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Crack Down on Scalping for 2010 Olympics.
Topics |
2009/03/19 11:00
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Let the games begin! but without ticket scalping, please, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics says. The committee is cracking down on scalpers who claim to have guaranteed tickets to events despite a license agreement that specifically prohibits ticket scalping.
The committee claims that Shane Bourdage and his company Coast2Coast Tickets are illegally using Olympic trademarks to falsely advertise tickets to Olympic events at fees that grossly exceed the face value of the tickets.
Scalped or resold tickets can be confiscated and invalidated, Olympic organizers say.
The Vancouver Organizing Committee - VANOC - claims that Bourdage is selling ducats through the Internet, and is not warning people about the real and substantial risk that Bourdage and Coast2Coast will not be able to deliver tickets to their customers, and that any such tickets presented by their customers at 2010 Winter Games events will be cancelled, invalidated and seized by VANOC.
The only ticket resellers authorized to sell to Canadians are Jet Set Sports and Tickets.com, the complaint states. The committee says Bourdage has failed to stop advertising the tickets despite demands to stop.
The stringent anti-scalping rules are intended to ensure the fair, worldwide distribution of tickets at reasonable cost, according to the complaint. |
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Minn. high court rejects Franken's Senate request
Headline Topics |
2009/03/06 22:05
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The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday blocked Democrat Al Franken's petition for an election certificate that would put him in the U.S. Senate without waiting for a lawsuit to run its course.
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The decision means the seat will remain empty until the lawsuit and possible appeals in state court are complete. Republican Norm Coleman's lawsuit challenging Franken's recount lead is at the end of its sixth week, and both sides expect it to last at least a few more weeks./ppAfter a state board certified recount results showed Franken 225 votes ahead, he sued to force Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to sign an election certificate. Franken argued that federal law stipulates each state will have two senators when the Senate convenes, and that law trumped a state law that blocks such certificates while lawsuits are pending./ppBut the state Supreme Court disagreed. In their ruling Friday, the justices said states aren't required to issue such certificates by the date that Congress convenes./ppThe justices wrote in their unsigned opinion that if the Senate believes delay in seating the second Senator from Minnesota adversely affects the Senate, it has the authority to remedy the situation and needs no certificate of election from the Governor to do so./p |
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California Court Weighs Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Court Watch News |
2009/03/05 22:05
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As thousands demonstrated outside, California Supreme Court justices on Thursday weighed whether voters' decision to ban same-sex marriage was a denial of fundamental rights or within what one justice called the people's very broad powers to amend the state constitution.
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Gay rights advocates are urging the court to overturn the ban, approved in November as Proposition 8, on the grounds it was put before voters improperly, or at least prematurely. Under state law, the legislature must approve significant constitutional changes before they can go on the ballot. /ppProposition 8's sponsors, represented by former Pepperdine law school dean and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, said it would be a miscarriage of justice for the court to overturn the results of a fair election.
The ballot initiative, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, changed California's constitution to trump last year's 4-3 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage. The court found that denying same-sex couples the right to wed was an unconstitutional civil rights violation./p/div |
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Court Debates Convict's Rights to DNA Re-Testing
Headline Court News |
2009/03/04 09:33
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Justice David Souter led the charge for the ability of convicts like William Osborne of Alaska to have the right to re-test DNA evidence. His strongest argument or his -- his basic argument is this evidence is potentially so important that the State has no valid interest in keeping [Osborne] at least from seeing it; i.e., testing it.
But other justices weren't as comfortable with that idea. Justice Antonin Scalia was the most vocal in his opposition. He suggested such a right would allow the accused to game the system.
A concern also shared by Justice Anthony Kennedy who told Osborne's lawyer what you are doing is setting up a game in which it would be really unwise to have the DNA test. Take your chances. You have a -- you have a built-in -- you have a -- a built-in second chance. And that's just -- that's just not sound trial strategy, counsel, and you know that.
Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly returned to the idea that if the court were to grant the right for post-conviction DNA testing that it would then open for debate a slew of other problems.
I'm trying to figure out what the limit of the constitutional right you're asserting is, Roberts asked. He went on to wonder if there would be re-testing rights at other stages in the trial process or even for fingerprint analysis and he questioned how long states would have to preserve DNA evidence in the name of this right.
Osborne was convicted of raping and nearing killing an Anchorage prostitute in 1993. At trial, his lawyers made the strategic decision not to seek more stringent DNA testing for fear that it would more strongly inculpate their client. Osborne is now seeking to re-test that DNA on the hope that it will lead to his freedom.
Osborne's attempts however have not also included a claim of innocence drawing the ire of a number of justices who wondered why they should confer a constitutional right on someone who doesn't even claim he is an innocent man. Today's oral arguments also drew out the fact that under Alaska law, Osborne could petition for the retesting of the DNA evidence if he does so while also claiming innocence. Something he has yet to do.
This development opens the door for the court to send the case back for further proceedings without answering the constitutional question. That potential ruling would be supported by the federal government which joined the case on behalf of Alaska.
[T]he unusual facts of this case, which include failure to attest to actual innocence under threat of perjury, two recent confessions to the crime, and a tactical decision at trial to forego a highly discriminating....DNA test, all together make this a particularly poor candidate for recognizing a new constitutional entitlement, said Neal Katyal arguing his first case before the court as deputy solicitor general.
If the court does issue a ruling declaring a federally protected constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing it isn't clear that it would have that much of an impact because most states already have statutes in place for such testing. Alaska is one of six states that does not guarantee that right. |
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