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SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Kagan recalls clerking for Marshall
Attorney News |
2018/03/07 18:45
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Justice Elena Kagan recalled the moment 30 years ago when her boss looked at her "as though I must have lost my mind."
The boss was Justice Thurgood Marshall and the setting was his Supreme Court office, where Kagan was spending a year as a law clerk after graduating from Harvard Law School.
Kagan had just delivered what she deemed a clear and simple explanation for why Marshall should side against a North Dakota girl who lived 16 miles from her school and whose family could not afford the bus service to get her there. The school district wouldn't waive the fee.
The legal giant who argued for the end of segregated schools and the first African-American on the court was not going to cast a vote against a poor school girl.
The story, recounted Tuesday evening in the courtroom where Marshall worked for 24 years, was part of a warm recollection by three judges and a Harvard law professor of their time spent as Supreme Court law clerks for Marshall, whose first term on the court was 50 years ago. Marshall's widow, Cecilia, and sons Thurgood and John were in the audience.
Sarita Kadrmas, the girl who sued, was white, but that was of no consequence in Marshall's thinking, Kagan said. "His basic idea of what he was there to do was ... to ensure that people like Sarita Kadrmas got to school every morning," Kagan said.
Kagan's initial view of the case turned out to be the majority's view in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Kagan drafted Marshall's dissent and it took several versions "until he felt like I got the right level of passion and disgust," she said.
Marshall was a master storyteller and Judge Douglas Ginsburg, who sits on the federal appeals court in Washington, remembered Marshall's habit of wandering into his clerks' workspace after lunch and spinning tales for 30 to 45 minutes about his days representing black defendants in the Jim Crow South. The stories could be horrific accounts of racial injustice and also quite funny, often at the same time.
Kagan recalled how Marshall judged the fairness of death penalty trials. "I remember once he said to us that when a jury brought back a sentence of life imprisonment, that's when he absolutely knew that the guy was innocent."
All these years later, Kagan said, Marshall continues to influence her. "His voice in my head never went away in terms of trying to figure out what I was doing and why," she said.
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Court fight over, founding papers of AA to go up for auction
Legal Topics |
2018/03/07 02:45
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lawsuit disputing its ownership was settled.
Auction house Profiles in History announced Wednesday that the manuscript and manifesto is going up for auction on May 5 in Los Angeles. It is expected them to fetch between $2 million and $3 million.
The 161-page typed document with yellowing pages, considered to be nearly scripture by some AA followers, give the first outline of the group's 12-step recovery program. It is filled with handwritten notes and scribbles from the founding fathers of AA, including William Wilson, more commonly known as "Bill W."
It had been slated to be auctioned last June, but Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. disputed that Alabama resident Ken Roberts had the rights to it. Roberts bought the manuscript at auction in 2007 for $850,000.
Details of the settlement were not released, but Profiles in History said Alcoholics Anonymous had waived its rights to the manuscript.
Wilson's widow Lois owned the papers after his death in 1971, and she passed them on to her friend Barry Leach. Alcoholics Anonymous said Leach signed and notarized a letter in 1979 saying the manuscript would belong to the organization after his death. He died in 1985, but the manuscript did not make its way to Alcoholics Anonymous, which did not know about the notarized letter at the time.
Its ownership history in the ensuing years is not entirely clear until 2004, when Sotheby's auctioned it for $1.57 million. Then it sold to Roberts in 2007.
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Romania court nixes law allowing officials to own business
Attorney News |
2018/03/06 02:45
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A top Romanian court has struck down legislation that would have allowed lawmakers and other public officials to own businesses.
The Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that the legislation approved by Parliament in December wasn't constitutional.
The development came after President Klaus Iohannis wrote to the court in January, alerting it to the legislation which he said "diminished the standards of integrity" expected of officials and undermined the rule of law.
Iohannis evoked a European Union report that urged Romania to ensure that officials weren't exempt from laws on the conflict of interest and unjustified wealth.
The EU, magistrates and ordinary Romanians have publicly opposed a judicial overhaul being implemented by the left-wing ruling coalition. They say the proposals will weaken judicial independence and harm efforts to combat corruption. |
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Philippine gov't asks Supreme Court to expel chief justice
Legal Business |
2018/03/05 02:46
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The Philippine government's legal counsel asked the Supreme Court on Monday to expel the chief justice for allegedly not declaring her assets, in a new attempt to remove the nation's judicial leader.
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who President Rodrigo Duterte has long wanted to be removed, went on leave from the 15-member court last week. That move came after 13 of her colleagues, including some who have publicly criticized her, forged a consensus that she should take an indefinite leave amid an impeachment attempt against her in the House of Representatives.
