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Judicial Vacancies Slow the Wheels of Justice
Headline Topics |
2010/07/12 09:58
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| pAs the Senate prepares to vote on whether Elena Kagan should fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, there remain a substantial number of other vacancies in the nation’s lower federal courts that urgently need filling. /ppCurrently, there are about 100 vacancies in the lower federal courts. The American Bar Association says the lack of judges is affecting the efficiency and fairness of the justice system. /ppABA President Carolyn B. Lamm said, “Our courts are already terribly strained at the federal level because of the caseload and the workload, and when you’re a hundred justices down…that’s a big gap.nbsp; We have speedy trial rules that require them to put criminal cases first.nbsp; As a result, all of the civil proceedings are put off and there is a real gap in terms of a significant delay as a result of the vacancies. It is edging toward a crisis not to have a full bench.” /ppEven if all the vacancies were filled, said Lamm, a significant number of new judgeships would still be necessary to handle caseload growth.nbsp; In fact, the Judicial Conference of the United States is recommending 67 new permanent and temporary judgeships.nbsp; /ppBeyond the existing 100 vacancies, more than 20 additional judges have announced that they will retire in the next several months. Since the start of the 111th Congress, President Obama has made 78 nominations to fill the empty seats, and the Senate has confirmed 36 of the nominees. nbsp; /ppLamm noted that most nominees have moved through the Senate with little dissent and little delay. /ppWhen they finally are scheduled for a vote by the Senate, Lamm commented, “None of them have in fact engendered huge debate on the floor of the Senate….nbsp; No one has seen a pattern of inappropriate people being nominated; it is simply very slow and it really needs a full bipartisan effort to move these nominations. And quite frankly, it is becoming urgent,” said Lamm. /p |
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Self Representation Hurting Individual Cases, Courts
Legal Business |
2010/07/12 09:57
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| pIn a survey released today by the American Bar Association, judges indicated that a lack of representation in civil matters is hurting those individuals’ cases, and is negatively impacting courtrooms. /ppApproximately 1,000 state trial judges responded to the survey, which posed questions about their dockets, self-representation and the impact on the courts.nbsp; More than half of the judges stated that their dockets increased in 2009, with the most common areas of increase involving foreclosures, domestic relations, consumer issues such as debt, and non-foreclosure housing issues such as rental disputes.nbsp; /ppSixty percent of judges said that fewer parties are being represented by lawyers, with 62 percent saying that parties are negatively impacted by not being represented.nbsp; The impact is exemplified, through a failure to present necessary evidence (94 percent), procedural errors (89 percent), ineffective witness examination (85 percent), failure to properly object to evidence (81 percent) and ineffective argument (77 percent). /ppThe ABA has a resource page on its website that can help individuals find legal assistance — a href=http://www.findlegalhelp.orgwww.findlegalhelp.org/a. nbsp; /ppDuring a time when state budgets are constrained, agencies as well as courts are being asked to become more efficient.nbsp; However, the increase in non-represented parties makes this more difficult for courts.nbsp; The lack of representation has a negative impact on the court, said 78 percent of the judges, and 90 percent of judges stated that court procedures are slowed when parties are not represented. /ppNearly half of the judges responding believe that there is a middle-class gap with respect to access to justice, stating that the number of people who are not represented and who do not qualify for aid has increased. /ppLamm announced the findings during a news conference earlier today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.nbsp; /ppThe survey of judges on the impact of the economic downturn on representation in the courts was conducted for the ABA Coalition for Justice.nbsp; Respondents came from around the country. /p |
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Chicago's tough new gun ordinance goes into effect
Court Watch News |
2010/07/12 04:58
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| pA new gun ordinance in Chicago that officials say is the strictest of its kind in the country went into effect on Monday./ppThe ordinance was pushed through quickly by Mayor Richard Daley and the City Council after the U.S. Supreme Court last month made the city's 28-year-old handgun ban unenforceable. The high court ruled that Americans have the right to have guns in their homes for protection./ppThe ordinance permits residents to have only one working gun at a time in their homes and prohibits them from stepping outside, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun./ppFollowing the lead of Washington, D.C., which enacted a strict ordinance after the Supreme Court struck down its gun ban two years ago, Chicago also requires prospective gun owners to take a class and receive firearms training./ppChicago's ordinance also bans gun shops from setting up shop in the city and bars anyone convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs from owning a handgun./ppAlso starting Monday is a 90-day grace period in which residents who owned handguns illegally during the ban can register them without penalty./ppChicago's ordinance was widely criticized by gun rights advocates, who have said the city is simply trying to make it as difficult as it can for people to own guns and putting up unconstitutional roadblocks in their way. They promised lawsuits and last week, even before the ordinance went into effect, at least two lawsuits were filed challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance./p |
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Chinese court sentences US geologist to 8 years
Headline Topics |
2010/07/05 06:53
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pAn American geologist detained and tortured by China's state security agents over an oil industry database was jailed for eight years Monday in a troubling example of China's rough justice system and the way the U.S. government handles cases against its citizens./ppBeijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted Xue Feng of collecting intelligence and illegally providing state secrets and immediately sentenced him./ppXue's lawyer Tong Wei described the sentence as very heavy, just short of the maximum 10 years, and said he would confer with Xue over whether to appeal. Xue was also fined 200,000 yuan ($30,000)./ppThe U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, witnessed the sentencing in a show of high-level U.S. government concern about the case. Afterward, the U.S. Embassy released a statement saying it was dismayed and urged China to grant Xue humanitarian release and immediately deport him./ppFor Xue, the verdict comes more than six months since the last court hearing and two and a half years after he was detained — a protracted prosecution and pretrial detention that Chinese officials never explained./ppBorn in China and trained at the University of Chicago, Xue ran afoul of the authorities for arranging the sale of a detailed commercial database on China's oil industry to IHS Energy, the energy consulting firm he worked for that is now known as IHS Inc. and based in Colorado.
