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High court action on voting aims to avoid chaos
Headline Court News |
2014/10/13 16:31
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In seemingly contradictory voting-rights actions just a month before November's elections, the Supreme Court has allowed new Republican-inspired restrictions to remain in force in North Carolina and Ohio while blocking Wisconsin's voter identification law.
But there's a thread of consistency: In each case, the court appears to be seeking a short-term outcome that is the least disruptive for the voting process.
Another test of the court's outlook on voter ID laws could come from Texas, where the state is promising to appeal a ruling that struck down its strict law as unconstitutional racial discrimination.
None of the orders issued by the high court in recent days is a final ruling on the constitutionality of the laws. The orders are all about timing — whether the laws can be used in this year's elections — while the justices defer consideration of their validity.
In some ways, these disputes over the mechanics of voting are like others that crop up frequently just before elections as part of last-minute struggles by partisans to influence who can vote.
Republican lawmakers say the measures are needed to reduce voter fraud. Democrats contend they are thinly veiled attempts to keep eligible voters, many of them minorities supportive of Democrats, away from the polls.
Court rulings at various levels have also revealed partisan divisions. Most judges who voted to uphold the restrictive laws or allow them to take effect while the legal fights play out are Republican appointees. Most of those voting to strike down the laws or prevent them from being enforced were appointed by Democratic presidents. That is true even at the Supreme Court.
The high court has laid out one area of agreement: a general rule discouraging courts in general from letting potentially disruptive changes take effect at the last minute.
"The idea that courts should not impose a new set of voting rules just before an election is not a new one," said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine law school.
This year, that idea appears to have led the Supreme Court to outcomes that on the surface appear to be inconsistent, Hasen said. One problem in reading too much into the orders is that they were issued with little explanation.
But in each case, the court took issue with lower court rulings that would have changed the rules too close to an election, Hasen said. |
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German court: church facilities can ban headscarf
Court Watch News |
2014/09/29 13:20
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A German federal court has ruled that church-run institutions are within their rights to refuse to allow Muslim employees to wear headscarves at work.
The Federal Labor Court ruled Wednesday on a case brought by a former nurse at a Protestant church-linked hospital.
In 2010, the woman offered to return to work after maternity and sickness leave totaling four years and said she wanted to wear her headscarf at work. The hospital said no, and the woman went to court to seek compensation.
The federal court ruled that wearing a headscarf as a religious symbol isn't compatible with a contractual obligation to "neutral behavior" in a church-run facility. But it sent the woman's case back to a lower court, citing doubts over whether the hospital was technically a church institution. |
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Jury finds 2 men guilty in federal terror trial
Network News |
2014/09/29 13:12
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Two Southern California men were convicted Thursday of conspiring to support terrorists and murder Americans overseas.
Sohiel Omar Kabir and Ralph Deleon face life sentences for the convictions announced in U.S. District Court after jurors deliberated for a week.
Kabir, 36, of Pomona and Ralph Deleon, 25, of Ontario were each charged with five counts of conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a plan to train overseas as terrorists so they could target U.S. military and allies.
Kabir was acquitted on one of five conspiracy counts and jurors were deadlocked on two of the five identical counts against Deleon.
Defense lawyers portrayed the two as hapless pot smokers who talked a big game but didn't intend any harm.
Deleon and two other men were arrested two years ago before embarking on a journey to meet Kabir in Afghanistan. Kabir was later caught by U.S. troops in Kabul.
Federal agents began tracking the group after one of the men, Miguel Santana Vidriales, returned from visiting his mother in Mexico in January 2012 with a copy of a jihadist magazine in his possession. |
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Case of American jailed in Cuba back in US court
Court Watch News |
2014/09/22 14:54
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A government subcontractor who has spent over four years imprisoned in Cuba should be allowed to sue the U.S. government over lost wages and legal fees, his attorney told an appeals court Friday.
Alan Gross was working in Cuba as a government subcontractor when he was arrested in 2009. He has since lost income and racked up legal fees, his attorney Barry Buchman told the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A lawyer for the government argued the claims are based on his detention in Cuba, making him ineligible to sue.
