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Georgia Supreme Court restores near-ban on abortions while state appeals
Legal Topics |
2024/10/11 15:10
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The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday halted a ruling striking down the state’s near-ban on abortions while it considers the state’s appeal.
The high court’s order came a week after a judge found that Georgia unconstitutionally prohibits abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy, often before women realize they’re pregnant. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Sept. 30 that privacy rights under Georgia’s state constitution include the right to make personal healthcare decisions.
The state Supreme Court put McBurney’s ruling on hold at the request of Republican state Attorney General Chris Carr, whose office is appealing.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John J. Ellington argued that the case “should not be predetermined in the State’s favor before the appeal is even docketed.”
“The State should not be in the business of enforcing laws that have been determined to violate fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals under the Georgia Constitution,” Ellington wrote. “The `status quo’ that should be maintained is the state of the law before the challenged laws took effect.”
Clare Bartlett, executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, called high court’s decision “appropriate,” fearing that without it, women from other states would begin coming to Georgia for surgical abortions.
“There’s no there’s no right to privacy in the abortion process because there’s another individual involved,” Bartlett said. She added: “It goes back to protecting those who are the most vulnerable and can’t speak for themselves.”
Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, said the state Supreme Court had “sided with anti-abortion extremists.” Her group is among the plaintiffs challenging the state law.
“Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer,” Simpson said in a statement. “Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health — all for the sake of power and control over our bodies.”
Leaders of carafem, an Atlanta abortion provider that had planned to expand its services after McBurney’s ruling, expressed dismay at the law’s reinstatement.
“Carafem will continue to offer abortion services following the letter of the law,” said Melissa Grant, the provider’s chief operating officer. “But we remain angry and disappointed and hope that eventually people will come back to a more sensible point of view on this issue that aligns with the people who need care.”
Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, was one of a wave of restrictive abortion measures that took effect in Republican-controlled states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ended a national right to abortion. It prohibited most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” was present. At around six weeks into a pregnancy, cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in an embryo’s cells that will eventually become the heart.
Georgia has a separate criminal law that makes illegal abortions punishable by up to 10 years in prison for providers, but not for women having abortions. In addition, the 2019 ban puts physicians at risk of losing their medical licenses if they perform unpermitted abortions.
The Georgia Supreme Court’s one-page order Monday exempted one specific provision of the state’s abortion law from being reinstated.
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Court rules nearly 98000 Arizonans can vote the full ballot
Legal Topics |
2024/09/23 14:03
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The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that nearly 98,000 people whose citizenship documents hadn’t been confirmed can vote in state and local races, a significant decision that could influence ballot measures and tight legislative races.
The court’s decision comes after officials uncovered a database error that for two decades mistakenly designated the voters as having access to the full ballot. The voters already were entitled to cast ballots in federal races, including for president and Congress, regardless of how the court ruled.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County recorder, had disagreed on what status the voters should hold. Richer asked the high court to weigh in, saying Fontes ignored state law by advising county officials to let affected voters cast full ballots.
Fontes said not allowing the voters who believed they had satisfied voting requirements access to the full ballot would raise equal protection and due process concerns.
The high court, which leans Republican, agreed with Fontes. It said county officials lack the authority to change the voters’ statuses because those voters registered long ago and had attested under the penalty of law that they are citizens. The justices also said the voters were not at fault for the database error and also mentioned the little time that’s left before the Nov. 5 general election.
“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in the ruling.
Of the nearly 98,000 affected voters, most of them reside in Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix, and are longtime state residents who range in age from 45 to 60. About 37% of them are registered Republicans, about 27% are registered Democrats and the rest are independents or affiliated with minor parties.
Arizona is unique among states in that it requires voters to prove their citizenship to participate in local and state races. Voters can demonstrate citizenship by providing a driver’s license or tribal ID number, or they can attach a copy of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization documents.
Arizona considers drivers’ licenses issued after October 1996 to be valid proof of citizenship. However, a system coding error marked nearly 98,000 voters who obtained licenses before 1996 — roughly 2.5% of all registered voters — as full-ballot voters, state officials said.
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After just a few hours, U.S. election bets put on hold by appeals court ruling
Legal Topics |
2024/09/14 19:02
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Just hours after it began, legal betting on the outcome of U.S. Congressional elections has been put on hold by a federal appeals court.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order Thursday night temporarily freezing the matter until it can consider and rule on the issue. No timetable was initially given.
The court acted at about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, mere hours after a federal judge cleared the way for the only bets on American elections to be legally sanctioned by a U.S. jurisdiction.
