The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing two historic gay marriage cases this week.

One of those cases is a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which says the federal government doesn't recognize same-sex marriages. Many original backers of DOMA have renounced it, and gay rights activists are confident the high court will kill the 1996 law.

The other case is more uncertain. Today, the high court will tackle a dispute over California's Proposition 8, a voter-approved ban on gay marriage in the Golden State.

A judge and a federal appeals court ruled Prop 8 was unconstitutional, and a coalition of anti-gay marriage advocates have asked the Supreme Court to revive the law.

It's possible that the high court could issue a narrow ruling that would keep gay marriage legal in California. But the gay couples opposing Prop 8 want a broader ruling, The National Law Journal has reported.

Their lawyers (the odd couple of liberal David Boies and conservative Ted Olsen, who opposed each other in Bush v. Gore) will argue for a "50-state result."They want the Supreme Court to say it's illegal for any state to deny gay couples marriage licenses.

"We believe a 50-state result is the right result under the due process clause and the equal protection clause," Boies told NLJ.

Boies says the arguments against gay marriage have been debunked, including the argument that only straight people can marry because they can procreate the old-fashioned way.

The procreation argument means that "the State could constitutionally deny any infertile couple the right to marry," Boies says. Prop 8 supporters "seem to have no understanding of the privacy, liberty, and associational values that underlie this Court's recognition of marriage as a fundamental, personal right," according to Boies.

The idea that the Supreme Court could rule that marriage is a fundamental Constitutional right is probably the doomsday scenario for the anti-gay marriage movement.

Austin R. Nimocks, one of the lawyers defending Prop 8, mentioned that fear to the Wall Street Journal today, arguing the justices shouldn't step into such a new political debate.

"What we don't need at this juncture of a very young and significant debate on marriage is the Supreme Court presenting the nation with a 50-state solution that redefines marriage and removes the question from the hands of the people," Nimrocks told the Journal.

While the fear of a 50-state solution is real, it seems unlikely that the court's swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy would impose that requirement on every state.

Kennedy has issued two strong opinions in favor of gay rights, but he's also a fierce supporter of states' rights.

SEE ALSO: This Is America's Biggest Moment Ever For Gay Rights

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Someone couldn't wait until the summer for the final eight episodes of "Breaking Bad."

Last December, a man broke into actor Bryan Cranston's car and stole a script for the hit AMC series. 

Monday, authorities in Bernalillo County, N.M. arrested 29-year-old Albuquerque native Xavier Macafee on suspicion of burglary. 

In addition to the script, an iPad, shoulder bag, and other personal items were stolen from Cranston's car. 

According to a spokesman for the sheriff's department, none of the items have been returned.

There are only eight episodes of the show left. 

That means, somewhere, there is a script, possibly for one of the final episodes of "Breaking Bad," waiting to hit the Internet.

E! News reports the crime doesn't appear to be a random act, not targeted at Cranston for his role on the series. 

As for how much of the script was stolen, it's unsure whether it was a few scenes or from an entire season. 

Now in its fifth and final season, Cranston plays a science teacher turned meth cook after learning he is diagnosed with cancer. 

SEE ALSO: 15 images from the next "Hobbit" film >

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The Supreme Court heard arguments today in the first of two historic gay marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

Pro- and anti-gay marriage groups crowded outside the court, and spectators lined up for days in freezing temperatures in hopes of snagging one of the few public tickets to seats inside the court.

Photographers and reporters even spotted actor and director Rob Reiner, who's one of the founders of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and a longtime supporter of same-sex marriage.

A coalition of more than 100 pro-gay marriage groups known as United for Marriage rallied on the sidewalk on First Street Northeast. And their anti-gay marriage rivals, the Christian conservative National Organization for Marriage, marched to the Supreme Court and held a rally on the National Mall.

These are people who braved the winter weather Monday to hold their place in line to get tickets for the oral arguments.

People line up on the sidewalk to get tickets for seats inside the court early this morning.

These are the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, as they stand outside the National Archives on March 25.

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The first of two huge Supreme Court cases on gay marriage may be heading for a partial victory for supporters of the movement.

"SCOTUS won't uphold or strike down Prop 8," SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein predicted over twitter after the Tuesday hearing was over.

So what does that mean, and why would that be a partial victory for gay marriage advocates?

