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Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/20 18:20
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As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school. |
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Court hearing set in White House shooting case
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/16 17:31
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A man accused of firing shots at the White House in an alleged assassination attempt of President Barack Obama is due in court.
A hearing in federal court in Washington on Friday will focus on the mental health of Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who's accused of using an assault rifle to shoot at the White House last month. The president was out of town at the time.
Acquaintances have said Ortega was acting strangely in recent months, and law enforcement officials have said he had become obsessed with Obama.
A preliminary psychiatric screening found him competent to stand trial, but federal prosecutors are asking for more extensive tests to make certain that they can proceed with the case. |
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Next ICC prosecutor warns against sex crimes
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/14 20:59
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The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court pledged Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes.
A day after her election by the 119 countries that support the tribunal, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda said too often gender crimes go unreported and unpunished and the victims are trivialized, denigrated, threatened and silenced, which enables the abuses to continue unimpeded.
In its first cases, she said, the ICC has sent the message that this is no longer acceptable and must stop.
The International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002, is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. It is a court of last resort, stepping in only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the moment, the ICC is dealing with cases from Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the recent Libyan uprising, and post-election violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast.
At present, crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution and pregnancy are alleged in some cases before the court in all of these situations except Libya, where an investigation of alleged gender-based crimes is still under way. |
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High court to review tough Arizona immigration law
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/13 18:41
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The Supreme Court stepped into the fight Monday over a tough Arizona law that requires local police to help enforce federal immigration laws — pushing the court deeper into hot, partisan issues of the 2012 election campaign.
The court's election-year docket now contains three politically charged disputes, including President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and Texas redistricting.
The debate over immigration already is shaping presidential politics, and now the court is undertaking a review of an Arizona law that has spawned a host of copycat state laws targeting illegal immigrants.
The court will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while enforcing other laws, question a person's immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally.
The case is the court's biggest foray into immigration law in decades, said Temple University law professor Peter Spiro, an expert in that area. |
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CA same-sex marriage ban gets another day in court
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/09 21:14
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The sponsors of California's gay marriage ban renewed their effort Thursday to disqualify a federal judge because of his same-sex relationship, but they met a skeptical audience in an appeals court panel.
It's the first time an American jurist's sexual orientation has been cited as grounds for overturning a court decision.
Lawyers for a coalition of religious conservative groups told a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have revealed he had a long-term male partner before he presided over a trial on the measure's constitutionality. He also should have stated whether he had any interest in getting married, the lawyers said.
Because he did not, Walker's impartiality stands in doubt and the decision he ultimately made to strike down Proposition 8 as a violation of Californians' civil rights must be reversed, said Charles Cooper, an attorney for the ban's backers. |
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Appeals court blocks cement plant pollution rule
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/09 21:14
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A federal appeals court is blocking an Environmental Protection Agency rule designed to reduce pollution at cement plants.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington agreed with cement makers that the EPA did not properly draft the rule governing storage of material used in the manufacturing process. The judges ordered the agency to rewrite the 2010 regulation and urged them to do so quickly.
Other rules affecting pollutants in the cement making process were left in place by the judges.
Congress also had been considering a challenge to the rule. More than 100 lawmakers with plants in their districts pushed the House to pass a bill Oct. 6 that would have forced the EPA to rewrite the measure and give manufacturers years to comply. |
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Political aide to former Md. governor found guilty
Headline Legal News |
2011/12/07 17:17
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A political aide to former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich was convicted Tuesday of conspiring to use election-day robocalls in an effort to suppress black voter turnout during the 2010 gubernatorial election.
Paul Schurick was found guilty of all four counts he faced, including conspiracy to influence or attempt to influence a voter's decision whether to go to the polls through the use of fraud and conspiracy to publish campaign material without an authority line. A stoic Schurick comforted his wife in the courtroom after the Baltimore jury's verdict was read, but declined to comment.
His attorney, A. Dwight Pettit, said they will appeal.
Prosecutors argued the calls that went out on the evening of Election Day to about 110,000 voters in Baltimore city and Prince George's County — two jurisdictions with high percentages of black voters — were an effort by the Republican campaign to reduce the number of black Democrats voting in heavily Democratic Maryland. |
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