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Court fines Washington state over education funding
Headline Legal News |
2015/08/14 15:37
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Washington officials are considering a special legislative session after the state Supreme Court issued daily fines a of $100,000 until lawmakers comply with a court order to improve the way the state pays for its basic education system.
Thursday's order, signed by all nine justices of the high court, ordered that the fine start immediately, and be put into a dedicated education account.
The court encouraged Gov. Jay Inslee to call a special session, saying that if the Legislature complies with the court's previous rulings for the state to deliver a plan to fully fund education, the penalties accrued during a special session would be refunded.
Inslee and legislative leaders are set to meet Monday in Seattle discuss what next steps the state should take.
"There is much that needs to be done before a special session can be called," Inslee said in a statement. "I will ask lawmakers to do that work as quickly as humanly possible so that they can step up to our constitutional and moral obligations to our children and lift the court sanctions."
The ruling was the latest development in a long-running impasse between lawmakers and justices, who in 2012 ruled that the state is failing to meet its constitutional duty to pay for the cost of basic education for its 1 million schoolchildren.
Thomas Ahearne, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the court's action "is long overdue."
"The state has known for many, many years that it's violating the constitutional rights of our public school kids," Ahearne said. "And the state has been told by the court in rulings in this case to fix it, and the state has just been dillydallying along."
The lawsuit against the state was brought by a coalition of school districts, parents, teachers and education groups — known as the McCleary case for the family named in the suit.
In its original ruling, and repeated in later follow-up rulings, the justices have told the Legislature to find a way to pay for the reforms and programs they had already adopted, including all-day kindergarten, smaller class sizes, student transportation and classroom supplies, and to fix the state's overreliance on local tax levies to pay for education. Relying heavily on local tax levies leads to big disparities in funding between school districts, experts say.
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Appeals court won't reconsider ex-Virginia governor's case
Headline Legal News |
2015/08/11 15:45
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to review the case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, letting his convictions on public corruption charges stand.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had unanimously upheld McDonnell's convictions in July. In its brief order on Tuesday, the full 15-member court said it won't reconsider that panel's ruling.
Eight judges voted against rehearing McDonnell's case, and seven others "deeming themselves disqualified, did not participate," the order said.
A jury in September found McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of doing favors for wealthy vitamin executive Jonnie Williams in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans.
The former Republican governor, once widely considered a possible running mate for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was convicted of 11 counts and was sentenced to two years in prison. His wife was sentenced to one year and one day on eight counts. Both have been free while they pursue separate appeals.
It's unclear whether Bob McDonnell will now be required to report to prison. He can still appeal his convictions to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Maine court: Anti-gay marriage group must disclose donors
Headline Legal News |
2015/08/05 15:44
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Maine's highest court on Tuesday rejected a national anti-gay marriage group's latest bid to shield the identities of the donors who contributed to its effort to defeat the state's gay marriage law in 2009.
The National Organization for Marriage had sought permission to delay submitting a campaign finance report that the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices ordered it to file last year when it fined the group $50,250 for its involvement in overturning the law supporting same-sex marriage six years ago.
But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court said Tuesday that NOM can't put off filing the report and revealing its donor list until after the court considers the group's challenge of the commission's ruling because the justices said it's unlikely that the Washington D.C.-based organization will win its appeal.
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills praised the court's decision, saying that Maine residents deserve to know who's paying to influence their elections.
"Enough is enough," Mills said in a statement. "NOM has fought for almost six years to skirt the law and to shield the names of the out-of-state donors who bank-rolled their election efforts. The time has come for them to finally comply with state law like everyone else."
After Maine's same-sex marriage law was overturned at the ballot box in 2009, it was legalized again by voters in 2012.
Maine's ethics commission ruled last year that the group broke the law by not registering as a ballot question committee and not filing campaign finance reports despite playing a central role in the 2009 referendum. The commission said the group gave nearly $2 million to Stand for Marriage Maine, the political action committee that led the repeal effort.
NOM has already paid the fine, which is thought to be the largest campaign finance penalty in state history.
But the group maintains that it followed the law, arguing that none of its donations were raised specifically for the purposes of defeating Maine's same-sex marriage law. The group, which has long fought in Maine courts to keep its donor list secret, said that revealing their identities will make people weary to contribute in the future.
Brian Brown, president of NOM, said Tuesday that he needs to discuss the decision with his lawyer to determine the group's next steps. But he said he believes that NOM is being unfairly penalized by the commission and the court because of its views on marriage.
"These are all unjust, illegitimate decisions," Brown said. "It does not bode well for the body politic when the judges and the ethics commission get to punish those they disagree with."