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Gun rights, campaign spending top high court term
Legal Business |
2010/07/01 09:22
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pTwo conservative-driven decisions with potentially broad consequences will likely define the just-completed Supreme Court term: freeing corporations and unions to spend as much as they like in campaigns for Congress and president, and ruling that Americans have a right to a gun for self-defense wherever they live./ppA key member of the five-justice majorities in both cases, and the author of the guns opinion, was Justice Samuel Alito. Though he has been on the court less than five years, Alito has had an outsize influence in firming up the court's conservative bloc./ppHis appointment to replace the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, more than any other choice in the last decade shows the importance of Supreme Court nominations. It also points up that Elena Kagan's nomination to take the place of the like-minded John Paul Stevens almost certainly will not have the same short-term impact as Alito has had./ppOf all the changes in personnel during this time of rapid change at the court, the Alito-for-O'Connor switch has clearly been the most consequential, said Paul Clement, who was top Supreme Court lawyer for then-President George W. Bush./ppIndeed, nothing is likely to alter the court's current path in either direction unless President Barack Obama has the chance to replace a right-leaning justice, or a future Republican president gets to add another solid conservative vote./ppThe conservative trend on the court might be even stronger as long as Democrats hold Congress and the White House, said Paul Smith of the Jenner and Block law firm in Washington. The conservative majority is going to continue to feel a need to push back in a lot of areas, Smith said./ppThe credit, or criticism, for many of the court's high-profile decisions goes variously to Chief Justice John Roberts, the putative leader of the court's conservatives, or Justice Anthony Kennedy, who dislikes the label swing justice, but is always in the majority when the other eight justices split along liberal and conservative lines./ppTheir influence certainly was in evidence this term. Roberts was in the majority more than any other justice — 92 percent of the time — and Kennedy wrote the campaign finance decision as well as one in which the liberal justices prevailed, ruling out life prison terms with no prospect of parole for juvenile offenders in other than murder cases.
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AZ to release immigration training plan for cops
Topics |
2010/07/01 09:21
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pArizona officials plan to release a training program Thursday designed to teach police officers to enforce a tough new crackdown on illegal immigration without racially profiling./ppAn hour-long video and supporting paperwork will be sent to all 170 Arizona police agencies and publicly released Thursday morning./ppOfficials released an outline for the video in May./ppIt will emphasize the importance of professionalism, ethics and integrity, as well as an officer's duty to protect civil rights, according to the outline./ppRetired immigration agents also will describe how federal officers are trained to avoid racial profiling and the documents that immigrants are required to carry./ppAnd officers will be taught how to contact federal immigration authorities or local officers certified by the federal government to determine someone's immigration status./ppGov. Jan Brewer ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop the training when she signed the law April 23./ppPolice bosses will decide the best way to teach their forces. But there is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect July 29./ppOpponents have challenged the measure as unconstitutional and have asked that a federal court block it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton plans to hear arguments on the request later this month./ppArizona's law generally requires police officers enforcing another law to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
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Court rules against inventors in patent case
Headline Court News |
2010/07/01 03:22
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pThe Supreme Court on Monday refused to weigh in on whether software, online-shopping techniques and medical diagnostic tests can be patented, saying only that inventors' request for protection of a method of hedging weather-related risk in energy prices cannot be granted./ppThe high court unanimously agreed with a lower court ruling that threw out Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw's patent, a decision many said could endanger patents in an increasingly high-tech world. But the high court said they did not need to make a broad sweeping decision about patents to dispose of Bilski and Warsaw's case./ppThe patent application here can be rejected under our precedents on the unpatentability of abstract ideas, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. The court, therefore, need not define further what constitutes a patentable process./ppThe Supreme Court has already said that abstract ideas, natural phenomena and laws of nature cannot be patented. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit added that a process cannot be patented unless it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus or if it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing.
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