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Chicago's lawsuit over sanctuary city threat goes to court
Legal Business |
2017/09/11 15:36
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Chicago is asking a federal judge to block President Donald Trump's administration from following through on its threat to withhold public safety grants to so-called sanctuary cities.
Attorneys for the city will be in court Monday to argue their case. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said Chicago won't "be blackmailed" into changing its values as a city welcoming of immigrants.
Trump's policy stands to withhold public safety grants unless cities agree to tougher enforcement of immigrations laws. Chicago is among several cities refusing to cooperate.
Chicago sued the U.S. Department of Justice last month, arguing the new federal requirements are unconstitutional.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has warned that Chicago would forfeit its rights to the federal funds if it insists on violating the "rule of law."
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Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg is set speak in Chicago
Legal Topics |
2017/09/11 15:36
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is scheduled to visit Chicago and speak at a university conference.
She's expected to appear at Roosevelt University downtown on Monday evening as part of a program focusing on themes of law, social justice and the American Dream. The event is a conversation between Ginsburg and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ann Claire Williams.
Ginsburg is 84 and was appointed to the nation's highest court in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton. A book about her exercise routines is expected to be released next month.
In July, Ginsburg addressed a group of lawyers and judges in Sun Valley, Idaho. Last year, she spoke at the University of Notre Dame.
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Challenge to $225M Exxon settlement to be heard in court
Areas of Focus |
2017/09/10 22:36
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Environmental groups arguing New Jersey's $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil short-changed taxpayers are getting their day in appeals court.
The Appellate Court is set to hear arguments on Monday in Trenton.
New Jersey sued Exxon Mobil for natural resources damages at sites across the state in 2004.
A New Jersey judge approved the deal between Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration and the petroleum company in 2015.
The idea was to hold the company responsible for cleaning up polluted areas, including two oil refineries in Bayonne and Linden and other sites and retail gas stations and to compensate the public for the alleged harm to groundwater and other resources.
Environmental groups say the state settled for pennies on the dollar after earlier estimating the cost at $8.9 billion.
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Abortion clinic dispute to be argued in Ohio Supreme Court
Court News |
2017/09/08 22:37
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A dispute over whether to shut down Toledo's last abortion clinic is headed to the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday, in a case both sides view as pivotal.
At issue in oral arguments will be the state health department's 2014 order shutting down Capital Care of Toledo for lack of a patient-transfer agreement, which would formally authorize the transfer of patients from the clinic to a local hospital.
Such agreements were mandated, and public hospitals barred from providing them, under restrictions Ohio lawmakers passed in 2013. The change prompted the University of Toledo Hospital, which is public, to withdraw from its transfer arrangement with Capital Care.
The clinic sued and won in the lower courts, which ruled the restrictions were unconstitutional. Judges have allowed the clinic to continue operating as the legal dispute continues.
Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine appealed to the high court last year, asking that justices uphold the state's action and shut the clinic down. In a divided vote in March, the court agreed to take up the case.
After the Republican-controlled state Legislature opted to outlaw transfer agreements with public hospitals, Capital Care went out of state, negotiating its required agreement with the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.
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Supreme Court Backs Dayton Veto of Legislature Budget
Areas of Focus |
2017/09/07 22:37
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The Minnesota Supreme Court says Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto of the Legislature’s budget was constitutional.
The ruling Friday is counter to a lower-court ruling this summer that Dayton had acted unconstitutionally, but is not the last word in the case. The high court ordered the two sides to hire a mediator, by Tuesday, to resolve the dispute outside the courts.
The months-long legal battle arose this spring when Dayton line-item vetoed lawmakers’ $130 million operating budget. Dayton says he wanted to force lawmakers to rework costly tax breaks and other measures he signed into law, but the Legislature instead sued.
The state’s highest court was tilted firmly in Dayton’s favor. He had appointed four of the six justices presiding in the case.
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Supreme Court's Kagan says Scalia death forced compromises
Legal Business |
2017/09/07 22:37
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death forced the rest of the court to learn how to work together to avoid ties, Justice Elena Kagan said during a stop Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kagan spoke for about an hour with UW Law School Dean Margaret Raymond as scores of law students, attorneys and judges listened. Raymond asked Kagan what role the high court can play in mending a politically polarized country and improving civil discourse.
Kagan acknowledged that many people see the court as mirroring the nation's political differences and the court ultimately must decide cases, not provide an example for how other governmental institutions should function. But she said Scalia's death in 2016 forced the remaining eight justices to work together more closely.
Justice Neil Gorsuch replaced Scalia earlier this year, but before he joined the court the justices worked hard to avoid 4-4 ties out of fear they'd been seen as incapable of doing their jobs, Kagan said.
"None of us wanted that to happen," she said. "It forced us to keep talking to each other. ... I'm actually hopeful that the effects of it will continue. All of us will remember not to stop the conversation too soon and all of us will remember the value of trying to find a place where we can agree or more of us can agree."
She didn't offer any specific examples of compromises on any cases. Raymond didn't ask Kagan about any cases pending before the court and Kagan didn't offer any comments about any specific issues.
She did joke that she was glad she wasn't the court's junior justice anymore now that Gorsuch is on board. She said the junior justice has to open the door during the justices' conference and deliver any coffee or files other justices have requested from their clerks. Earlier this year she had injured her foot and was in a walking boot but her colleagues still made her get up and open the door.
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EU court rejects Hungary, Slovakia appeal in refugee case
Headline Legal News |
2017/09/06 15:46
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The European Union's top court on Wednesday rejected legal action by Hungary and Slovakia to avoid accepting refugees under an EU scheme, a decision seen as a victory for countries bearing the greatest burden of Europe's migrant wave.
In a long-awaited ruling, the European Court of Justice said that it had "dismissed in its entirety the actions brought by Slovakia and Hungary."
EU countries agreed in September 2015 to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over two years, but only around 27,700 people have been moved so far. Hungary and Slovakia were seeking to have the legally binding move annulled.
Hungary and Poland have refused to take part in the scheme, while so far Slovakia has accepted only a handful of refugees from Greece.
The refugee scheme was adopted by the EU's "qualified majority" vote — around two thirds — and the ECJ held that this was appropriate, saying the EU "was not required to act unanimously" on this decision.
The court also noted that the small number of relocations so far is due to a series of factors that the EU could not really have foreseen, including "the lack of cooperation on the part of certain member states."
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said he respected the court decision, but that his government still does not like the relocation scheme, which some see as a system of quotas imposed on countries by unelected EU bureaucrats in Brussels.
"We fully respect the verdict of the European Court of Justice," Fico told reporters, adding that his country's negative stance on the relocation plan "has not changed at all."
Fico said the scheme was a temporary solution. He says he believes his country doesn't face any sanctions from the EU over its stance. EU officials say the relocation of eligible asylum-seekers in Greece and Italy will continue even after the scheme ends. |
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