The hearing involved California's voter-approved ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, which was struck down by a federal judge and an appeals court. When California declined to defend the law, it was backed by a coalition of anti-gay marriage advocates and elevated to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court could decline to issue a ruling at all, however, by finding the anti-gay marriage advocates don't have legal "standing" to defend the law.

If that happens, then the appeals court ruling would stand and gays could continue to get married in California.

During arguments on Tuesday, two of the Supreme Court's possible swing voters made statements indicating that they may decline to rule on the case.

“I wonder if the case was properly granted,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy, according to the transcript of the argument.

Meanwhile, Justice John Robertspointed out that citizens like the Prop 8 backers don't usually have the right to sue over laws they support.

Roberts pressed the lawyer for the Prop 8 supporters on why they should be able to step into the state of California's shoes and defend the law, according to the transcript.

"I don't think we've ever allowed anything like that," Roberts reportedly said.

If the court does in fact rule the Prop 8 backers don't have standing, it would be a partial victory for the gay marriage movement.

A broad ruling finding a Constitutional right to gay marriage would have been the most clear-cut victory for gay-rights supporters. By refusing to weigh in on the case, however, the high court will preserve a smaller legal victory gays already won and give the other states some time to come around gay marriage on their own. This route could also avoid a potential backlash against the gay rights movement.

 Liberal legal expert David Cole wrote in today's New York Times: "I fully support marriage equality. But, strange as it may sound, I believe that in the Prop 8 case, the court should decide not to decide the gay marriage issue at all."

Slate's Emily Bazelon, another person who favors gay marriage, also argued against a broad ruling that there's a Constitutional right to gay marriage.

"This one is a winner in the polls: Let’s let it move through the country gradually, because that’s the most enduring, least divisive way to make change," she wrote.

SEE ALSO: The Worst Case Scenario For People Who Oppose Gay Marriage

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Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer at Paul Weiss, will argue her first-ever Supreme Court case on Wednesday, and it's a really, really big one.

Kaplan, 46, will ask the justices to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a Clinton-era law that says the federal government doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.

As a corporate lawyer, Kaplan works mostly on complex business cases for clients including AIG, JPMorgan Chase, and Fitch Ratings. But she has told Business Insider that the "value of pro bono work is interwoven into the DNA" of Paul Weiss, and it's clear that she feels strongly about the DOMA case.

She represents Edith Windsor, an 83-year-old lesbian who had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes when her wife died that a straight spouse wouldn't have had to pay.

Kaplan, who's gay, has previously argued a case seeking to legalize gay marriage in New York. (She lost that case, but the Empire State eventually legalized same-sex marriage.)

When a friend introduced her to Windsor, she didn't hesitate before taking on her case. Kaplan was overjoyed and even had tears in her eyes when she found out Obama wasn't going to defend DOMA, according to an article on the case in "The Advocate."

Kaplan, who has been arguing this case since 2010, isn't afraid of high stakes.

"I'm a bit of a pressure junkie," she told Law Dragon back in 2006. "It's clearly part of my job. I clearly like the things that I do, and when things start to fall off, part of me feels like, 'What's wrong?' I'm not working hard enough or I'm not tense enough.'"

I've interviewed Kaplan several times on the phone, and despite her "pressure junkie" characterization, her most obvious quality is that she's really, really nice. She also seems sincerely to care about Windsor.

The legal brief Kaplan wrote for Windsor focused largely on the discrimination the 83-year-old had endured. While she worked on the case, Kaplan told me she kept a post-it note reading, "It's all about Edie, Stupid."

When talking to Law Dragon, Kaplan commented that the best litigators get along with people and are persuasive and have charisma.

That same characterization can apply to Kaplan, who already managed to persuade the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn DOMA.

While Kaplan tends to focus on Windsor and not herself, the 46-year-old lawyer will almost certainly become a new hero to the gay rights movement if she can convince the Supreme Court to kill DOMA for good.

SEE ALSO: This Is America's Biggest Moment Ever For Gay Rights

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Most people know that Amanda Knox— "Foxy Knoxy"— is the pretty American student who was arrested and found guilty of the stabbing death of her British roommate in Italy, during a "sex game" gone wrong, when the pair were on study-abroad programs several years ago.

Unfortunately, a far smaller number of people know that Knox was completely innocent of the crime; that another man was successfully convicted of the murder; and that NONE of the evidence — blood, DNA, or witnesses — ever really pointed to Knox.