The panel is expected to issue a written ruling on the case at a later date.
A lower-court judge previously threw out Gross' lawsuit against the government in 2013, saying federal law bars lawsuits against the government based on injuries suffered in foreign countries. Gross' lawyers appealed.
Gross was detained in December 2009 while working to set up Internet access as a subcontractor for the U.S. government's U.S. Agency for International Development, which does work promoting democracy in the communist country. It was his fifth trip to Cuba to work with Jewish communities on setting up Internet access that bypassed local censorship. Cuba considers USAID's programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government, and Gross was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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Accused White House intruder to appear in court
Lawyer News |
2014/09/22 14:53
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Following an embarrassing security breach at the White House, one of the most closely protected buildings in the world, the Secret Service is said to be considering establishing new checkpoints to screen tourists in public areas near the presidential mansion.
Meanwhile, the man accused of scaling a security fence and getting into the president's home carrying a knife is scheduled to have his initial appearance Monday in federal court.Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas, is facing charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon.
The Army says Gonzalez served from 1997 until his discharge in 2003, and again from 2005 to December 2012, when he retired due to disability.The Secret Service tightened its guard outside the White House after Friday's security breach. Gonzalez is accused of scaling the White House perimeter fence, sprinting across the lawn and entering the building before agents could stop him.
President Barack Obama and his family were away at the time. Obama says he still has confidence in the troubled agency's ability to protect him and his family.Secret Service Director Julia Pierson has ordered increased surveillance and more officer patrols, and has begun an investigation into what went wrong.
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Law Office of Alan Segal - Real Estate Law Attorney Massachusetts
Lawyer News |
2014/08/27 12:38
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Looking to purchase your first home in Massachusetts? Bostonians are beginning to save up to buy real estate as safe equity. Property would include all of the following: house, commercial building, or even a lot. When people think property, they usually think of residential real estate, which is property that involves houses, condos, and townhouses. If you’re planning on buying real estate in Massachusetts, it’s in your best interest to contact a Massachusetts Real Estate Lawyer for legal advice.
Buying real estate in Massachusetts is a big cost, but investors stand to make a profit by flipping property and selling at a higher value. Whether you’re planning on purchasing or selling real estate, it’s advised that you have an experienced Massachusetts residential real estate lawyer by your side.
Below you’ll find the different types of Real Estate to purchase:
- Commercial Properties
- Low Income Housing
- Boarding Houses
- Open Land Lots
- Rental Properties
- Residential Properties
Before any real estate purchase, contact and consult a Massachusetts real estate lawyer to assist you with real estate purchasing and trends. Failure to do so will result in steadily accumulating equity.
If you’d like to speak with a Massachusetts Real Estate Lawyer regarding legal assistance with real estate law, contact us today!
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Kentucky leader pleads guilty in kickbacks scheme
Press Release |
2014/08/27 12:36
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Circular saws squealed and construction workers hammered away on buildings, part of this Appalachian area's painstaking recovery from a deadly 2012 tornado.
About 60 miles away, inside in a federal courtroom Tuesday in Lexington, the elected official who led the reconstruction in Morgan County sobbed as he pleaded guilty to a fraud charge stemming from a kickback scheme.
Judge-Executive Tim Conley, the county's top official, received $120,000 to $200,000 to steer work to a contractor in a scheme that started three years before the tornado and continued while the town struggled to rebuild, prosecutors said. Conley could spend years in prison.
His supporters had a hard time believing the three-term Republican had gone astray.
"Everybody respected Tim Conley," said Morgan County resident Steve Gullett. "I just didn't think that he'd be caught up in something like this. It's heartbreaking."
The recovery has been slow in West Liberty, the county seat ravaged by a tornado on March 2, 2012. The new judicial center has opened, and a few businesses have sprung up downtown. A bank that anchored downtown is being rebuilt, but construction is in its early phases, leaving a massive gap in the tiny downtown. |
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