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Appeals court sides with tribes in fight over land decisions
Legal News |
2015/06/05 08:08
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In a victory for Native American tribes, an appeals court ruled Thursday that states cannot use negotiations for a Native American casino to challenge the federal government's decisions to recognize a tribe and set aside land for it.
An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said states have to use a separate process to contest those decisions and have a window of six years to file their challenge.
The decision removes the uncertainty many tribes faced about their land status after a smaller 9th Circuit panel reached a different conclusion, said Joe Webster, a partner with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker who was closely watching the case.
"This is certainly an important decision for tribes," he said.
The ruling came in a fight between California and the Humboldt County-based Big Lagoon Rancheria over the tribe's plan for a Las Vegas-style casino.
The tribe accused the state in a lawsuit of failing to negotiate a casino deal in good faith, and largely won its case in federal district court. A call to the state attorney general's office for comment about Thursday's ruling wasn't immediately returned.
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High court won't hear appeal over Walker campaign probe
Legal News |
2015/05/18 23:46
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a conservative group seeking to end an investigation into possible illegal coordination between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall campaign and independent groups.
The justices on Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director, Eric O'Keefe, must resolve their claims in state courts.
No one has been charged as a result of the investigation which has sought documents and testimony about possible violation of state campaign finance laws.
The investigation is on hold while a separate legal challenge is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The club and O'Keefe argued that the investigation was a violation of their First Amendment rights and an attempt to criminalize political speech.
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Mexican Supreme Court orders release of man in 1992 murders
Legal News |
2015/03/20 22:39
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Mexico's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of a Mexican-American jailed on a homicide conviction since 1992, ruling he had been tortured.
The court's ruling applied to the long-disputed conviction of Alfonso Martin del Campo Dodd in the murder of his sister and brother-in-law. It has been one of Mexico's longest and hardest-fought legal cases.
Lawyers for the dead couple's now-grown daughters criticized Wednesday's ruling, saying it was a blow to victims' rights.
"This is an offense to the victims," said Samuel Gonzalez, a former top anti-drug prosecutor who has helped defend victims' rights. "The victims did not get justice."
The court said police tortured Martin Del Campo Dodd into confessing to the killings, citing administrative proceedings filed against one officer two years after Campo Dodd was arrested. The court said he should be freed "in light of the proof that torture was used to obtain his confession in the two crimes, without there being any other incriminatory evidence."
The Mexican government fought for years to keep Martin Del Campo Dodd in prison despite pressure from abroad to release him. He holds U.S. and Mexican citizenship.
The couple were stabbed to death in their Mexico City home. Martin del Campo Dodd was at the home and said two masked assailants kidnapped him and stuffed him into the trunk of a car, which they later abandoned.
He signed a confession to the killings, but later claimed he did it under torture. He was sentenced to 50 years behind bars for the murder. |
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High court won't hear challenge to Vermont campaign law
Legal News |
2015/01/13 21:08
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The Supreme Court won't hear a challenge to part of Vermont's campaign finance laws that impose contribution limits on political action committees.
The justices on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the Vermont Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group. The group argued that Vermont's campaign finance registration, reporting and disclosure requirements for PACs were too broad and unconstitutional.
The group argued that a subcommittee it created should not be subject to Vermont's $2,000 limit on contributions to PACs because the subcommittee does not give money directly to candidates and makes only independent expenditures.
But a federal judge rejected those arguments, finding that there was no clear accounting between the two committees. A federal appeals court agreed. |
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Court won't overturn ruling on Arizona no-bail law
Legal News |
2014/11/18 00:07
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Hundreds of immigrants who have been denied bail under a strict Arizona law will now have the opportunity to be released after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday in the closely watched case.
The high court kept intact a lower-court ruling from three weeks ago that struck down the law, which was passed in 2006 amid a series of immigration crackdowns in Arizona over the past decade. The law denies bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been charged with a range of felonies that include shoplifting, aggravated identity theft, sexual assault and murder.
As a result, immigrants spend months in jail and often simply plead guilty and get turned over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
The decision clears the way for a wave of bail hearings for immigrants across Arizona. |
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Texas abortion clinics reopen after court reprieve
Legal News |
2014/10/20 19:56
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Texas abortion clinics that closed under tough new restrictions began reopening Wednesday after winning a reprieve at the U.S. Supreme Court, but the facilities were scheduling women with uncertainty and skeleton staffs.
A five-sentence ruling late Tuesday blocked parts of a sweeping Texas abortion law that required clinics to meet hospital-level operating standards starting Oct. 3. That had left only eight abortion facilities in the nation's second-most populous state.
Celebration among some abortion providers, however, was muted by logistics and fears that the victory is only temporary. Women seeking abortions kept phone lines busy at the Routh Street Women's Clinic in Dallas, where a former staff of 17 people is down to to single digits after the procedure was halted by the law earlier this month.
The high court only suspended the restrictions for now pending appeals, and offered no explanation for the decision.
"Some of them will come back, and some of them probably aren't," said Ginny Braun, the Dallas clinic director, about former employees that took other jobs in the past two weeks. "As one person eloquently put it this morning, whiplash is no longer a sustainable life choice for her."
Along the Texas-Mexico border, the only abortion clinic in 300 miles will resume abortion services in McAllen starting Friday, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of Whole Woman's Health. But staffing and financial difficulties prevent any immediate reopening of clinics in Austin and Fort Worth, and the prospects of reopening another in Beaumont are even dimmer, she said.
Hagstrom Miller said she has laid off more than 50 employees since last year, and that the on-again, off-again status of her clinics have led to taking on $500,000 in debt over the last six months. |
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German court: chronically ill could grow marijuana
Legal News |
2014/07/22 20:54
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Some Germans may soon be able to grow their own marijuana to relieve chronic pain after a ruling from a court in Cologne.
The Cologne administrative court ruled Tuesday in favor of three plaintiffs who had sued for the right to grow marijuana for therapeutic purposes, sending the cases back to the government agency responsible for approving medical marijuana products.
The court says the three demonstrated they could not combat their pain any other way and could not afford to purchase medical marijuana, which is permitted in Germany but not usually covered by the country's health insurance system.
The court also stipulated that allowing marijuana cultivation should depend upon a "thorough and individual" examination of each case, and rejected two other claims. |
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