The supreme court acknowledged that forcing NOM to disclose their donor list will likely make the group's appeal of the commission's decision moot.
But the justices said that NOM hasn't put forward any persuasive constitutional challenges to the commission's decision or shown that the panel made any errors in reaching its conclusion, and therefore, hasn't proven that it will has a good chance of succeeding in its appeal.
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Silicon Valley company starts to take court disputes online
Headline Legal News |
2015/07/12 22:35
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Imagine working out a divorce without hiring an attorney or stepping into court or disputing the tax assessment on your home completely online.
A Silicon Valley company is starting to make both possibilities a reality with software that experts say represents the next wave of technology in which the law is turned into computer code that can solve legal battles without the need for a judge or attorney.
"We're not quite at the Google car stage in law, but there are no conceptual or technical barriers to what we're talking about," said Oliver Goodenough, director of the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School, referring to Google's self-driving car.
The computer programs, at least initially, have the ability to relieve overburdened courts of small claims cases, traffic fines and some family law matters. But Goodenough and other experts envision a future in which even more complicated disputes are resolved online, and they say San Jose, California-based Modria has gone far in developing software to realize that.
"There is a version of the future when computers get so good that we trust them to play this role in our society, and it lets us get justice to more people because it's cheaper and more transparent," said Colin Rule, Modria's co-founder.
Officials in Ohio are using Modria's software to resolve disputes over tax assessments and keep them out of court, and a New York-based arbitration association has deployed it to settle medical claims arising from certain types of car crashes.
In the Netherlands, Modria software is being used to guide people through their divorces. |
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Peterson returns to court in murder-for-hire trial
Headline Legal News |
2015/07/07 20:07
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Former suburban Chicago police sergeant Drew Peterson is due back in court as his trial on charges of plotting to kill a prosecutor approaches.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday in the southern Illinois county where Peterson is imprisoned.
He's pleaded not guilty to charges of soliciting an unidentified prison inmate to kill Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow.
Glasgow prosecuted the 2012 case in which Peterson was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the bathtub drowning death of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio eight years earlier. Her death was initially ruled an accident, but the case was re-opened after the 2007 disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife.
The Randolph County trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but has been rescheduled to start on August 28. |
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Oklahoma court to look at blocking Tulsa grand jury probe
Headline Legal News |
2015/07/03 20:13
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The Oklahoma Supreme Court said Thursday it will consider whether to stop a grand jury investigation into an embattled sheriff whose longtime friend and volunteer deputy fatally shot an unarmed man.
Attorneys for Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz want justices to toss out a lower court's decision to empanel a grand jury on July 20. The state Supreme Court late Thursday appointed a referee to hear evidence and arguments in the case on July 14.
More than 6,600 Tulsa residents petitioned for the investigation into whether Glanz neglected his duties and whether reservists who gave gifts to the sheriff were shown special treatment. Glanz's lawyers say some signatures were gathered improperly and the petition should be tossed.
District Judge Rebecca Nightingale on Tuesday rejected Glanz's claims. Terry Simonson, a spokesman for the sheriff, said Glanz is appealing to the high court because the law has been applied incorrectly.
"He has the same rights as every citizen in Oklahoma to defend the position he believes in and the right to appeal based upon that conviction," Simonson said. "That's what he did today."
The petition drive began after reserve deputy Robert Bates, 73, shot and killed Eric Harris on April 2. Harris ran from authorities during a gun-sales sting operation and Bates maintains he confused his stun gun and handgun. Bates has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter in the slaying.
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Pennsylvania court rejects law that aided NRA gun challenges
Headline Legal News |
2015/06/26 15:48
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A Pennsylvania state court on Thursday struck down a law designed to make it easier for gun owners and organizations like the National Rifle Association to challenge local firearms ordinances in court.
The Commonwealth Court said the procedure the Republican-controlled Legislature used to enact the law in the final days of last year's session violated the state constitution. The ruling came after dozens of municipalities had already repealed their gun laws.
Under the law, gun owners no longer had to show they were harmed by a local ordinance to challenge it, and it let "membership organizations" like the NRA sue on behalf of any Pennsylvania member. The law also allowed successful challengers to seek damages.
The NRA's lobbying arm had called the measure "the strongest firearms pre-emption statute in the country."
Five Democratic legislators and the cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Lancaster sued to block the law, saying it was passed improperly. The GOP defendants included House Speaker Mike Turzai and then-Gov. Tom Corbett, who lost his bid for re-election last year.
Thursday's ruling sends "a very strong message to the General Assembly that the old way of doing business just isn't acceptable anymore," said Mark McDonald, press secretary to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. "The law requires and the public expects transparency, deliberation and public debate."
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