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Agency: School boards, counties should stay out of court
Headline Legal News |
2018/03/26 12:27
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School districts across North Carolina will present fall funding requests in the coming weeks, with the threat of costly and lengthy litigation if local county commissioners can't see eye-to-eye with school board members on spending.
The General Assembly's government watchdog agency told legislators Monday they should pass a law barring school districts from suing when funding disagreements can't be settled through formal mediation.
The Program Evaluation Division recommended the new law instead direct a county fund a district when mediation is exhausted through a formula based on student membership and inflation.
Some committee members hearing the agency report questioned whether it was worth changing the law since school funding impasses reached the courts just four times between 1997 and 2015. It took 21 months on average to resolve them. |
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California court body has paid $500K to settle sex claims
Legal Business |
2018/03/24 12:27
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California court body has paid $500K to settle sex claims
The policymaking body for California's courts says it has paid more than $500,000 in taxpayer funds since 2011 to settle five complaints of sexual harassment against judges and court employees.
The Judicial Council released the figures on Friday. They were first reported by the legal publication, the Recorder.
The council said three of the complaints were against judges and two were against court employees.
The council said it has paid another roughly $80,000 since 2010 to investigate sexual harassment allegations against five judicial officers.
It did not disclose any names or details of the individual cases.
The Judicial Council's figures come as California's Legislature has been embroiled in sexual misconduct scandals that have brought down several lawmakers.
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Utah teen appears in court in school backpack bomb case
Court News |
2018/03/23 12:27
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A 16-year-old is facing attempted murder and other charges after prosecutors say he tried to ignite an explosive device in a backpack at his southern Utah high school.
The teen also was charged Monday in juvenile court in St. George with misdemeanor graffiti and abuse of a flag for allegedly cutting up an American flag and spray-painting words including "ISIS" on a wall at a different high school in nearby Hurricane.
The FBI determined the group was not involved. The Deseret News reports the boy remains in juvenile detention pending another court appearance. No explosion resulted and no one was hurt March 5 after the backpack was found emitting smoke in a common area of Pine View High School.
Charging documents say the boy told police that if someone got hurt, he probably wouldn't care. |
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Arkansas wants court to dissolve stay for death row prisoner
Topics in Legal News |
2018/03/20 12:26
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Lawyers for the state of Arkansas argued Friday that the state prison director has long had the power to determine a death row inmate's sanity and that now isn't the time to change the way it moves the prisoners closer to their executions.
The arguments came in the case of Jack Greene, whose November execution was halted by the Arkansas Supreme Court so it could review his attorneys' arguments that the state correction director, Wendy Kelley, should not be deciding whether he is competent enough to be executed.
Greene's lawyers say doctors have found Greene delusional but Kelley has chosen to rely on outdated assessments of Greene's mental health in determining whether he's eligible to be executed. Greene's lawyers also have argued that Kelley shouldn't be making the determination because her boss, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, sets execution dates.
In papers filed at the state Supreme Court on Friday, assistant attorney general Kathryn Henry wrote that states are entitled to set the guidelines for review, as long as there is a "basic fairness." She also claims that, under the Arkansas Constitution, Greene cannot sue Kelley.
While previous court decisions didn't define "basic fairness," the presumption is that an inmate who is sane at his trial is sane until his execution, Henry wrote. "Only after 'a substantial threshold showing of insanity'" can an inmate win a review — and that review can be "far less formal than a trial," she wrote.
Against his lawyers' advice, Greene has insisted in a number of venues that he is not insane. State lawyers say that is reason enough for justices to dissolve the stay that was issued shortly before Greene's scheduled execution last Nov. 9.
A week before the execution date, a circuit judge said she couldn't hold a hearing on Greene's competence because, under state law, Kelley had the "exclusive authority" to determine whether the inmate was sane enough to be executed. The Arkansas Supreme Court later voted 5-2 to issue a stay and take Greene's case for review, rejecting state arguments.
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Randle, an enforcer on the court, is a gentle giant elsewhere
Court News |
2018/03/18 12:26
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Nick Young and Jordan Clarkson were not scheduled to speak at Julius Randle’s wedding. It was an elegant affair, bathed in white roses to celebrate a love that began almost instantly when Randle met Kendra Shaw at a friend’s party in college.
The friend who introduced them spoke at the reception. A coach who grew to be like a brother to Randle spoke. So did some childhood friends.
Then Young and Clarkson, lubricated by wedding wine and the firm belief that the wedding guests expected their shenanigans, got an idea. They loved Randle. The people needed to hear them, they presumed. Together, they took the microphone.
Clarkson, then Randle’s teammate with the Lakers, declared he couldn’t stand Randle when they first met. Randle’s punishing style of play in high school irked Clarkson’s friends who played against him back in Texas. Just as Randle’s mother reared up to protect her sweet baby boy, Clarkson finished, saying as he got to know Randle as part of the same Lakers rookie class in 2014, he learned Randle would do anything for his friends and loved ones.
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