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High court weighs Mich. ban on affirmative action
Press Release |
2013/10/14 13:38
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After the Supreme Court ruled a decade ago that race could be a factor in college admissions in a Michigan case, affirmative action opponents persuaded the state's voters to outlaw any consideration of race.
Now, the high court is weighing whether that change to Michigan's constitution is itself discriminatory.
It is a proposition that even the lawyer for civil rights groups in favor of affirmative action acknowledges a tough sell, at first glance.
"How can a provision that is designed to end discrimination in fact discriminate?" said Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet that is the difficult argument Rosenbaum will make on Tuesday to a court that has grown more skeptical about taking race into account in education since its Michigan decision in 2003.
A victory for Rosenbaum's side would imperil similar voter-approved initiatives that banned affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies. |
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Calif. court: Spanking with wooden spoon not abuse
Court Watch |
2013/10/11 10:34
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A state appeals court on Tuesday tossed out child abuse findings against a frustrated Northern California mother who spanked her 12-year-old daughter hard enough with a wooden spoon to cause bruising.
The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose reversed the child abuse determination made by the Santa Clara County Department of Social Services. Social workers waned to report Vernica Gonzalez to the state Department of Justice's child abuse database with a "substantiated" abuse determination. That determination was upheld by a trial court judge.
The appeals court said the spanking came close to abuse, but that social workers and the lower court judge failed to consider the family's entire circumstances.
Gonzalez and her husband testified that other forms of punishment such as groundings and taking away her phone had failed to persuade their 12-year-old daughter to do her schoolwork and avoid gang culture. The parents said that other family members had testified that spankings in the household were a rarity.
The appeals court said the mother's growing frustration with her daughter's behavior and her intention not to inflict harm in the April 2010 spanking weighed heavily in its ruling. |
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PG&E starts pipeline shutdown under court order
Court News |
2013/10/07 10:27
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Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it will comply with a judge's order and shut down a natural gas pipeline after safety issues were raised.
The utility said Sunday it believes the pipeline is safe despite an engineer's email questioning the safety of the 83-year-old line's welds. PG&E said it could take until Tuesday to safely shut down the line and seamlessly switch its customers to another line.
A judge ordered the line shut down after San Carlos city officials discovered the email and declared a "state of emergency."
The email said PG&E's records incorrectly show the line containing a newer, more reliable weld than it actually has.
PG&E said state-of-the-art tests show the line is safe and that it was shutting the line only because of the court order.
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Spanish court convicts 53 in corruption trial
Headline Legal News |
2013/10/04 13:31
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A Spanish court convicted 53 people Friday in the country's biggest-ever corruption trial, which lasted two years and centered on widespread real estate fraud and bribery in the southern jet-set resort town of Marbella.
The defendants in the trial, which ended last year, included former town hall officials, lawyers and business representatives. The judge took several months to decide on the sentences — 40 other people were acquitted and two accused died while the case was being prepared.
Under a highly complex scheme in the mid-1990s, city funds were widely misappropriated, and public officials and business representatives divvied up under-the table kickbacks for planning permissions and construction of hotels, residential complexes and urban infrastructure. Much of the money was then laundered with the help of lawyers.
Marbella, located on Spain's southern coast, was a magnet for jet set and society figures from across the world during the 1970s and 1980s.
The man who prosecutors said was the mastermind of the fraud, former Marbella urban planning adviser Juan Antonio Roca, got the biggest sentence — 11 years — for money laundering, bribery and fraud. He also was fined 240 million euros ($326 million).
Roca has been in jail since 2006 when he was first arrested as the case broke. Back then, he was considered one of the richest people in Spain with his assets including ranches, fighting bulls, thoroughbred horses, art, expensive cars and boats.
The scheme began when late Atletico Madrid soccer club owner Jesus Gil y Gil was mayor of Marbella between 1991 and 2002. Roca began working for Marbella town hall under Gil and claimed during the trial that he was just following the mayor's orders. |
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Chile top court confirms block on Barrick mine
Headline Legal News |
2013/09/30 14:48
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Chile's Supreme Court confirmed on Wednesday the suspension of Barrick Gold Corp.'s Pascua-Lama gold mine straddling the border with Argentina, but the court stopped short of ordering a re-evaluation of the environmental permit for the $8.5 billion project high in the Andes.
An indigenous community living below the mine had asked the Supreme Court to revoke Barrick's license and require the world's largest gold-mining company to prepare a new environmental impact study.
The Diaguita Indians, who accuse Barrick of contaminating their water downstream, earlier won an appellate ruling that ordered a freeze on construction of the project until the Toronto-based company builds infrastructure to prevent water pollution.
But they wanted to go further and had appealed that ruling from the court in the northern city of Copiapo in hopes of forcing Barrick to apply for a new permit that takes into account their anthropological and cultural claims to the watershed below the mine.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled the measures issued by the Copiapo Court "are sufficient to protect the constitutional guarantees that have been denounced as violated." The court also ordered "a suspension of the Pascua-Lama mining project" until environmental commitments and all works to protect the water systems are adopted.
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