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New Jersey's top court: Defendant must share phone passcodes
Legal Topics |
2020/08/12 17:31
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The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled a defendant must turn over the passcodes for his two phones in response to a search warrant, opening the way for law enforcement to compel other defendants in the state to do the same.
The court's majority decision on Monday was supported by four justices with three dissenting in the case of a former Essex County sheriff’s officer who is suspected of helping a man charged with trafficking drugs, NJ Advance Media reported.
Robert Andrews was charged in 2016 for official misconduct, hindering and obstruction for passing on information about an ongoing law enforcement investigation to the suspect, who was in the same motorcycle club as him.
Andrews had appealed an order from a lower court to turn over the passcodes to his phones so authorities could execute a search warrant on phone calls and texts between the two men.
“It’s time to rethink whether you should keep anything simply private or personal on a personal electronic device because if the government wants it they can now get it,” said Charles J. Sciarra, Andrews’ attorney in a statement.
Sciarra argued, in part, that Andrews did not have to turn over the passcodes because the Fifth Amendment protected him from self-incrimination. But the court found the passcodes were not “testimonial” and noted Andrews did not challenge the search warrants, which give the state “the right to the cellphones’ purportedly incriminating contents,” the majority decision said.
Justice Jaynee LaVecchia, who authored the dissenting opinion, said the law had reached a crossroads.
“Will we allow law enforcement -- and our courts as their collaborators -- to compel a defendant to disgorge undisclosed private thoughts -- presumably memorized numbers or letters -- so that the government can obtain access to encrypted smartphones?” she wrote.
Andrews' attorney did not respond to the newspaper's questions about whether he would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or turn over his passcodes.
In October, an Oregon court of appeals ruled in a similar case that a defendant there must enter the passcode into a phone found in her purse in response to a search warrant. She entered in the wrong code twice and was ordered to be held for 30 days in jail in contempt of court.
In another case in Louisiana, the FBI said it managed to unlock a defendant's phone before an appeals court issued a decision over whether the law compels him to disclose the password to his phone in response to a search warrant. |
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Court lifts block on 4 Arkansas abortion restrictions
Legal Topics |
2020/08/08 18:33
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A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a judge's ruling that has blocked four Arkansas abortion restrictions from taking effect, including a ban on a common second trimester procedure and a fetal remains law that opponents say would effectively require a partner’s consent before a woman could get an abortion.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the 2017 preliminary injunction issued against the restrictions. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights had challenged the measures, suing on behalf of Dr. Frederick Hopkins, a Little Rock abortion provider.
The appeals panel said the case needs to be reconsidered in light of a recent decision on abortion by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The laws U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker blocked include a ban on a procedure known as dilation and evacuation, which abortion rights supporters say it is the safest and most common procedure used in second-trimester abortions. The state calls it barbaric and “dismemberment abortion,” saying it can have emotional consequences for the women who undergo it.
Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge praised the appeals court's ruling.
“Arkansas has taken a strong stance to protect the unborn from inhumane treatment,” Rutledge said in a statement. “As Arkansas’s chief legal officer, I have always advocated for the lives of unborn children and will continue to defend our state’s legal right to protect the unborn."
The 2017 decision also blocked new restrictions on the disposal of fetal tissue collected during abortions. The plaintiffs argued that it could also block access by requiring notification of a third party, such as the woman’s parents or her sexual partner, to determine what happens to the fetal remains.
The other restrictions included one that bans abortions based solely on the fetus’ sex and another that requires physicians performing abortions for patients under 14 to take certain steps to preserve embryonic or fetal tissue and notify police where the minor resides. |
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Town court in southern Nevada closes due to coronavirus
Legal Topics |
2020/07/07 17:02
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A town court in southern Nevada was closed Tuesday after officials said several workers were exposed to a person who tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The two judges in the Nye County community of Pahrump issued an order saying all staff members will be tested Wednesday for COVID-19, and no in-person hearings will be held at the courthouse.
Pahrump Justice Court will continue to conduct initial appearances, bail hearings and arraignments with detainees and attorneys appearing by telephone or video conference.
Applications for protective orders can be made by internet or at the Nye County sheriff’s office.
The court in the community about 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) west of Las Vegas also closed for several days in April after an employee tested positive and other workers were exposed to the virus.
The court order said officials anticipate reopening after staff members have tested negative.
State health officials report that more than 22,000 people have tested positive for the virus statewide and at least 537 have died.
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Supreme Court lifts ban on state aid to religious schooling
Legal Topics |
2020/07/05 22:22
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States can’t cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education, a divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
By a 5-4 vote with the conservatives in the majority, the justices upheld a Montana scholarship program that allows state tax credits for private schooling in which almost all the recipients attend religious schools.