Here's a primer on the Knox case, and the miscarriage of justice at the heart of it.

Knox was initially convicted. Confusingly, the verdict was overturned by an Italian appeals court and then, more recently, a higher Italian court overturned that acquittal and asked that the case be heard again at the trial level.

This, of course, would never happen in a U.S. court, where the Constitution forbids suspects from being repeatedly retried.

The frustration for followers of the case — and Knox herself, of course — is that most people have a vague sense that she was Meredith Kercher's killer, and that somehow — on a technicality! — she wriggled free.

It's important to understand that when Knox went to Perugia to study, she was just 20 years old. Like a lot of kids in college, she experimented with marijuana, booze, and boys. She didn't feel the need to apologize or hide the fact.

This part of the Knox story — that she was a pretty, unapologetic party girl — seems to have worked against Knox from the start, even though it has nothing to do with the case.

Kercher's killer is actually Rudy Guede, an itinerant African immigrant.

Guede found Kercher's body in the house she shared with Knox (even though he didn't live there). His fingerprints were found at the scene. He admitted being there prior to the killing (and using the toilet). And one of his palm prints was found in a blood stain underneath Kercher's body.

He then fled town, and had to be extradited back to Italy from Germany to stand trial. He's serving 16 years.

In the excellent book on the case, "The Fatal Gift of Beauty; The Trials of Amanda Knox," author Nina Burleigh describes Guede's history with the law: He was previously arrested for housebreaking, and on one occasion stole a knife (Kercher was stabbed).

The baffling part of the book (which is sourced at a level of detail that's almost excruciating) is, why Knox was prosecuted in the first place.

The answer is that the Italian prosecutor in charge of the case was an obsessed weirdo who was convicted of corruption.

Giuliano Mignini had previously prosecuted the "Monster of Florence" serial killer case and become convinced that it was a masonic conspiracy. His case came to nothing. Mignini was later convicted of illegally tapping the phones of various police and reporters connected to the Florence case, and was given a 16-month suspended sentence.

Somehow, he was allowed to be in charge of the Kercher murder, and he screwed that up too.

The ritualistic sex game, for instance, turned out to be manufactured from whole cloth.

There was no evidence indicating Knox killed Kercher:

• No DNA evidence linked Knox to the crime, even though she lived in the same house as Kercher.
• The forensic evidence that did exist was mishandled by Italian authorities prior to trial. (Kercher's bra clasp was left on the floor of the crime scene for six weeks before blood evidence was found on it.)
• A bloody knife print didn't match the knife police had in custody, so Mignini's team had to create a theory involving two knives, Burleigh reports.
• One of Mignini's witnesses against Knox was Antonio Curalato, a homeless anarchist who slept on a bench near Knox's house. He testified on who was near the house that night, and he also remembered seeing a party bus on the night of the killing. Burleigh's book shows that that bus was not scheduled to run on the night of Kercher's death.
• Curalato turned out to be a serial witness and heroin addict whom the police had persuaded to testify in two other murder cases.

It's not just that Knox was falsely accused. It's that her entire life was ruined in the process, in the most vindictive and sexist way possible. At one point, Burleigh reveals, a police official posing as a doctor informed Knox she had HIV, and asked her to name all her previous sexual partners so they could be alerted to the risk. She did so, and only found out later that it was a trick — the Italian cops just wanted to know about her sex life. (Her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, was also eventually acquitted.)

Knox was guilty of two things:

She did falsely accuse Patrick Lumumba, a bar owner, of being involved in the crime. She was convicted of that libel and sentenced to time served (three of the four years she spent behind bars).

She was also guilty of being young and naive. Burleigh's book paints a picture anyone who has ever been 20 years old and away from home for the first time will recognize: a girl enjoying herself, taking risks, being a bit of jerk by all accounts, and not really understanding — or caring — how the perceptions of older adults might play against her.

She was convicted in part because the Lumumba accusation made her look guilty; because she failed to act sad enough; and because the Italian authorities and jury had sexist views of her behavior.

Few Americans regard the Knox case as a feminist issue, or Knox as a victim of discrimination. (She served four years in prison for having a sex life, basically).

They should reconsider.

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An 83-year-old widow with a huge tax bill is the perfect person to bring down an anti-gay law Bill Clinton signed in 1996.

