The justices met Friday to consider for a third time appeals in two Planned Parenthood cases and several others that may divide the court along ideological lines.
And yet, as J.F.K. showed Catholics in appearing before Houston's ministers, a first-time appeal has its ethnic tug.
The opinion issued Tuesday was the first time an appeals court panel had reviewed the special counsel's authority.
He said he believed it was the first time an appeals court here had freed someone convicted of a national security crime.
It's believed to be the first time an appeals court delayed an execution based on the issue of drug secrecy.
Lawrence A. Hildes, the lawyer for the other plaintiffs, said the decision on Monday was the first time an appeals panel had ruled that citizens could sue military employees over spying.
On Wednesday, a day after New York City's taxi riders were allowed to hail yellow cabs with smartphones for the first time, an appeals court judge temporarily blocked the city's pilot program for the apps — forcing the Bloomberg administration to delay its plan for the second time in less than two months.
It is the first time an appeals court has ruled on a conviction obtained under the logic that serving at a death camp, and thus helping it operate, was enough to convict someone as an accessory to the murders committed there – even if there was no evidence of involvement in a specific killing.
The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, was the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the politically charged question of whether the federal government has a right to demand abortion records in its defense of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
"The home secretary should be ensuring that the right decisions are made first time, so appeals aren't needed, rather than costing the taxpayer money and keeping people's lives in limbo just so her department can hit targets," said David Hanson, the shadow minister for immigration.