The Montana Supreme Court had struck down the K-12 private education scholarship program that was created by the Legislature in 2015 to make donors eligible for up to $150 in state tax credits. The state court had ruled that the tax credit violated the Montana constitution’s ban on state aid to religious schools.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion that said the state ruling itself ran afoul of the religious freedom, embodied in the U.S. Constitution, of parents who want the scholarships to help pay for their children’s private education. “A state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” Roberts wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor described the ruling as “perverse.”
“Without any need or power to do so, the Court appears to require a State to reinstate a tax-credit program that the Constitution did not demand in the first place,” she said.
Parents whose children attend religious schools sued to preserve the program. The high court decision upholds families’ rights “to exercise our religion as we see fit,” said Kendra Espinoza, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit whose two daughters attend the Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell, Montana, near Glacier National Park.
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Pandemic means a silent June at the Supreme Court
Legal Topics |
2020/06/04 16:51
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It’s the time of the year when Supreme Court justices can get testy. They might have to find a new way to show it.
The court’s most fought-over decisions in its most consequential cases often come in June, with dueling majority and dissenting opinions. But when a justice is truly steamed to be on a decision’s losing side, the strongest form of protest is reading a summary of the dissent aloud in court. Dissenting justices exercise what a pair of scholars call the “nuclear option” just a handful of times a year, but when they do, they signal that behind the scenes, there’s frustration and even anger.
The coronavirus pandemic has kept the justices from their courtroom since March and forced them to change their ways in many respects. Now, in their season of weighty decisions, instead of the drama that can accompany the announcement of a majority decision and its biting dissent, the court’s opinions are being posted online without an opportunity for the justices to be heard.
University of Maryland, Baltimore County political science professor William Blake, who co-authored the article calling oral dissents the nuclear option, says a June without them would be a “missed opportunity.” They are “a chance to see the justices as exhibiting emotions,” not just the logic of their opinions, he said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said that an oral dissent “garners immediate attention.”
“It signals that, in the dissenters’ view, the court’s opinion is not just wrong, but grievously misguided,” she has said.
The act of reading can also be a signal to Congress. In a 2007 dissent Ginsburg read from the bench, she called on lawmakers to overturn her colleagues’ decision in a case about equal pay for women. Congress did, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ginsburg’s oral dissent underscored her belief that urgent action was needed, even if it wasn’t the only reason lawmakers acted. |
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Virus whistleblower tells lawmakers US lacks vaccine plan
Legal Topics |
2020/05/14 16:45
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Whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright warned on Thursday that the U.S. lacks a plan to produce and fairly distribute a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available. The nation could face “the darkest winter in modern history” unless leaders act decisively, he told a congressional panel.
Bright alleges he was ousted from a high-level scientific post after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the pandemic.
Testifying Thursday, Bright said, “We don’t have (a vaccine plan) yet, and it is a significant concern.” Asked if lawmakers should be worried, Bright responded, “absolutely.”
Bright, a vaccine expert who led a biodefense agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, said the country needs a plan to establish a supply chain for producing tens of millions of doses of a vaccine, and then allocating and distributing them fairly. He said experience so far with an antiviral drug that has been found to benefit COVID-19 patients has not given him much confidence about distribution. Hospital pharmacies have reported problems getting limited supplies.
The White House has begun what it calls “Operation Warp Speed” to quickly produce, distribute and administer a vaccine once it becomes available.
Bright testified Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Aspects of his complaint about early administration handling of the crisis were expected to be backed up by testimony from an executive of a company that manufactures respirator masks. |
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Australia’s High Court hears what may be Pell’s last appeal
Legal Topics |
2020/03/13 18:38
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The most senior Catholic to be convicted of child sex abuse took his appeal to Australia’s highest court Wednesday in potentially his last bid to clear his name.
Cardinal George Pell was sentenced a year ago to six years in prison for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral while he was the city’s archbishop in the late 1990s.
He was convicted by the unanimous verdict of a Victoria state County Court jury in December 2018 after a jury in an earlier trial was deadlocked.
A Victoria Court of Appeal rejected his appeal against his convictions in a 2-1 majority decision in August last year.
Pope Francis’ 78-year-old former finance minister is arguing before the High Court that the guilty verdicts were unreasonable and could not be supported by the whole of the evidence from more than 20 prosecution witnesses who include priests, altar servers and former choirboys.
Seven judges are hearing the case over two days.
Pell’s lawyer Bret Walker told the judges that there had been a “reversal of onus” in which Pell was expected to prove the offending didn’t happen instead of prosecutors proving the crimes were committed beyond reasonable doubt.
“That is a wrong question which sends the inquiry onto a terribly damaging wrong route,” Walker said.
Walker said the allegations that Pell had molested the two boys in a priests’ sacristy moments after a Mass could not be proved if the jury had accepted the evidence of sacristan Maxwell Potter and Monsignor Charles Portelli.
Potter had testified that the sacristy was kept locked during Masses and Portelli had given evidence that he was always with Pell while he was dressed in his archbishop’s robes. |
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