Edith Windsor started her own crusade to bring down the Defense of Marriage Act, the Clinton-era law that says the federal government doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court will hear Windsor's DOMA challenge today, in a case that could give federal benefits to same-sex couples in the nine states where gay marriage is legal.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard a related gay marriage case over California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8. The justices hinted that they might decide not to rule on the Prop 8 case at all.

But gay marriage activists are optimistic about a victory in the DOMA case since a couple of the court's swing voters will likely want the federal government to defer to states' own definitions of marriage.

The plaintiff whose story they'll hear today is a particularly compelling one. Unlike plaintiffs in many cases, Windsor wasn't hand-picked by lawyers to be the face of a legal battle.

Instead, she went out looking for lawyers to help her bring down DOMA because she was so incensed by the law, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan tells Business Insider.

By doing so, she started a case that evolved "the natural way where someone is truly indignant about what happened to them," says Kaplan, a corporate lawyer with Paul Weiss.

Windsor is an accomplished woman the Supreme Court's justices might be able to identify with, The New Yorker's Amy Davidson has pointed out. She's only a few years older than several of the justices and had an impressive career. (She was a systems engineer at IBM.)

She's also faced discrimination from the federal government. Windsor began to feel the effects of DOMA when her partner Thea Spyer died in 2007.

Because the IRS didn't recognize their marriage performed in Canada, Windsor had to pay $363,000 in taxes on Spyer's estate that a straight spouse wouldn't have had to pay.

Kaplan will argue today that the tax bill and the law that allowed it are unfair before the Supreme Court.

Windsor initially asked not-for-profit legal groups to argue her case, but they said it wasn't the right time, according to Kaplan. Kaplan felt differently when she and Windsor were introduced by a mutual friend.

"The minute I heard the facts of the case, it took me about three seconds to decide that it was absolutely the right case to bring," says Kaplan, whose firm took the case on free of charge.

Windsor's case involved a very specific injury that everyone can relate to: an unfair tax bill.

"Every American gets in their gut what it means to have to pay a huge tax bill where you wouldn't have to pay the same tax bill if you weren't gay. Everyone understands what that means," Kaplan says.

Windsor's age also makes her an ideal candidate to bring down DOMA. It will be easier to strike down DOMA if the Supreme Court rules the law must face "heightened scrutiny" because it impacts people who've endured a history of discrimination.

For Windsor, discrimination isn't "theoretical," Kaplan tells us. Windsor's brief to the Supreme Court chronicled her own "life in the shadows," as Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog reported.

When she fell in love with Spyer nearly 50 years ago, the brief noted, it was a “a time when lesbians and gay men risked losing their families, friends, and livelihoods if their sexual orientation became known."

If the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, same-sex couples in the nine states where gay marriage is legal will know the federal government now recognizes the legitimacy of their relationships. They'll also get benefits they didn't get before. If one spouse dies, the other could take his or her social security if it's more money. They won't have to pay estate taxes.

The repeal of DOMA could, in fact, have a very real impact on a lot of people. But one woman's story could help convince the Supreme Court to do away with the law.

Throughout preparations for the case, Kaplan, the lawyer who's telling that story, has kept a post-it note on her desk that's a variation of Bill Clinton's successful 1992 campaign phrase:

"It's all about Edie, stupid," the note reads.

SEE ALSO: The Worst Case Scenario For People Who Oppose Gay Marriage

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The older brother of South African star sprinter Oscar Pistorius went on trial Wednesday over a deadly road crash five years ago.

Carl Pistorius, 28, faces charges of culpable homicide after a 2008 road accident in which a 36-year-old woman motorcyclist was killed.

His appearance comes a day before his Paralympian hero brother makes a court challenge to the stringent bail conditions imposed on him after the Valentine's Day killing of his model girlfriend.

Among the conditions imposed on Pistorius, 26, last month was the surrender of his passport and mandatory drug and alcohol tests.

The athlete known as "Blade Runner" is also banned from returning to his upmarket gated home in Pretoria where he shot Reeva Steenkamp, claiming to have mistaken her for an intruder.

Pistorius, who became the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in last year's Olympic Games in London, is currently out on bail of one million rand ($108,000, 84,000 euros).

The trial of Carl Pistorius opened with arguments over an application by the public broadcaster SABC to be allowed to run live broadcast of the proceedings.

