Allowing cameras in courtrooms is a controversial issue that courts have debated about over the years. In 2006 US Supreme Court [official website] Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy spoke [JURIST report] at a US House Appropriations Committee Meeting against a proposed bill that would have permitted public broadcasting of Supreme Court oral arguments. The justices believed having cameras in the courtroom would harm the nature of the court's proceedings and did not believe that Congress should interfere with the way another branch of government operates. US Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer also debated [JURIST report] the topic the previous year during an American Bar Association [official website] event. Only Kennedy seemed receptive of the idea, arguing that it may be helpful to future litigants who go in front of the court. The other justices worried, however, that cameras would degrade the institution and it proceedings.

Motorola has been involved in a number of patent litigations in the past, including suits against Apple, though this suit marks the first time since being acquired by Google in May. In February Apple filed a suit [JURIST report] against Motorola in the US District Court for the Southern District of California [official website] seeking an injunction to stop the company from bringing patent claims against Apple in Germany. That suit was thrown out with prejudice [JURIST report] in June. Apple had brought two separate lawsuits [JURIST report] against Motorola in October of last year alleging that several of Motorola's products infringe six patents owned by Apple.

Immigration laws have became a hot button issue over the past few years when many states, Arizona being the first, passed laws giving their state and local officials more power to crack down on illegal immigration. Last month, the ACLU and NICL asked [JURIST report] a federal judge to strike down a provision of Arizona's law that requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop on Equal Protection grounds. The provision was upheld [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court but only on the grounds that it did not conflict with the federal government's powers regarding illegal immigration. This decision also struck down two provisions of Arizona's law that made it a crime to be in the state or apply for a job in the state without valid immigration papers and one that allowed police officers to arrest without a warrant people whom they believed had committed a crime which could cause them to be deported. Other states' laws have been challenged as well, but many have been made easier due to the Supreme Court's ruling. Georgia argued [JURIST report] last month that its law is valid under the ruling, while Alabama conceded that some provisions of its law would need to be changed.

Kody Brown and his four wives, the plaintiffs in this case, are stars of TLC's reality show Sister Wives [official website]. A police investigation [Utah News report] against them has been ongoing since September 2010, when the show was first announced and premiered. Utah's Anti-Bigamy Statute [statute, text] has been on the books since 1862. The family challenged the law [JURIST report] last year as a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. While polygamy is now recognized in most of Africa and the Middle East, it is still illegal in most of North and South America, Europe and China. In 2005, the US District Court for the District of Utah rejected a similar lawsuit [JURIST report] brought against Utah's Anti-Bigamy Statute, reaffirming the 1879 US Supreme Court case Reynolds v. United States [text], which upheld a conviction under an anti-polygamy law as constitutional.