The House, which is dominated by Duterte's allies, is expected to impeach her this month based on several allegations filed by a lawyer, including her failure to file her annual statements of assets and liabilities as required by law. If she's impeached, the Senate will turn itself into an impeachment court for her trial.
Sereno and her lawyers have said she could be removed only if convicted in the impeachment trial.
"They are horribly wrong," Solicitor General Jose Calida said at a news conference.
Calida filed a petition before the Supreme Court justices questioning Sereno's eligibility for her position after she allegedly failed to file the required annual statement of assets and liabilities 10 times.
"The constitution insists that a member of the judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence," Calida told reporters. "Unfortunately, for respondent Sereno, she flunked the test of integrity when she failed to file more or less 10 SALNs."
In the petition, Calida said the Judicial Bar Council, which recommends candidates for chief justice to the president, recommended Sereno for the office despite her failure to submit her asset declarations between 1986 and 2006, when she served as a professor in the College of Law at the state-run University of the Philippines.
A report to the Judicial Bar Council mistakenly reported Sereno has complete requirements, and that misled the council into including her in the final list of candidates for chief justice, the petition said.
Sereno has declared all her income and paid the corresponding taxes, her spokesman said. |
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Turkish court rejects request for Greek soldiers' release
Court Watch |
2018/03/03 02:46
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A Turkish court on Monday rejected lawyers' requests for two Greek soldiers arrested in Turkey to be released from custody.
The two were arrested last week for allegedly entering a Turkish military zone and on suspicion of attempted espionage. Greece said the two soldiers - a lieutenant and a sergeant - accidentally strayed into Turkey due to bad weather during a patrol of the Greek-Turkish border.
The development has added further tensions to already strained ties between the NATO allies.
Lawyers for the two Greek soldiers filed a demand Monday for their release at the court in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne. The court however, ruled that they must remain in custody on grounds that they did not have permanent residence in Turkey and because the court was still examining the "digital data" seized from them, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Family members of the two soldiers were able to visit them in jail Monday.
Earlier in Athens, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias renewed a demand for their swift release.
"Turkey must observe procedures prescribed by international law, and not turn a routine incident into a big political and legal issue," he said.
A river marks most of the Greek-Turkish border, while a fence runs along much of the land section. However, some parts aren't clearly marked.
Relations between neighbors Greece and Turkey have soured in recent weeks over longstanding disputes about boundaries in the Aegean Sea and natural gas drilling rights off the coast of war-divided Cyprus.
Last month, a Greek coast guard vessel was rammed by a Turkish patrol boat off disputed islets in the east Aegean, and Turkish warships prevented an exploratory gas rig from drilling near Cyprus.
Turkey meanwhile, is angered by court decisions in Greece rejecting the extradition of eight Turkish servicemen wanted by Ankara for their alleged involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. The eight deny any involvement in the failed coup, and Greek courts have ruled they would be at risk of not receiving a fair trial if returned to Turkey.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag rejected speculation that Ankara could use the Greek soldiers' arrest to secure the extradition of the eight Turkish soldiers.
"The arrest of the two soldiers in Turkey is not the subject of a swap," Bozdag said. "Neither the Greek government nor the Turkish government have made a request for a swap." |
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Court: Nike logo of Michael Jordan didn't violate copyright
Attorney News |
2018/03/01 22:57
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A U.S. appeals court says an iconic Nike logo of a leaping Michael Jordan didn't violate the copyright of an earlier photograph of the basketball star.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the logo was based on a photograph of Jordan by Nike that was inspired by a 1984 photo by Jacobus Rentmeester.
They both show Jordan leaping with his legs extended outward toward a basketball hoop with a ball above his head. But the court says the photos are unmistakably different in key elements.
Nike used its photo for the "Jumpman" logo — a silhouetted image of Jordan in the pose that the company has used to market billions of dollars of merchandise.
An email to a law firm representing Rentmeester wasn't immediately returned.
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Brazil court largely upholds law that some fear hurts Amazon
Legal Topics |
2018/03/01 22:57
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Brazil's Supreme Court has batted down challenges to key parts of a law that environmentalists say has contributed to increasing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
The 2012 law included an amnesty for illegal deforestation that occurred before July 2008, including releasing perpetrators from the obligation to replant areas in compensation. It also weakened protections for some preservation areas by expanding the sorts of activity allowed in them. It was backed by farming interests.
Wednesday's court ruling rejected most of the challenges to the law.
Brazil's non-governmental Socio-environmental Institute says researchers believe the law contributed to rising rates of Amazon deforestation starting in 2012 after years of decreases. However, the rate fell in 2017 as compared to 2016, which saw an exceptionally large swath of forest cut.
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