Magistrate Buks du Plessis dismissed the application.

"This trial pertains to Mr Carl Pistorius not Mr Oscar Pistorius. This is what we are dealing with here," Du Plessis said.

"These proceedings must not be used or have an influence on any later proceeding against this accused's brother," he added.

Lawyer Kenny Oldwage, who is part of Oscar Pistorius's murder trial defence team, is also representing the brother.

Oldwage successfully defended a driver in a high-profile accident in 2010 that killed former president Nelson Mandela's great-granddaughter Zenani. The driver was acquitted.

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Now that it looks like the U.S. Supreme Court may not issue a ruling on California's gay marriage ban, the fight over an anti-gay federal law is more important than ever.

On Tuesday, the court heard arguments on California's Proposition 8, and today it will consider a challenge to the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples.

Several of the Supreme Court's justices indicated Tuesday they wouldn't issue a ruling on California's Proposition 8 — which would effectively leave in place a court ruling that overturned the ban.

While no ruling at all would let gays marry in California, Prop 8 opponents were hoping for a "50-state solution" that would have found that gays in every state had a Constitutional right to marry. A broad ruling like that would effectively do away with the DOMA too.

No broad ruling on Prop 8 would make DOMA more important than ever.

By striking down DOMA, the court could broaden the rights of gay couples in the nine states where same-sex marriage is already legal. They could, for example, get the federal tax breaks same-sex couples get.

Edith Windsor, the plaintiff challenging DOMA, brought her case because she had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes when her wife died that a straight spouse wouldn't have had to pay.

The section of DOMA at issue defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman for federal law purposes. The law denies same-sex couples a host of benefits — including the option to take a deceased spouse's social security, take time off from work under the Family  Medical Leave Act, and petition for same-sex married partners to immigrate to the U.S.

Then-President Bill Clinton signed DOMA back in 1996 when he was facing intense political pressure from the anti-gay marriage camp.

Since then, Bill Clinton has come out to renounce the law, as has the politician who sponsored the law, then-Georgia Congressman Bob Barr.

SEE ALSO: The Ideal Gay Marriage Case Goes Before The Supreme Court Today

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The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision today that will let a prisoner sue the government because a prison guard allegedly forced him to perform oral sex.

The case is unusual because that prisoner, Kim Millbrook, filed his petition to the Supreme Court in longhand and didn't have a lawyer in the lower court. He'd also been warned by an appeals court about filing "frivolous papers,"McClatchy Newspapers had previously reported.

Millbrook had tried to sue the federal government over his alleged rape by a corrections officer, but a federal appeals court shot his case down. That court said the Federal Tort Claims Act made the federal government immune from such claims.

But a unanimous Supreme Court said Wednesday that the FTCA's immunity for the federal government does not apply to Millbrook's allegations of rape, and that Millbrook's suit can go forward.

Congress amended the FTCA in 1974 to specify that it doesn't immunize the federal government from claims tied to the wrongful conduct of corrections' officers, the high court pointed out.

Millbrook claims that one officer held him in a choke while he was forced to perform oral sex on another officer. A third officer allegedly stood watch, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

This ruling doesn't mean that he wins this suit against the government — just that he's free to sue the federal government.

Given the fact that he had no lawyer, his victory is pretty huge. The case could be also be big for prisoners and guards alike, McClatchy pointed out after the Supreme Court granted Millbrook's petition.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority.

In a separate case in June, a judge on Chicago's federal appeals court warned Millbrook that “continuing to file frivolous papers may result in sanctions,” according to McClatchy.

SEE ALSO: Why The Supreme Court Agreed To Hear An Inmate's Handwritten Petition

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An Oregon college student's date rape video made in response to the Steubenville, Ohio case is going viral, The New York Daily News reports.

The video, "A Needed Response," shows exactly how a guy should respond when he encounters a woman who's had too much to drink. It currently has 1.4 million views on YouTube.

"Hey bros, check who passed out on the couch," a young man in the video says. "Guess what I'm going to do to her?" He then covers her with a blanket and puts some coffee on an end table near her. He looks directly at the camera and says, "Real men treat women with respect."

Consent became a major issue in the Steubenville rape case against two high school football players when defense attorneys argued the victim was drunk but still making "cognitive decisions," according to the Plain Dealer.

