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SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Sitting out the speech
Top Legal News |
2013/02/15 22:53
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While his colleagues got ready to go to the Capitol, Justice Antonin Scalia sat on a stage across town and held forth about why, for the 16th consecutive year, he would not be joining them for the State of the Union.
He doesn't go when a Democrat is president. He stays away when the president is Republican.
"It has turned into a childish spectacle. I don't want to be there to lend dignity to it," Scalia said, with a certain amount of mischief.
The 76-year-old justice has previously made clear his disdain for the event, but Tuesday may have been the first time he did so at nearly the same time as the speech.
The occasion was a talk sponsored by the Smithsonian Associates and moderated by National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, one of many public appearances by the justices during their winter recess. They will meet in private on Friday and return to the bench on Tuesday.
Lest anyone think the timing of his talk was anything other than a coincidence, Scalia tried to put those thoughts to rest. |
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Fla. to execute mass killer after court lifts stay
Top Legal News |
2012/10/25 21:07
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A convicted mass killer from the 1970s is again scheduled for execution Tuesday after an appeals court lifted a last-minute stay that was based on his mental illness. His attorneys sought a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The execution of John Ferguson, 64, was tentatively back on for 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison pending a final order from the governor's office, state corrections officials said. Ferguson has been on Florida's death row for 34 years.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday lifted a stay put in place over the weekend by a judge in Florida. Ferguson's lawyers argued he is mentally ill and therefore the Constitution prohibits the state from executing him.
His attorneys sought reinstatement of the stay in an emergency filing Tuesday morning with the U.S. Supreme Court. There was no immediate ruling from the justices.
Ferguson was convicted of killing eight people in South Florida in 1977 and 1978, including a teenage couple.
Two of the three appeals court judges in Atlanta ruled that U.S. Judge Daniel Hurley "abused" his discretion on Saturday when he issued a stay in the case. |
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High court begins new term with human rights case
Top Legal News |
2012/10/08 22:50
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The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday with a high-stakes dispute between businesses and human rights groups over accountability for foreign atrocities.
The justices appeared ready to impose new limits on lawsuits brought in U.S. courts over human rights violations abroad.
The argument was the first in a term that holds the prospect for major rulings about affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights.
Meeting on the first Monday in October, as required by law, the justices entered the crowded marble courtroom for the first time since their momentous decision in late June that upheld President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
The lineup of justices was the same as in June, but the bench had a slightly different look nonetheless. Justice Antonin Scalia was without the glasses he no longer needs following cataract surgery over the summer.
Chief Justice John Roberts formally opened the term and the court turned quickly to its first argument.
The dispute involves a lawsuit filed against Royal Dutch Petroleum over claims that the oil company was complicit in abuses committed by the Nigerian government against its citizens in the oil-rich Niger Delta. |
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Appeals court reverses ruling on campaign donors
Top Legal News |
2012/09/22 23:14
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An appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling that likely would have led to greater disclosure of who is paying for certain election ads.
In March, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Federal Election Commission overstepped its bounds in allowing groups that fund certain election ads to keep their financiers anonymous.
But Tuesday's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sent the case back to Jackson, with instructions to refer the matter to the FEC for further consideration.
At issue are electioneering communications — ads that don't expressly advocate voting for or against a candidate running for federal office. In 2007, the FEC ruled that only contributors whose donations were "made for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications" had to be identified; those who gave unrestricted money did not have to be identified. The FEC regulation came in response to a Supreme Court ruling that gave more latitude to nonprofit groups — like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and the President Barack Obama-leaning Priorities USA — on pre-election ads.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sued the FEC over the regulation, which he called a "loophole" that made the disclosure requirements meaningless. He won a summary judgment from Jackson, who was appointed by Obama. The judge ruled that "Congress spoke plainly" in passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law — and did not delegate authority to the FEC to narrow the disclosure requirement. |
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Lawyer: NM gov aide recorded on state email use
Top Legal News |
2012/09/07 23:04
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An Albuquerque attorney said Tuesday he has a recording of the governor's top aide telling one of his clients that he never uses state email to conduct business because "I don't want to go to court (or) jail."
But the aide said the small recorded clip released to reporters is out of context, and he vowed to file an ethics complaint because the full recording outs a young female relative of the aide as a witness in a sexual assault case.
Defense attorney Sam Bregman represents fired Department of Corrections worker Larry Flynn in a wrongful termination case in which the administration's use of private email accounts was first revealed. He released the recording to reporters and said it is of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez's chief of staff, Keith Gardner.
Speaking at a news conference held in his office, Bregman, a Democrat and vocal critic of Martinez, said the secret recording is of a conversation between Gardner and a friend, Brian Powell of Roswell. Powell told Bregman he made the recording when he and Gardner were having a conversation about family issues. Powell, who works for the Roswell Fire Department, did not tell Gardner he was recording him, and it's unclear why he was recording him. |
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Ohio man pleads guilty to scamming storm victims
Top Legal News |
2012/08/31 18:28
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A man accused of ripping off storm victims in Ohio and Kentucky has pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Joshua Salyers entered the guilty pleas in Hamilton County court in southern Ohio Tuesday. He admitted stealing more than $43,000 from the victims.
DeWine spokesman Mark Moretti said the 39-year-old Salyers ran a storm damage restoration business and took money from homeowners in Butler, Hamilton and Stark counties in Ohio and in Campbell County, Ky., to repair their homes after storms in 2010 and in 2011.
But Moretti said Salyers never began the work and refused to refund the money. |
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Judge won't halt Pa. voter identification law
Top Legal News |
2012/08/15 18:12
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A tough new voter identification law championed by Republicans can take effect in Pennsylvania for November's presidential election, a judge ruled Wednesday, despite a torrent of criticism that it will suppress votes among President Barack Obama's supporters and make it harder for the elderly, disabled, poor and young adults to vote.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said he would not grant an injunction that would have halted the law, which requires each voter to show a valid photo ID. Opponents are expected to file an appeal within a day or two to the state Supreme Court as the Nov. 6 election looms.
"We're not done, it's not over," said Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case for the plaintiffs. "It's why they make appeals courts."
The Republican-penned law — which passed over the objections of Democrats — has ignited a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest. Plaintiffs, including a 93-year-old woman who recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, had asked Simpson to block the law from taking effect in this year's election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.
Republicans defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election. But Democrats say the law will make it harder for people who lack ID for valid reasons to vote. |
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