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Appeals court sides with teen who spoke out against assault
Political View |
2020/08/08 12:43
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A federal appeals court has ruled that a lower court was justified in blocking the suspension of a Maine high school student who posted a note in a bathroom to draw attention to sexual assault.
Cape Elizabeth schools suspended Aela Mansmann, then a 15-year-old sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School, after she posted a note in a bathroom that said: “There’s a rapist in our school and you know who it is.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine then took on Aela's case, and a federal judge blocked the suspension while defending Aela's note as free speech.
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston ruled on Thursday that the lower court was within its right to stop the suspension.
The court's ruling states that Aela's actions were “far from the best way” for the student “to express her concerns about student-on-student sexual assault and Cape Elizabeth H.S.’s handling of sexual assault claims.” However, the appeals court also found that the lower court did not abuse its own discretion in stopping the suspension.
The school district said the Cape Elizabeth School Board will meet in the future to determine its next steps. The district said it maintains that placing the note was an act of bullying against another student. It also said in a statement that it was “disappointed” in the appeals court ruling. |
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Ohio Supreme Court to hear armed school staff training case
Interview |
2020/08/06 12:43
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The Ohio Supreme Court will hear a school district's appeal of a ruling that they must provide police-level training to employees carrying concealed weapons.
Madison Local Schools voted to allow armed school employees after a 2016 shooting in which two students were shot and wounded by a 14-year-old boy. A group of parents sued the district in September 2018 to prevent teachers from being armed without extensive training.
A Butler County judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying that school staff did not need extensive training because they are not law enforcement officers. The district’s policy requires 24 hours of training for staff carrying concealed weapons.
The parents appealed to the 12th District Court of Appeals, which ruled in March that Ohio law requires anyone who carries firearms in schools to have undergone a minimum of 728 hours of law enforcement training.
The district asked the state Supreme Court in May to hear its appeal, and a court spokesperson said Friday that all seven justices had voted in favor of taking the case up for review. Several other school districts and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office have filed briefs in support of Madison’s appeal. The parents maintain the state appeals court made the correct decision.
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Court lifts block on 4 Arkansas abortion restrictions
Law Opinions |
2020/08/05 12:43
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A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a judge's ruling that has blocked four Arkansas abortion restrictions from taking effect, including a ban on a common second trimester procedure and a fetal remains law that opponents say would effectively require a partner’s consent before a woman could get an abortion.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the 2017 preliminary injunction issued against the restrictions. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights had challenged the measures, suing on behalf of Dr. Frederick Hopkins, a Little Rock abortion provider.
The appeals panel said the case needs to be reconsidered in light of a recent decision on abortion by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The laws U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker blocked include a ban on a procedure known as dilation and evacuation, which abortion rights supporters say it is the safest and most common procedure used in second-trimester abortions. The state calls it barbaric and “dismemberment abortion,” saying it can have emotional consequences for the women who undergo it.
Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge praised the appeals court's ruling.
“Arkansas has taken a strong stance to protect the unborn from inhumane treatment,” Rutledge said in a statement. “As Arkansas’s chief legal officer, I have always advocated for the lives of unborn children and will continue to defend our state’s legal right to protect the unborn."
The 2017 decision also blocked new restrictions on the disposal of fetal tissue collected during abortions. The plaintiffs argued that it could also block access by requiring notification of a third party, such as the woman’s parents or her sexual partner, to determine what happens to the fetal remains.
The other restrictions included one that bans abortions based solely on the fetus’ sex and another that requires physicians performing abortions for patients under 14 to take certain steps to preserve embryonic or fetal tissue and notify police where the minor resides.
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Court OKs extradition of man linked to Venezuela's Maduro
Lawyer News |
2020/08/02 12:42
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A court in the West African nation of Cape Verde has approved the extradition to the United States of a Colombian businessman wanted on suspicion of money laundering on behalf of Venezuela's socialist government, his lawyers said Tuesday.
The court made the decision to extradite Alex Saab on Friday, but his legal team said in a statement it was informed about the decision only on Monday. They said they would appeal.
Saab was arrested in June when his private jet stopped to refuel in the former Portuguese colony on the way to Iran.
Saab was waiting for the court to schedule a hearing at which he could argue against extradition, according to the statement sent by the legal team, which is led by former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon.
The legal team described the extradition order as “alarming” and accused Cape Verdean authorities of denying him his legal rights. The defense lawyers plan to appeal to Cape Verde’s Supreme Court and, if necessary, the Constitutional Court, the statement said.
U.S. officials trying to reignite their campaign to oust Maduro believe Saab holds many secrets about how Venezuelan president, his family and top aides allegedly siphoned off millions of dollars in government contracts at a time of widespread hunger in the oil-rich nation.