SEE ALSO: These Modern Anti-Rape PSAs Blame The Victim

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The U.S.  Supreme Court heard a huge case today involving the Defense of Marriage Act, and a key issue in the case will be whether the law deserves so-called "heightened scrutiny."

That doctrine makes it easier to strike down laws that have a negative impact on groups that lack political power and have endured a history of discrimination (so-called "suspect classes").

But Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to suggest on Tuesday that DOMA doesn't deserve heightened scrutiny because gays have so much political power.

Roberta Kaplan, who's arguing the case against DOMA, mentioned that gay rights have evolved since 1996 when Bill Clinton signed DOMA.

"I suppose the sea change has a lot to do with the political force and effectiveness of people representing, supporting your side of the case?" Roberts responded.

Roberts added, "You don't doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different States is politically powerful, do you? ... As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case."

Kaplan replied by pointing to the anti-gay measures that individual states have managed to pass in recent years, in an apparent reference to California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8.

"The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chief Justice, is that no other group in recent history has been subjected to popular referenda to take away rights that have already been given or exclude those rights, the way gay people have," she said.

The Republican lawmakers defending DOMA also argued gays have so much political favor these days there's no way they could be a "suspect class" that lacks power.

The woman who brought the case, 83-year-old Edith Windsor, can certainly show that she has endured discrimination, Kaplan, her lawyer, contends. Windsor sued to overturn the law because she had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes when her wife died that a straight spouse wouldn't have to pay.

For Windsor, discrimination isn't "theoretical," Kaplan has told us. Windsor's brief to the Supreme Court chronicled her own "life in the shadows," as Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog reported.

When she fell in love with her wife nearly 50 years ago, the brief noted, it was a “a time when lesbians and gay men risked losing their families, friends, and livelihoods if their sexual orientation became known."

SEE ALSO: Republicans: Gays Are So Powerful They Don't Need Marriage Equality

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today over the Defense of Marriage Act, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other justices suggested the law is pretty unfair to gay couples.

Under the 1996 law, the federal government doesn't recognize same-sex marriages. That effectively means legally married same-sex couples are denied a whole host of federal benefits that straight couples get — from immigration benefits to tax breaks to Social Security perks.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says DOMA really "affects every area of life" and infringes on a state's right to define marriage. Under DOMA, she said, there's "the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage."

Ginsburg, who turned 80 recently, is just a few years younger than 83-year-old Edith Windsor, who sued to overturn DOMA. Windsor had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes when her wife died that a straight spouse wouldn't have had to pay.

SEE ALSO: John Roberts Hints Gays Are So Powerful They Don't Need Protection

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard two major gay marriage cases this week, but it actually handed down a pretty big victory for gay rights more than 50 years ago, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the nation's first pro-gay publication— ONE: The Homosexual Magazine — in its dispute with the federal government.

ONE sued the U.S. government after the Post Office refused to deliver its magazine on the grounds that it was "obscene." A trial court ruled for the Post Office, and an appeals court affirmed that finding. The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court's decision in a brief ruling, effectively ruling the Post Office had to deliver ONE.

The trial and appellate court took particular issue with a story called "Sappho Remembered." From the appeals court's opinion:

"The article 'Sappho Remembered' is the story of a lesbian's influence on a young girl only twenty years of age but 'actually nearer sixteen in many essential ways of maturity,' in her struggle to choose between a life with the lesbian, or a normal married life with her childhood sweetheart. The lesbian's affair with her roommate while in college, resulting in the lesbian's expulsion from college, is recounted to bring in the jealousy angle. The climax is reached when the young girl gives up her chance for a normal married life to live with the lesbian. This article is nothing more than cheap pornography calculated to promote lesbianism. It falls far short of dealing with homosexuality from the scientific, historical and critical point of view."

The ONE case isn't typically noted as a major gay rights case, but it certainly seems like a victory for gay rights advocates.

ONE was the "first widely distributed publication for homosexuals in the United States," according to Onearchives.org. The magazine stopped being published in 1967.

Around the same time, the lesbian and gay magazine "The Advocate" launched and is still in circulation today.

SEE ALSO: John Roberts Hints Gays Are So Powerful They Don't Need Protection

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The state of Connecticut released search warrants today revealing Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza had photos of an apparent corpse in his house.

Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza killed 20 school children, six adults, and his own mother on Dec. 14 in Newtown, Conn. before finally taking his own life.

