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Court rules NY town's prayer violated Constitution
Areas of Focus |
2012/05/18 04:33
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An upstate New York town violated the constitutional ban against favoring one religion over another by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity, a federal court of appeals ruled Thursday.
In what it said was its first case testing the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the town of Greece, a suburb of Rochester, should have made a greater effort to invite people from other faiths to open monthly meetings. The town's lawyer says it will appeal.
From 1999 through 2007, and again from January 2009 through June 2010, every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation. In 2008, after residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens complained, four of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians, including a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha'i congregation.
Galloway and Stephens sued and, in 2010, a lower court ruled there was no evidence the town had intentionally excluded other faiths.
A town employee each month selected clerics or lay people by using a local published guide of churches. The guide did not include non-Christian denominations, however. The court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there. |
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German sues Macedonia in EU human rights court
Areas of Focus |
2012/05/17 04:33
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A German who claims the CIA illegally whisked him to a secret prison in Afghanistan appeared before Europe's human rights court Wednesday in what could be the final chapter of a case that has shed light on U.S. practices in the war on terror.
Khaled El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, says he was brutally interrogated at a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for more than four months after being kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, apparently mistaken for a terror suspect. He says he went on a hunger strike for 27 days and was eventually flown back to Europe and abandoned in a mountainous area in Albania.
Having failed with previous legal efforts in Germany, Macedonia and the United States, el-Masri has turned to the European Court of Human Rights as a last resort in the hope that it will declare that Macedonia breached his basic rights, said his lawyer.
"Mr. El-Masri has spent the last eight years seeking legal redress for the crimes that were committed against him," James Goldston told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There is abundant evidence including data on CIA flights to and from (Macedonia's capital) Skopje."
Authorities in Macedonia have denied any involvement in el-Masri's alleged kidnapping and sought Wednesday to have the Strasbourg, France-based court dismiss the case. A lawyer representing the small southeast European nation argued that el-Masri was too slow in filing his initial criminal complaint in Macedonia. |
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Court turns away PR congressional vote lawsuit
Areas of Focus |
2012/05/14 16:49
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from residents of Puerto Rico seeking to gain a voting representative in Congress.
The high court turned away the appeal from Gregorio Igartua and other Puerto Ricans on Monday.
Territorial status grants residents of Puerto Rico U.S. citizenship, but they pay no federal income taxes and cannot vote in presidential elections. Their congressional representative also cannot vote in Congress.
A federal judge threw out the lawsuit, and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, saying that since Puerto Rico was not a state, it could not have a voting member of Congress.
The high court refused to hear the appeal. |
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Court says farmers must pay bankruptcy tax
Areas of Focus |
2012/05/14 16:48
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The Supreme Court says a farming family has to pay tax on the bankruptcy sale of their farm.
The high court on Monday voted 5-4 for the IRS in its fight with Lynwood and Brenda Hall over their bankruptcy sale of their 320-acre farm in Willcox, Ariz.
The Halls were forced to sell their family farm for $960,000 to settle their bankruptcy debts. That sale brought about capital gains taxes of $26,000.The Halls wanted the taxes treated as part of the bankruptcy, paying part of it and having the court discharge the rest.
The IRS objected to that plan, saying all of the taxes must be paid and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with the tax agency.
The high court agreed with that decision. |
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Court won't hear appeals from Bulger victim family
Legal Topics |
2012/05/14 16:48
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal over whether the family of a man allegedly killed by former Boston mob boss and FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger should get millions of dollars from the government.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Edward Halloran's estate, which wants more than $2 million in damages from the FBI.
Bulger and another gang member are alleged to have shot Halloran on the waterfront in 1982. Bulger was an FBI informant at the time, and two judges ordered the FBI to pay damages to the families.
But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the families did not file their claims within the statute of limitations. |
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Court won't consider giving man new trial
Legal Topics |
2012/05/12 16:49
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The Supreme Court won't consider giving a man convicted in the death of a Texas toddler a new trial because the medical examiner changed her opinion on the cause of death.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Neil Hampton Robbins, convicted in the death of 17-month-old Tristen Skye Rivet, who died on May 12, 1998.
At the trial, Dr. Patricia Moore testified that Tristen's death was a homicide caused by asphyxia. But Moore later changed her opinion and said the cause of death was undetermined. Robbins asked for a new trial but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal refused, saying there is no conclusive evidence of Robbins' innocence and that it wasn't proven that the state purposefully used false testimony. |
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Court says illegal immigrants can't have guns
Headline Legal News |
2012/05/08 18:19
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A federal appeals court says illegal immigrants don't have a right to own firearms under the U.S. Constitution.
Emmanuel Huitron-Guizar of Wyoming pleaded guilty to being an illegal immigrant in possession of firearms after his arrest last year. He was ordered held by immigration authorities at the Natrona County Detention Center in Wyoming.
An attorney for Huitron-Guizar appealed the case, saying illegal immigrants are not excluded from possessing firearms like felons and people who are mentally ill, and should have the same rights as U.S. citizens to buy a gun for hunting and protection.
The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver ruled Monday that illegal immigrants have only limited protection under the Constitution.
Huitron-Guizar's attorney, Ronald Pretty of Cheyenne, Wyo., says he plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. |
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