U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb permitted New York startup company Kalshi to begin offering what amounts to bets on the outcome of November elections regarding which parties win control of the House and Senate.
The company’s markets went live soon afterwards, and Kalshi accepted an unknown amount of bets, which it called “contracts.”
The Thursday night order put a halt to any further such bets. What might happen to those already made was unclear Friday.
Neither Kalshi nor the commission immediately responded to messages seeking comment Friday.
The ruling came after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission appealed Cobb’s ruling, warning that allowing election bets, even for a short period of time, risked serious harm from people trying to manipulate the election for financial purposes.
The Thursday night order put a halt to any further such bets. What might happen to those already made was unclear Friday.
Neither Kalshi nor the commission immediately responded to messages seeking comment Friday.
The ruling came after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission appealed Cobb’s ruling, warning that allowing election bets, even for a short period of time, risked serious harm from people trying to manipulate the election for financial purposes.
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‘The Mentalist’ star Simon Baker admits drinking and driving in Australia
Legal Topics |
2024/09/11 15:44
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Australian actor and director Simon Baker, best known for his role as Patrick Jane in the CBS drama series “The Mentalist,” avoided a conviction Wednesday after pleading guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol near his rural home.
The 55-year-old appeared in the Mullumbimby Local Court in New South Wales state for sentencing after pleading guilty the week before to a charge of driving with a blood-alcohol concentration exceeding the legal limit of 0.05%.
Baker acted alongside Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the Oscar-nominated 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada” before starring as a former professional psychic who became a California Bureau of Investigation consultant in the hit series “The Mentalist” for eight seasons until 2015. He has worked on multiple shows and movies since, including a movie adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “ Klara and the Sun ” directed by Taika Waititi with an expected 2025 release.
Magistrate Kathy Crittenden accepted that Baker was remorseful and was unlikely to drive after drinking again. She released him on a nine-month good behavior bond with no conviction recorded. Australian judges have discretion to not record a conviction against first-time offenders under exceptional circumstances.
Police reported seeing Baker’s Tesla electric car driving erratically in the fashionable Byron Bay region where he lives at 2:11 a.m. July 20.
That was hours after a faulty software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike created worldwide technological havoc, disrupting airlines, hospitals, government offices and financial systems. Crittenden said the outage knocked police systems offline and an electronic breath test could not be completed on Baker.
She said police resorted to an “old-fashioned sobriety test.”
Police reported Baker was unsteady on his feet and smelled of alcohol. He told police he had consumed four glasses of wine over dinner since 6 p.m., roughly eight hours prior. He was alone in the car.
Baker was “very polite and cooperative” and “extremely remorseful for his actions,” Crittenden said. Baker had since completed a traffic offenders’ rehabilitation program, the court was told.
Crittenden said four character references were tendered to the court about Baker’s community contributions, significant remorse and attesting to his conduct being out of character.
“The court has little difficulty in finding that Mr. Baker is remorseful for his offending and it is unlikely he will offend again,” she said. |
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Judge throws out machine gun possession charge, cites Second Amendment
Legal Topics |
2024/08/29 07:17
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A federal judge in Kansas has tossed out a machine gun possession charge and questioned if bans on the weapons violate the Second Amendment.
If upheld on appeal, the ruling by U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita could have a sweeping impact on the regulation of machine guns, including homemade automatic weapons that many police and prosecutors blame for fueling gun violence.
Broomes, an appointee of President Donald Trump, on Wednesday dismissed two machine gun possession counts against Tamori Morgan, who was indicted last year. Morgan was accused of possessing a model AM-15 .300-caliber machine gun and a machine gun conversion device known as a “Glock switch” that can
make a semi-automatic weapon fire like a machine gun.
“The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged because they are ‘bearable arms’ within the original meaning of the amendment,” Broomes wrote. He added that the government “has the burden to show that the regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical firearm regulation
tradition.”
As of Friday, no appeal had been filed. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita declined comment. Federal prosecutors in the case said in earlier court filings that the “Supreme Court has made clear that regulations of machineguns fall outside the Second Amendment.”
A June 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen was seen as a major expansion of gun rights. The ruling said Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.
Jacob Charles, an associate law professor at Pepperdine University who tracks Second Amendment cases, said the Kansas ruling is direct fallout from the Bruen decision.
“It gives lower court judges the ability to pick and choose the historical record in a way that they think the Second Amendment should be read,” Charles said.