The search warrants released today provide some insight into the troubled 20-year-old. Here's some of what was found in the home Adam shared with his mother, Nancy:

• Three photos of "what appears to be a deceased human covered in plastic and what appears to be blood."
  
• A check made out to Adam Lanza for the purchase of a firearm, written by Nancy Lanza, inside a holiday card
• A New York Times article from February 2008 about a shooting at Northern Illinois University
• A book called "Look Me in the Eye — My Life with Asperger's"
• Another book called "Born on a Blue Day — Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant"
• Another book called the "NRA Guide to the Basics Of Pistol Shooting"
• Adam Lanza's Sandy Hook Elementary School report card
• Police also found copies of NRA certificates registered to Adam and Nancy Lanza, reports of which have prompted outrage from the NRA.

The Connecticut State Attorney also released a statement this morning saying that Adam Lanza's tragic shooting lasted just a total of five minutes.

Lanza's rampage spurred a new debate about gun control in the United States.

Today, New York mayor Michael Bloombergreleased a devastating video about gun control that featured families of the young victims, who were all 6 or 7 years old.

Here's the full document released today:

1 Search Warrant by Erin Fuchs

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A high school science teacher in Idaho is under investigation by the state’s professional standards commission because he reportedly used the word “vagina” during a biology lesson.

Tim McDaniel, who teaches 10th grade science at Dietrich School, told theTwin Falls Times-News that four parents were upset when they learned that his lesson included the word “vagina” and information about the biology behind female orgasm.

“I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention,” McDaniel remarked. “But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.”

McDaniel said that he had never before received a complaint in the 18 years that he had taught science class at Dietrich School.

According to students who have set up a Facebook page to “SAVE THE SCIENCE TEACHER!!” certain parents may have had a political agenda in going after McDaniel. Sixty-six percent of church goers in Lincoln County, where Dietrich is located, are affiliated with the Mormon LDS Church, according to 2002 Glenmary Research Center data.

“[T]here are a couple people in the community that are trying to get Mr. McDaniel fired for teaching the reproductive system, climate change, and several other science subjects,” students wrote. “All these subjects were taught from the book and in good taste. He cares for each of his students and goes the extra mile to help them all. Now is the time for us to help by supporting him!”

McDaniel acknowledged that he may have angered some parents by showing the film “An Inconvenient Truth” during a lesson about climate change.

He explained to the Times-News that students were asked to write a paper on their thoughts about climate change after seeing the film.

“I’m not looking for one answer, I just want them to be able to explain what they believe,” McDaniel said.

“This sort of thing makes you worry about what you teach,” he added. “That’s not right.”

Dietrich Superintendent Neil Hollingshead speculated that McDaniel would not be fired as a result of the investigation.

“It is highly unlikely it would end with his dismissal,” the superintendent mused. “Maybe a letter of reprimand from the school board.”

But McDaniel pointed out that even a letter of reprimand would be unfair.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he insisted. “I told them I won’t sign it.”

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The Obama administration proposed a weird (and kind of clever) argument for legalizing gay marriage that would effectively legalize it in eight more states.

But not one justice seemed to buy that argument when the high court was hearing arguments Wednesday on California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8, SCOTUSBlog reports.

"It is an understatement to say that the justices were less than enamoured with the government's argument," SCOTUSBlog's John Bursch writes.

To be sure, the government's argument is a little weird. It says states that allow civil unions or domestic partnerships for gays should have to allow gay marriage too.

The denial of marriage to same-sex couples, particularly when a state "grants same-sex partners all the substantive rights of marriage, violates equal protection," the Obama administration wrote in its "friend of court brief" in the Prop 8 case.

However, states that don't even give gays the right to a civil union would not have to grant them marriage rights.

John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer each seemed skeptical of this argument, SCOTUSBlog points out.

“So a State that has made considerable progress has to go all the way, but . . . if . . . the State has done nothing at all, then . . . it can . . . do as it will?” Ginsburg said.

Sotomayor said there was an "irony" to the Obama administration's "eight state solution."

The LA Times' David Savage has suggested that the "eight state solution" was meant to be politically pragmatic. It's possible the Obama administration didn't want to impose gay marriage on all the red states that haven't even give gays the right to civil unions.

