free press is the only one explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution, whose First Amendment provides that Congress will make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press. No lawyer ...

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After the “Biblically prescribed pathway to reconciliation” failed, the senior minister at a Baptist church in Iredell County allegedly took to the pulpit and delivered a trash-talking sermon targeting the overworked church pianist and her deacon husband. The drama at ...

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The First Amendment right to free speech does not immunize attorneys from disciplinary action for statements made outside of a courtroom setting, the North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled. The North Carolina State Bar properly exercised its discretion in ...

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The North Carolina Court of Appeals has declined to intervene in a row between a Charlotte church and some of its former members, saying that it would be unable to resolve the dispute without entangling itself in the ecclesiastical doctrines ...

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American Entertainers, L.L.C. v. City of Rocky Mount (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-019-16, 28 pp.) (James Dever III, C.J.) 5:14-cv-00438; E.D.N.C. Holding: The defendant-city’s Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance (SOBO) unconstitutionally allows the city to indefinitely delay a decision on an application ...

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