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Court: Some NC legislator emails must be released
Network News |
2014/11/21 16:14
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North Carolina legislators aren't required to give up emails with other lawmakers and staff to those suing over the state's election-overhaul law, but correspondence with third parties is largely fair game, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Joi Peake ruled on the extent of legislative confidentiality in three lawsuits filed against the state and officials including Gov. Pat McCrory and challenging provisions of the 2013 law. Attorneys are collecting evidence for trial on the lawsuits next summer.
Those who sued demanded emails and other correspondence from more than a dozen state legislators that they hoped would provide insight to why the law was approved. The lawsuits, filed by civil rights groups, the U.S. government and voters among others, say that elements of the law are unconstitutional and discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act because they harm minority voters.
The lawsuits seek to overturn provisions that reduced the number of early voting days by one week, ended same-day registration during the early-voting period and mandate photo identification to vote in 2016.
In her ruling, Peake said legislative privilege applies to communications between legislators and their aides but not between lawmakers and constituents or interest groups. The state's attorneys cited no authority by which lawmakers should receive the privilege simply because they expected privacy with the communications, she wrote.
Peake rejected a request by the suing groups to require state attorneys to create a log of specific documents with lawmakers or staff corresponding with each other and that lawmakers believe are subject to the privilege — presumably for Peake later to decide whether the documents should be disclosed.
The privilege log "would itself significantly intrude into the legislative sphere, and would also place a heavy burden on the legislators in contravention of one of the aims of the legislative privilege," she wrote. |
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Indian guru in deadly standoff due in court
Court Watch News |
2014/11/21 16:13
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An Indian guru at the center of a deadly standoff with police was set to appear in court Friday after he was arrested at his sprawling ashram for refusing to answer murder charges.
Nearly 15,000 supporters of the 63-year-old Sant Rampal were evacuated from his compound in Haryana state before police took him away in an ambulance Wednesday. Previous attempts by riot police to enter the fortified estate, about 175 kilometers (110 miles) from New Delhi, had resulted in deaths and injuries as Rampal's followers, some of whom were armed, fought back.
The self-styled guru was taken to Chandigarh, the state capital, to appear before a court Friday.
He has repeatedly ignored orders to answer a 2006 murder charge against him. Police have filed additional charges against him and some of his supporters, including sedition, murder, criminal conspiracy and detaining people illegally in his fortress, said Jawahar Yadav, a Haryana state government spokesman.
More than 400 people have been arrested and about 200 others injured, including security forces, during the dayslong standoff.
The guru's followers on Wednesday handed over to police the bodies of four women who apparently died inside the 12-acre (5-hectare) complex. Another woman and an 18-month-old child died in a hospital after leaving the ashram.
The circumstances of the deaths were not clear and autopsies were being conducted. |
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Aggressive Securities Arbitration Services
Lawyer News |
2014/11/13 15:49
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Court weighs role of race in Alabama redistricting
Network News |
2014/11/13 15:46
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The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with a dispute over the use of race to redraw political districts that turns the usual arguments on their heads.
The complicated case argued at the high court involves the use of a landmark voting rights law that led to the election of African-Americans across the South and Supreme Court decisions that limited the use of race to draw electoral maps.
Only in this case, Republicans in Alabama are invoking the Voting Rights Act to justify concentrating black voters in some legislative districts, and African-Americans challenging the state's legislative maps said the GOP relied too heavily on race.
"Do you realize you are making the argument that the opponents of black plaintiffs used to make here?" Justice Antonin Scalia asked a lawyer for the challengers. Scalia appeared favorable to the state's argument.
Justice Stephen Breyer was more skeptical of the state's claims, but he too found the role reversal curious. "This is an obverse and odd situation," Breyer told Alabama Solicitor General Andrew Brasher.
The outcome could come down to whether the justices think that race was the motivating factor in the state's 2012 redistricting or that Republicans merely tried to maximize their partisan advantage. |
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