SEE ALSO: Justices Hint At Partial Victory For The Gay Marriage Movement

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Justice Antonin Scalia has a history of making deeply offensive comments about gay people, but he was fairly restrained during the highly anticipated gay marriage arguments this week.

Scalia did ask a lawyer, "When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage?" But that statement was just a nod to his strict interpretation of the Constitution, which does not specify explicitly that gays get marriage equality.

His question wasn't nearly as offensive as his other comments about gays — from comparing gay couples to roommates to putting "homosexual conduct" in the same category as murder.

So, why was Scalia relatively restrained about a topic that he's always been so vocal about? It's possible he's trying to tone down his anti-gay remarks since he's starting to get a reputation for being a homopobe.

However, NPR's top legal correspondent Nina Totenberg has a different theory about why he was such a lamb on the bench this week:

Hear that coughing, sneezing, etc at same sex args? It's Scalia.Sotomayor gave him bug. she looked like hell last week. now he sounds it

— Nina Totenberg (@NinaTotenberg) March 28, 2013

Scalia might have been tougher if not so sick at same sex scotus args. Sotomayor had bug last week. So who is next?

— Nina Totenberg (@NinaTotenberg) March 28, 2013

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts has been a victim of credit-card fraud.

A Supreme Court spokeswoman said someone got hold of one of Roberts's credit card account numbers. The court did not provide any other details.

But the Washington Post's In the Loop column, which first reported the item, said Roberts told the cashier at a Starbucks in suburban Maryland that he had to use cash for his morning coffee because he canceled the card after discovering that someone else had the numbers.

The last reported criminal incident involving a justice was in May, when someone broke into the Washington home of Justice Stephen Breyer. No one was home at the time.

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DENVER (AP) — Prosecutors in the Colorado theater shooting on Thursday rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and accused defense lawyers of a serious breach of court rules by making the offer public.

In a scathing court document, prosecutors said the defense has repeatedly refused to give them the information they need to evaluate the plea offer, so the offer can't be considered genuine.

No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said, and one "is extremely unlikely based on the present information available to the prosecution."

They also said anyone reading news stories about the offer would inevitably conclude "the defendant knows that he is guilty, the defense attorneys know that he is guilty, and that both of them know that he was not criminally insane."

Neither the defense nor the prosecution immediately returned phone calls Thursday.

Holmes is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in the July 20 shootings in a packed theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Twelve people were killed and 70 were injured.

Holmes' attorneys disclosed in a court filing Wednesday that their client has offered to plead guilty, but only if he wouldn't be executed.

Prosecutors criticized defense attorneys for publicizing the offer, calling it a ploy meant to draw the public and the judge into what should be private plea negotiations.

Prosecutors did not say what information the defense refused to give them, but the two sides have argued in court previously about access to information about Holmes' mental health.

Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor who is now a law professor at the University of Denver, said prosecutors clearly do not want to agree to a plea deal without knowing whether Holmes' attorneys could mount a strong mental health defense.

"One of the issues the prosecution needs to look at is, is there a likelihood that doctors, and then a jury, could find that James Holmes was insane at the time of the crime?" she said.

Prosecutors also criticized comments to The Associated Press by Doug Wilson, who heads the state public defenders' office.

Wilson told the AP Wednesday that prosecutors had not responded to the offer and said he didn't know whether prosecutors had relayed the offer to any victims as required by state law.

Prosecutors said that violated the gag order.

They also said they have repeatedly contacted "every known victim and family member of a victim — numbering over one thousand" about possible resolutions of the case, including the death penalty and life in prison without parole.

George Brauchler, the Arapahoe County district attorney, is scheduled to announce Monday whether he will seek the death penalty for Holmes. Brauchler hasn't publicly revealed his plans. He has refused repeatedly to comment on the case, citing the gag order.

Pierce O'Farrill, who was shot three times, said he would welcome an agreement that would imprison Holmes for life. The years of court struggles ahead would likely be an emotional ordeal for victims, he said.

"I don't see his death bringing me peace," O'Farrill said. "To me, my prayer for him was that he would spend the rest of his life in prison and hopefully, in all those years he has left, he could find God and ask for forgiveness himself."

A plea bargain would bring finality to the case fairly early so victims and their families can avoid the prolonged trauma of not knowing what will happen, said Dan Recht, a past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

"The defense, by making this public pleading, is reaching out to the victims' families," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.

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