"In Massachusetts, four judges on the state's highest court have ordered the issuance of marriage licenses to applicants of the same gender, " the president said, referring to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling in 2003 that denial of marriage rights to gays and lesbians violated their civil rights.

CNN: Bush pushes same-sex marriage ban

The first was the state's Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 ruling that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

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Justice Ralph Gants in a Supreme Judicial Court upheld an earlier ruling from a lower-court that also found the foreclosures invalid.

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Opposition leaders, however, suggested the judicial activism Musharraf was really targeting was an expected Supreme Court ruling that would bar him from another term as Pakistan's president.

CNN: Pakistan's courts locked down; Bhutto in Islamabad

However, one of the most sweeping cost cutting actions comes from instructions directed by the judicial branch of government with a ruling from the Supreme Court on the overcrowding of prisons in California.

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The State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, said in a written ruling that a videotaped confession should have been suppressed before the 2010 trial of a man convicted of attempted robbery.

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The ruling that the Supreme Court hands down this month will leave unanswered questions about the relationship between the judicial and the legislative branches of government, and also between the past and the present.

NEWYORKER: Benched