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Court: Silence can be used against suspects
Court Watch News |
2014/08/18 14:05
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The California Supreme Court has ruled that the silence of suspects can be used against them.
Wading into a legally tangled vehicular manslaughter case, a sharply divided high court on Thursday effectively reinstated the felony conviction of a man accused in a 2007 San Francisco Bay Area crash that left an 8-year-old girl dead and her sister and mother injured.
Richard Tom was sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter after authorities said he was speeding and slammed into another vehicle at a Redwood City intersection.
Prosecutors repeatedly told jurors during the trial that Tom's failure to ask about the victims immediately after the crash but before police read him his so-called Miranda rights showed his guilt.
Legal analysts said the ruling could affect future cases, allowing prosecutors to exploit a suspect's refusal to talk before invoking 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination. |
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Court rulings add urgency to state exchange decisions
Court Watch News |
2014/08/11 10:59
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As states ready their health insurance exchanges for a second open enrollment season in November, many have more to worry about than the computer glitches that plagued them last year.
Last month’s federal appeals court ruling that said language in the Affordable Care Act allows only state-run exchanges to give consumers tax credits to help pay for policy premiums is spurring several states to solidify their state-based credentials.“Until now, it was inconsequential what you were called,” said Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“All of a sudden, it may matter.”Only the District of Columbia and 14 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have established state exchanges and are on firm legal ground, according the decision,
Halbig v. Burwell.Consumers in the remaining 36 states that use the federal exchange ultimately could be blocked from future premium subsidies if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Obamacare opponents.
At stake is discounted insurance coverage for more than 7 million people and access to federal subsidies amounting to $36 billion in 2016, according to a study by the Urban Institute. |
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Brown appoints legal affairs aide to appeals court
Court Watch News |
2014/07/28 13:14
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Gov. Jerry Brown has named a senior aide to become an associate justice on the Sacramento-based Third District Court of Appeal.
Brown announced the appointment of Jonathan Renner on Friday.
The 44-year-old Democrat from Sacramento has been Brown's legal affairs secretary since 2011.
He was senior assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice from 2009 to 2010, when Brown was the state's attorney general. Renner previously held other high-ranking positions within the attorney general's office.
The appointment requires confirmation by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. It includes the current attorney general, Kamala Harris, and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye ("TAWNY canTILL SOCK-a-OO-ay").
If confirmed, Renner will begin his term Jan. 5. He would fill the vacancy created when Cantil-Sakauye moved to the California Supreme Court. |
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Montana court sends wind farm clash to California
Court Watch News |
2014/07/21 15:44
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A dispute over a Montana wind farm's potential to harm nearby nesting eagles and other birds should be heard in California, the Montana Supreme Court said Friday, in an opinion that deals a legal setback to the project's developers.
The legal row over the Rim Rock wind farm near Cut Bank began last year, when San Diego Gas & Electric accused developer NaturEner of concealing the possibility that eagles and other birds could be harmed by the 126-turbine project.
NaturEner, whose parent company is based in Spain, filed a competing lawsuit in Montana. Its attorneys alleged SDG&E was trying to get out of an unfavorable contract and using the eagle issue as an excuse.
The Rim Rock wind farm is near an area with seven golden eagle nests and Montana's densest concentration of ferruginous hawks. Under federal law, a take permit is required for activities that could injure, kill or otherwise harm protected birds such as eagles.
SDG&E alleges federal officials recommended to NaturEner that the wind farm needed such a permit. NaturEner has denied the claim.
Montana District Judge Brenda Gilbert ruled in May that the case should be heard in Montana because of Rim Rock's importance to the economies of Glacier and Toole counties. She also issued an injunction requiring the utility to pay NaturEner nearly $2 million a month. |
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Court issues partial win to bin Laden assistant
Court Watch News |
2014/07/15 12:33
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A federal appeals court on Monday set aside two of three convictions against a former personal assistant to Osama bin Laden.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the case of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who produced propaganda videos for al-Qaida and assisted with preparations for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes.
A military commission had convicted him of conspiracy to commit war crimes, providing material support for terrorism and soliciting others to commit war crimes. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The appeals court rejected al-Bahlul's challenge to his conspiracy conviction but overturned his material support and solicitation convictions.
The court, in an opinion by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, said the government had offered little backup for the notion that a military commission could try defendants on the charges for which the convictions were overturned — material support for terrorism and solicitation to commit war crimes.
On the conspiracy conviction, the appeals court said Congress has positively identified conspiracy as a war crime.
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US Supreme Court lets Equifax tax ruling stand
Court Watch News |
2014/06/30 16:34
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The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won't hear an appeal from credit bureau Equifax Inc. involving what it considered an adverse tax ruling in Mississippi.
The appeal was a reaction to a 2013 Mississippi Supreme Court decision that Equifax had to prove that it didn't earn any taxable income in the state. The state Department of Revenue examined Equifax's income and allocated some to Mississippi, ruling it owed taxes and penalties.
The Mississippi court upheld the Revenue Department's calculation of the company's taxes based on revenue earned in Mississippi, thus increasing its tax liability from zero to over $700,000, according to court documents.
The Council on State Taxation, Georgia Chamber of Commerce and The Institute for Professionals had filed "friend of the court" briefs in the case.
Lawmakers responded during the 2014 session by passing a law to change how the state collects taxes.
A key part of the law could make it harder for the state to rule that multistate corporations are paying too little in taxes to Mississippi. It says the Department of Revenue would have to present clear and convincing proof before it could reallocate how a company splits its income among states, and only do so in "limited and unique, nonrecurring circumstances."
The Department of Revenue estimates all changes in the law, including a phase-in of lower interest rates for overdue taxes, will cost Mississippi $100 million a year. |
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Court: No unemployment for teacher who quit early
Court Watch News |
2014/06/13 10:52
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Washington's Supreme Court says a Spanish teacher who tried to do his school district a favor by quitting early -- instead of in the middle of the school year -- was not entitled to unemployment pay.
Robert Campbell taught in University Place for six years before his wife learned she had won a Fulbright grant to study in Finland in 2011. Campbell asked for a leave of absence so he and the couple's 3-year-old daughter could go along, but the district denied it.
So Campbell had two options: He could quit in June 2010, giving the district time to hire someone else before the next school year, or he could quit in the middle of the school year. He chose the former.
The state denied him unemployment benefits, saying that to be eligible in such circumstances, people must stay in their job as long as reasonably possible before following their spouses. The court unanimously upheld the decision. |
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