Venezuela’s government had protested the arrest of Saab, 48, who it said was on a “humanitarian mission” to buy food and medical supplies. Saab came onto the radar of U.S. authorities a few years ago after amassing a large number of contracts with Maduro’s government.
Federal prosecutors in Miami indicted him and a business partner last year on money laundering charges connected to an alleged bribery scheme that pocketed more than $350 million from a low-income housing project for the Venezuelan government that was never built.
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Appeals court revives House lawsuit for McGahn's testimony
Industry News |
2020/08/01 12:42
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A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday revived House Democrats' lawsuit to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to appear before a congressional committee, but left other legal issues unresolved with time growing short in the current Congress.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 7-2 in ruling that the House Judiciary Committee can make its claims in court, reversing the judgment of a three-judge panel that would have ended the court fight.
The matter now returns to the panel for consideration of other legal issues. The current House of Representatives session ends on Jan. 3. That time crunch means “the chances that the Committee hears McGahn’s testimony anytime soon are vanishingly slim," dissenting Judge Thomas Griffith wrote. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson also dissented.
The Judiciary Committee first subpoenaed McGahn in April 2019 as it examined potential obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump directed McGahn not to appear and the Democratic-led panel filed a federal lawsuit to force McGahn to testify.
A trial judge ruled in November that the president’s close advisers do not have the absolute immunity from testifying to Congress that the administration claimed. Griffith and Henderson formed the majority when the appellate panel said in February that the Constitution forbids federal courts from refereeing this kind of dispute between the other two branches of government.
On Friday, the full court said the panel reached the wrong decision. Lawmakers can ask the courts “for judicial enforcement of congressional subpoenas when necessary," Judge Judith Rogers wrote. Congress needs detailed information about the executive branch for both oversight and impeachment, she wrote.
House lawmakers had sought McGahn’s testimony because he was a vital witness for Mueller, whose report detailed the president’s outrage over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to curtail it.
In interviews with Mueller’s team, McGahn described being called at home by the president on the night of June 17, 2017, and being directed to call the Justice Department and say Mueller had conflicts of interest and should be removed. McGahn declined the command, deciding he would resign rather than carry it out, the report said. |
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Lawsuit: Trump still blocks Twitter critics after court loss
Headline Topics |
2020/07/28 12:42
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An organization that successfully proved President Donald Trump violated the law when he blocked Twitter critics sued him anew on Friday, saying he continues to reject some accounts two years after losing in court.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued Trump a second time in Manhattan federal court over use of his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, saying the president and his staff continue to block some accounts.
Some individuals identified in a lawsuit filed in 2017, along with dozens of others who were blocked on the basis of viewpoint, have been unblocked, the lawsuit said.
But lawyers say the White House has refused to unblock those who can't identify which tweet led them to be blocked and others who were blocked before Trump was sworn in more than three years ago.
“It shouldn’t take another lawsuit to get the president to respect the rule of law and to stop blocking people simply because he doesn’t like what they’re posting,” said Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute, in a release.
The lawsuit identified as plaintiffs five individuals who remain blocked, including a digital specialist with the American Federation of Teachers, a freelance writer and researcher, a former teacher, an actor and Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.
Moynihan could not point to a specific tweet that caused him to be blocked because he periodically deletes tweets, the lawsuit said. It added that when the institute pressed the White House to unblock Moynihan, the request was rejected. |
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Ohio court to hear arguments in appeal over judge shot video
Lawyer News |
2020/07/21 09:32
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Surveillance video showing an Ohio judge being shot and wounded at a courthouse before the assailant was himself shot and killed is a public record that should be released, according to arguments by an attorney for The Associated Press in a case before the state Supreme Court.
The video shows Jefferson County Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. being shot outside a Steubenville courthouse in eastern Ohio in August 2017 by 51-year-old Nathaniel Richmond, and then Richmond being killed by a probation officer.
Richmond had a pending wrongful death lawsuit in front of Bruzzese at the time. The judge recovered and returned to the bench. The Ohio Supreme Court planned oral arguments for Tuesday. A decision isn't expected for weeks.
The day of the shooting, the AP asked for a copy of the surveillance video recorded by a camera positioned in front of the courthouse, but Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin denied that request, saying the video was a confidential law enforcement record and part of the courthouse’s infrastructure security system, among other arguments.
In February 2019, the Ohio Court of Claims sided with an appeal brought by the AP, saying the video doesn’t contain information used to protect a public office from “attack, interference or sabotage.”
Hanlin appealed, and in September 2019, the 7th District Court of Appeals in Youngstown agreed with the prosecutor, determining the video is exempt from being released under Ohio public record laws as part of the courthouse’s security measures.
The appeals court said, in part, that the Court of Claims should have considered affidavits submitted by Hanlin, based on her personal knowledge of the situation, that the video met the security exemption under state law. |
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