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High court weighs Mich. ban on affirmative action
Legal Topics |
2013/10/14 20:46
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After the Supreme Court ruled a decade ago that race could be a factor in college admissions in a Michigan case, affirmative action opponents persuaded the state's voters to outlaw any consideration of race.
Now, the high court is weighing whether that change to Michigan's constitution is itself discriminatory.
It is a proposition that even the lawyer for civil rights groups in favor of affirmative action acknowledges a tough sell, at first glance.
"How can a provision that is designed to end discrimination in fact discriminate?" said Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet that is the difficult argument Rosenbaum will make on Tuesday to a court that has grown more skeptical about taking race into account in education since its Michigan decision in 2003.
A victory for Rosenbaum's side would imperil similar voter-approved initiatives that banned affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies. |
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Spanish court convicts 53 in corruption trial
Legal Topics |
2013/10/04 20:42
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A Spanish court convicted 53 people Friday in the country's biggest-ever corruption trial, which lasted two years and centered on widespread real estate fraud and bribery in the southern jet-set resort town of Marbella.
The defendants in the trial, which ended last year, included former town hall officials, lawyers and business representatives. The judge took several months to decide on the sentences — 40 other people were acquitted and two accused died while the case was being prepared.
Under a highly complex scheme in the mid-1990s, city funds were widely misappropriated, and public officials and business representatives divvied up under-the table kickbacks for planning permissions and construction of hotels, residential complexes and urban infrastructure. Much of the money was then laundered with the help of lawyers.
Marbella, located on Spain's southern coast, was a magnet for jet set and society figures from across the world during the 1970s and 1980s.
The man who prosecutors said was the mastermind of the fraud, former Marbella urban planning adviser Juan Antonio Roca, got the biggest sentence — 11 years — for money laundering, bribery and fraud. He also was fined 240 million euros ($326 million).
Roca has been in jail since 2006 when he was first arrested as the case broke. Back then, he was considered one of the richest people in Spain with his assets including ranches, fighting bulls, thoroughbred horses, art, expensive cars and boats.
The scheme began when late Atletico Madrid soccer club owner Jesus Gil y Gil was mayor of Marbella between 1991 and 2002. Roca began working for Marbella town hall under Gil and claimed during the trial that he was just following the mayor's orders. |
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Federal court reverses man's murder conviction
Legal Topics |
2013/09/30 22:20
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A federal court has reversed a Southern California man's conviction in the bludgeoning death of his wife.
The Orange County Register reports that a three-judge panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that 75-year-old Marvin Vernis Smith didn't receive a fair trial.
A jury found Smith guilty of murdering his wife 66-year-old Minnie Smith in 2007. She was found dead in their Cypress home, bludgeoned to death in the head and face with a metal fireplace log roller on Dec. 15, 2005.
The court ruled that a jury instruction violated Smith's right to receive proper notice of charges against him and prepare a defense.
The district attorney's office will request that the state attorney general ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. |
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NM court to hear case over educator pension cuts
Legal Topics |
2013/09/09 19:15
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New Mexico's highest court is mulling whether the state can cut cost-of-living increases for retired educators to help shore up the pension system's long-term finances.
The state Supreme Court is to hear from lawyers on Wednesday in a case brought by four retirees, who say the state Constitution protects their pensions from reductions like those required under a law enacted earlier this year.
The retirees contend the law gives them a "vested property right" in their retirement benefits and they are legally entitled to the cost-of-living adjustments previously promised, which would have been 2 percent this year without the change in law.
The attorney general's office and the Educational Retirement Board, in written arguments to the court, said the Constitution includes a provision that allows pensions to be modified to preserve the solvency of a retirement plan.
However, the retirees said in their lawsuit that provision only applies to retirement benefits before an employee works long enough to become vested in a pension system.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Susana Martinez agreed on a package of pension changes this year to improve the solvency of the educational retirement program, which has a $6 billion gap between its assets and the benefits expected to be paid out in the future. |
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Custody dispute goes to Okla. Supreme Court
Legal Topics |
2013/09/04 03:29
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An Oklahoma man who is seeking custody of his Cherokee daughter has appealed a lower court decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Dusten Brown filed a writ of prohibition Friday in Oklahoma Supreme Court. The filing is appealing a decision from Nowata County District Court.
Brown for years has been fighting Matt and Melanie Capobianco of South Carolina over the custody of 3-year-old Veronica.
Veronica's birth mother put her up for adoption. Brown is Veronica's birth father and a member of the Cherokee Nation. He fought the Capobiancos' adoption of Veronica under the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Brown and the Capobiancos were in a Nowata County court Friday, but a gag order meant neither side would comment. |
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Ind. high court to hear eminent domain lawsuit
Legal Topics |
2013/08/29 16:21
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The Indiana Supreme Court has agreed to hear an eminent domain case involving land in southern Indiana that a local board claimed for a planned airport runway expansion.
The state's high court recently vacated the Indiana Court of Appeals' ruling in the case involving the action by the now-defunct Clark County Board of Aviation Commissioners. That board used eminent domain in 2009 to acquire property owned by resident Margaret Dreyer for a runway expansion at the Clark County Regional Airport.
Dreyer sued the board, alleging its appraisals of the property acquired through eminent domain were wrong. She won and was awarded a judgment of $865,000.
The News and Tribune reported Clark County became party to the case last year when Dreyer's motion was granted to have the "civil government of Clark County" pay the judgment. The Court of Appeals later upheld the verdict.
South Central Regional Airport Authority Attorney Greg Fifer said last week in an email that the Indiana Supreme Court could either reach the same verdict as the appellate court, or affirm the county's position that the judgment was void.
Authority President Tom Galligan said the panel, which replaced the now-defunct Board of Aviation Commissioners, is pleased with the court's decision to hear the case. He said the airport authority thought the original ruling "was not a very good ruling." |
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Ore. appeals court reverses sex abuse conviction
Legal Topics |
2013/08/12 22:12
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The Oregon Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction of a man found guilty of sodomy and sex abuse after it ruled a lower court erroneously allowed a previous victim of his to testify.
Prosecutors said the previous conviction was necessary to show Javier Roquez knew what he was doing was a crime. Roquez's defense team said the conviction, from 2006, should have been inadmissible because it wasn't related to the new rape case.
Roquez was accused of raping a woman with whom he was having an affair in May 2010 in the Oregon city of Irrigon. According to the original police report, Roquez and the woman were each married to other people, and their families were friends.
The woman, who lived in Kennewick, Wash., decided to call off the affair, but said Roquez threatened to tell their spouses unless she would have sex with him a last time. During intercourse, the woman said she tried to leave but Roquez refused to let her go, despite her pleas, and said the sex turned violent.
A doctor later examined her and found evidence of sexual assault. Roquez was charged with one count of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree sodomy and two counts of second-degree sexual abuse. |
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