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Kansas high court justices defend handling of capital cases
Legal Topics |
2016/11/01 21:49
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Four Kansas Supreme Court justices facing a campaign to oust them in the Nov. 8 election say the court has decided capital murder cases on legal and constitutional issues while avoiding politics and emotion.
Past high court rulings overturning death sentences are at the center of the effort to remove Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles and Marla Luckert. They face statewide yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on the court for another six years.
The court's critics are particularly upset about July 2014 rulings overturning death sentences for Jonathan and Reginald Carr. The two brothers had faced lethal injection for shooting four people in December 2000 after forcing them to perform sex acts and robbing them. Among other things, the court concluded that fairness required the brothers to be sentenced separately.
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Supreme Court gives new chance to 5 Arizona inmates
Court News |
2016/11/01 21:49
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The Supreme Court is ordering Arizona judges to reconsider life sentences with no chance of parole for five inmates who were convicted of murder for crimes they committed before they turned 18.
The court on Monday said the state judges did not pay sufficient attention to high court rulings that held that life sentences for young killers should be imposed only rarely.
The state courts ruled in all five Arizona cases before the Supreme Court's most recent ruling on juvenile sentences in January.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from Monday's order.
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Ted Cruz's Supreme Court remark draws White House criticism
Legal Business |
2016/10/28 23:46
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Sen. Ted Cruz's suggestion of an indefinite Supreme Court vacancy under a President Hillary Clinton raises questions about the credibility and integrity of Republicans who have said the next president should get to the choose who fills the vacancy, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday.
Earnest was asked during Thursday's White House press briefing about the Texas Republican's statement that there is a long historical precedent for a Supreme Court operating with fewer justices.
Earnest replied that the notion of opposing any nomination put forward by a Democratic president would be inconsistent with longstanding Senate tradition. He said historically that the Senate has evaluated candidates based on their merits.
"Republicans this year have deviated from that tradition by refusing to even consider Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court," Earnest said.
Cruz's comment also seemingly contradicts an earlier position he took during the GOP primary when he told CNN, "I think 2016 should be a referendum on the Supreme Court."
Sen. John McCain said earlier this month that Republicans would unite against any Supreme Court nominee that Clinton puts forward if she becomes president, though an aide later said that McCain would examine the record of anyone nominated for the high court and vote for or against that person based on their qualifications.
Obama nominated Garland in March to fill the vacancy left by the death of former Justice Antonin Scalia, but Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, declined to hold hearings as they insisted the voters choosing the next president would have the final say on the vacancy.
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Greece court cancels TV license overhaul; blow to government
Court News |
2016/10/26 23:48
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A high court has canceled a television license auction in Greece, dealing a blow to the country's left-wing government which carried out the sale as part of an anti-corruption drive.
Judges from the Council of State court ruled 14-11 late Wednesday that the auction in September was unconstitutional because the process bypassed an independent media regulator.
The ruling means the government will have to pay back money it has received from the 246 million euro ($275 million) sale. And its plans to reduce the number of national private broadcasters from seven to four will be canceled.
The auction triggered a major political spat over corruption and control of the news media.
Opposition parties accused Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras — whose left-wing Syriza party is a relative newcomer to mainstream politics — of trying to gain influence over the news media.
Tsipras had made the auction the centerpiece of his reforms. He argued it would sever a corrupt relationship between traditionally powerful political parties and industrialists who used media ownership to seek lucrative state contracts — a relationship the government said created decades of financial mismanagement and was a cause of Greece's crippling financial crisis.
In weekend speech to party members, Tsipras had promised to defend the license overhaul.
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High court steps into fight on Vanderbilts' Breakers mansion
Legal Business |
2016/10/24 23:48
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Rhode Island's highest court heard arguments Tuesday in a fight that has pitted dozens of members of the Vanderbilt family against a nonprofit that owns several Gilded Age mansions in Newport.
The nonprofit Preservation Society of Newport County wants to build a visitors center on the grounds of The Breakers, a spectacular mansion built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II.
Dozens of preservationists, as well as designer Gloria Vanderbilt and nearly four dozen Vanderbilt relatives, have said the center as planned would "permanently mar" the national historic landmark.
Two members of the Vanderbilt family attended Tuesday's arguments before the Rhode Island Supreme Court over two separate lawsuits. But the arguments involved zoning and licensing issues raised by neighbors and the city, not the family's objections and the question of whether the center would hurt the historical integrity of the site.
The Preservation Society wants to build the center to give visitors a place to buy snacks and sandwiches, use accessible restrooms and buy tickets indoors. They have argued The Breakers is a museum, and museums should be allowed to serve food.
Daniel Prentiss, a lawyer for the neighbors' group, told the Supreme Court that The Breakers is in a residential zone in "one of the most famous neighborhoods in the country." The neighborhood is packed with mansions and bordered on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and Cliff Walk.
Allowing food to be served at The Breakers, Prentiss said, could open the door to museums serving food elsewhere in the neighborhood and city.
But Preservation Society lawyer William Landry said most museums around the world allow patrons to have a glass of wine and a meal, and the Preservation Society would have to meet certain requirements for food service.
"This is no license to have McDonald's in every museum in Newport," Landry told the justices, adding that The Breakers hosts 400,000 people from all over the world every year. |
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Grassley: GOP can't stonewall a Clinton Supreme Court pick
Legal Interview |
2016/10/21 03:01
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Republicans "can't just simply stonewall" nominees to the Supreme Court even if the president making the choice is Democrat Hillary Clinton, says the GOP chairman of the Judiciary Committee in a reaffirmation of the Senate's advise-and-consent role on judicial picks.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's comments on Tuesday was a response to fellow Republican Sen. John McCain, who a day earlier vowed that Republicans would unite against any nominee Clinton puts forward if she becomes president. That unprecedented pledge raised the possibility that the Supreme Court would have to operate for four years of a Clinton term with one or more vacancies, rather than nine justices.
The court has had one vacancy for months since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. Republicans have refused to consider President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, arguing that the next president should fill the opening.
"I think we have a responsibility to very definitely vet — if you want to use the word vet — whoever nominee that person puts forward," Grassley told radio reporters in Iowa. "We have the same responsibility for (Donald) Trump. We know more the type of people Trump would nominate because he's listed 20. They fall into the category of strict constructionists. As I heard about Hillary on the last debate, the type of people she's going to appoint, I would say they're judicial activists."
He added that the new president should make the choice and "if that new president happens to be Hillary. We can't just simply stonewall."
McCain's comments came in an interview with Philadelphia talk radio host Dom Giordano to promote the candidacy of Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., one of the more vulnerable GOP incumbents as Republicans scramble to hold onto their Senate majority.
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Landowners to court: Exxon Mobil pipeline breaches contract
Headline Legal News |
2016/10/20 03:00
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Attorneys for landowners along a crude oil pipeline that ruptured in Arkansas in 2013 say Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. breached its contract because the pipeline interferes with their ability to enjoy their property.
Attorneys for the landowners and Exxon Mobil appeared Wednesday before judges from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Minnesota.
The landowners asked the appeals court to reinstate their case, which was dismissed last year, and have it re-certified as a class-action suit. Attorney Phillip Duncan says it's an issue of honoring easements.
Exxon Mobil attorney Gary Marts said the case was properly dismissed. He says landowners are essentially trying to regulate pipeline safety through a lawsuit - but that's the job of a federal agency.
The Pegasus Pipeline runs through Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Texas.
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