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Census, redistricting top remaining Supreme Court cases
Lawyer World News |
2019/06/23 11:16
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The Supreme Court enters its final week of decisions with two politically charged issues unresolved, whether to rein in political line-drawing for partisan gain and allow a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Both decisions could affect the distribution of political power for the next decade, and both also may test Chief Justice John Roberts’ professed desire to keep his court of five conservatives appointed by Republican presidents and four liberals appointed by Democrats from looking like the other, elected branches of government. Decisions that break along the court’s political and ideological divide are more likely to generate criticism of the court as yet another political institution.
In addition, the justices could say as early as Monday whether they will add to their election-year calendar a test of President Donald Trump’s effort to end an Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation. The court’s new term begins in October.
Twelve cases that were argued between November and April remain to be decided. They include disputes over: a trademark sought by the FUCT clothing line, control of a large swatch of eastern Oklahoma that once belonged to Indian tribes and when courts should defer to decisions made by executive branch agencies.
But the biggest cases by far involve the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the census and two cases in which lower courts found that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland went too far in drawing congressional districts to benefit their party at the expense of the other party’s voters.
The Supreme Court has never invalidated districts on partisan grounds, but the court has kept the door open to these claims. The court has struck down districts predominantly based on race. |
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Oregon city stops jailing poor who can't pay court debts
Lawyer World News |
2019/06/16 16:45
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The eastern Oregon city of Pendleton has stopped jailing people unable to pay fines, a city official said, following the settlement of a federal lawsuit contending city officials were running a debtors' prison.
The East Oregonian reports in a story on Saturday that city attorney Nancy Kerns said city court officials recently adopted new policies that ban the use of jail time for fines arising from minor violations.
"No person shall be incarcerated for the inability and lack of financial resources to pay financial obligations to the Court, including fines, costs and restitution," the policy states.
The policy also requires the city court to consider defendants' ability to pay and appoint attorneys to indigent defendants who face jail time.
Anglea Minthorn spent nearly two months in jail in 2017 for owing about $1,000.
She sued in early 2018, contending the city was violating the U.S. Constitution by incarcerating a debtor unable to pay the debt.
Minthorn's "experience is not unique," the lawsuit said. "It is a reflection of how defendants operate a modern-day debtors' prison in which people who cannot afford to pay court-imposed fines arising out of minor violations are arrested, incarcerated, and fined further."
The lawsuit described Minthorn as a low-income person with disabilities who struggled to get stable housing, medical care and food. The lawsuit said she was hospitalized for 74 days in 2016 because of stroke-like symptoms. |
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Swedish court rules not to extradite Assange for rape probe
Lawyer World News |
2019/06/05 12:26
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to Sweden for a revived rape investigation, but should still be questioned in the case while he is imprisoned in Britain, a Swedish court ruled Monday,
The ruling by the Uppsala District Court doesn't mean the preliminary investigation must be abandoned, only that Assange doesn't face extradition to Sweden any time soon.
Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden's deputy director of public prosecutions, said she has not decided whether to appeal.
"I will also issue a European Investigation Order in order to interview Julian Assange," Persson said, adding that she hasn't picked a possible date for the questioning in England.
Assange's lawyer in Sweden, Per E. Samuelsson, said his client would "be happy, we are happy" to learn he won't be extradited to Sweden.
The 47-year-old Assange was evicted on April 11 from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been holed up with political asylum since 2012. He was immediately arrested by British police and is currently serving a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in 2012.
He is also fighting extradition to the United States, which accuses him of violating the Espionage Act by publishing secret documents hacked from the Pentagon containing the names of confidential military and diplomatic sources. |
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ACLU: JPMorgan Chase settles paternal leave class action
Lawyer World News |
2019/05/29 12:23
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A civil rights group says JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by male employees who say they were denied additional paid parental leave between 2011 and 2017.
The settlement was announced Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the national law firm Outten & Golden.
Chase employee Derek Rotondo filed an equal opportunity claim in 2017 when he tried to get 14 additional paid weeks after his son was born. He was told by Chase that while mothers are eligible for 16 weeks as primary caregivers, non-primary caregivers were only eligible for two weeks.
Chase adopted a gender neutral policy after Rotondo made his claim.
A Chase spokesman welcomed the agreement and thanked Rotondo for raising the issue. |
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South Africa's Zuma must wait 3 months for court decision
Lawyer World News |
2019/05/24 15:24
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Former South African president Jacob Zuma will hear in three months' time whether corruption, racketeering and money laundering charges against him might be dropped.
Pietermaritzburg High Court judges have reserved judgment on his application for a permanent stay of prosecution. No date was announced.
Zuma was president from 2009 until 2018, when his ruling African National Congress party forced him to resign amid persistent corruption allegations. The scandal was seen as damaging the reputation of the ANC, which has been in power since the end of the harsh system of apartheid in 1994.
Public frustration over government corruption contributed to the ANC's weakest-ever election showing earlier this month, and current President Cyril Ramaphosa has apologized and vowed to crack down .
The scandals also have damaged confidence in South Africa's economy, the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa.
Zuma is accused of receiving bribes related to a 1999 arms deal. The charges were raised more than a decade ago and later withdrawn, then reinstated after a court ruled there were sufficient grounds to bring him to trial. |
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