Charles expects Broomes’ ruling to be overturned, citing Supreme Court precedent allowing for regulation of machine guns.
Eric Ruben, a fellow at the Brennan Center and an associate law professor of Southern Methodist University, agreed.
“As far as I know, this is the first time in American history that a machine gun ban has been found unconstitutional in its application,” Ruben said.
Shira Feldman of Brady United Against Gun Violence, called the ruling “an incredibly dangerous decision, and it’s inconsistent with what the Supreme Court has said the Second Amendment means.”
A message left Friday with the National Rifle Association wasn’t immediately returned.
Communities across the U.S. have dealt with a surge of shootings carried out with weapons converted to fully automatic in recent years. These weapons are typically converted using small pieces of metal made with a 3D printer or ordered online.
Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama last year and another that left six people dead in a bar district in Sacramento, California, in 2022. In Houston, police officer William Jeffrey died in 2021 after being shot with a
converted gun while serving a warrant.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available, The Associated Press reported in March.
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Fraud trial of George Santos to begin next month with an anonymous jury
Legal Topics |
2024/08/18 22:57
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The fraud trial against former U.S. Rep. George Santos, slated to start in a matter of weeks, is coming into focus after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that jurors will have their identities kept secret from the public.
They won’t, however, be required to fill out a written questionnaire gauging their opinions of Santos when they arrive for jury selection Sept. 9, as his lawyers had requested.
Judge Joanna Seybert said during a brief hearing in federal court on Long Island that she agreed with the government’s assessment that a questionnaire would only bog the proceedings down.
She said questioning each potential juror in person would allow her and both sides to ask more varied and probing questions to elicit more truthful responses.
Prosecutors told the judge the trial could last three weeks because they expect to call at least three dozen witnesses, including some victims of Santos’ alleged crimes.
Santos has pleaded not guilty to a range of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working, and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses such as designer clothing.
Seybert urged both sides to work together to “streamline” the proceedings where possible.
“Make me hopeful. Seriously,” she said. “Sit down and discuss what is absolutely necessary.”
Santos, who was dressed in a blue suit, declined to speak with reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing, the last expected before the trial.
But when asked whether he believed his client could receive a fair trial, Santos’ lawyer Robert Fantone said, “I think we’re going to be alright.”
In court, Santos’ lawyers pushed back at claims prosecutors made in prior legal filings that they’re not participating fully in the required pretrial document-sharing process known as discovery.
Prosecutors this month said they’ve turned over more than 1.3 million pages of records, while defense lawyers have produced just five pages. But when pressed by the judge, Santos’ lawyers maintained that they’ve turned over every document in their possession.
“We’re not stonewalling,” said Joe Murray, another Santos lawyer. “Trial by ambush is not how I operate.”
The New York Republican’s lawyers had argued in recent court filings that a questionnaire addressing potential jurors’ “knowledge, beliefs, and preconceptions” was needed because of the extensive negative media coverage surrounding Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” he had broken the law and exploited his public position for his own profit. |
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X announces suspension of Brazil operations, alleging ‘censorship orders’
Legal Topics |
2024/08/14 22:56
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Social media platform X said Saturday it will close its operations in Brazil, claiming Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes threatened to arrest its legal representative in Brazil if they did not comply with orders.
X is removing all remaining Brazil staff in the country “effective immediately,” though the company said service will still be available to the people of Brazil. The company did not clarify how it could claim to suspend operations while continuing to provide services to Brazilians.
Earlier this year, the company clashed with de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation on X. The company said his most recent orders amounted to censorship, and shared a copy of the document on X.
The Supreme Court’s press office didn’t immediately respond to Associated Press email requests seeking comment, or to confirm the veracity of the document, on Saturday.
In the United States, free speech is a constitutional right that’s much more permissive than in many countries, including Brazil, where de Moraes in April ordered an investigation into CEO Elon Musk over the dissemination of defamatory fake news and another probe over possible obstruction, incitement and criminal organization.
Brazil’s political right has long characterized de Moraes as overstepping his bounds to clamp down on free speech and engage in political persecution.
Whether investigating former President Jair Bolsonaro, banishing his far-right allies from social media, or ordering the arrest of supporters who stormed government buildings on Jan. 8, 2023, de Moraes has aggressively pursued those he views as undermining Brazil’s young democracy.
“Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” the company said in a statement on X.
In a tweet Saturday morning, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” and owner of X, Musk, said de Moraes “is an utter disgrace to justice.”
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