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California Court Weighs Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Court Watch |
2009/03/05 22:05
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As thousands demonstrated outside, California Supreme Court justices on Thursday weighed whether voters' decision to ban same-sex marriage was a denial of fundamental rights or within what one justice called the people's "very broad powers" to amend the state constitution.
Gay rights advocates are urging the court to overturn the ban, approved in November as Proposition 8, on the grounds it was put before voters improperly, or at least prematurely. Under state law, the legislature must approve significant constitutional changes before they can go on the ballot.
Proposition 8's sponsors, represented by former Pepperdine law school dean and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, said it would be a miscarriage of justice for the court to overturn the results of a fair election.
The ballot initiative, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, changed California's constitution to trump last year's 4-3 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage. The court found that denying same-sex couples the right to wed was an unconstitutional civil rights violation. |
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Court Debates Convict's Rights to DNA Re-Testing
Court News |
2009/03/04 09:33
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Justice David Souter led the charge for the ability of convicts like William Osborne of Alaska to have the right to re-test DNA evidence. "His strongest argument or his -- his basic argument is this evidence is potentially so important that the State has no valid interest in keeping [Osborne] at least from seeing it; i.e., testing it."
But other justices weren't as comfortable with that idea. Justice Antonin Scalia was the most vocal in his opposition. He suggested such a right would allow the accused to "game the system."
A concern also shared by Justice Anthony Kennedy who told Osborne's lawyer "what you are doing is setting up a game in which it would be really unwise to have the DNA test. Take your chances. You have a -- you have a built-in -- you have a -- a built-in second chance. And that's just -- that's just not sound trial strategy, counsel, and you know that."
Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly returned to the idea that if the court were to grant the right for post-conviction DNA testing that it would then open for debate a slew of other problems.
"I'm trying to figure out what the limit of the constitutional right you're asserting is," Roberts asked. He went on to wonder if there would be re-testing rights at other stages in the trial process or even for fingerprint analysis and he questioned how long states would have to preserve DNA evidence in the name of this right.
Osborne was convicted of raping and nearing killing an Anchorage prostitute in 1993. At trial, his lawyers made the strategic decision not to seek more stringent DNA testing for fear that it would more strongly inculpate their client. Osborne is now seeking to re-test that DNA on the hope that it will lead to his freedom.
Osborne's attempts however have not also included a claim of innocence drawing the ire of a number of justices who wondered why they should confer a constitutional right on someone who doesn't even claim he is an innocent man. Today's oral arguments also drew out the fact that under Alaska law, Osborne could petition for the retesting of the DNA evidence if he does so while also claiming innocence. Something he has yet to do.
This development opens the door for the court to send the case back for further proceedings without answering the constitutional question. That potential ruling would be supported by the federal government which joined the case on behalf of Alaska.
"[T]he unusual facts of this case, which include failure to attest to actual innocence under threat of perjury, two recent confessions to the crime, and a tactical decision at trial to forego a highly discriminating....DNA test, all together make this a particularly poor candidate for recognizing a new constitutional entitlement," said Neal Katyal arguing his first case before the court as deputy solicitor general.
If the court does issue a ruling declaring a federally protected constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing it isn't clear that it would have that much of an impact because most states already have statutes in place for such testing. Alaska is one of six states that does not guarantee that right. |
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Long Beach Sues Lehman Bros. CEO and Others
Court Watch |
2009/02/27 09:47
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The City of Long Beach sued Lehman Bros. CEO Richard Fuld Jr., 12 other top Lehman officers and Ernst & Young accountants, saying they suckered the city into buying $20 million worth of 27-day short-term paper on Sept. 3, 2008, despite warning signs of Lehman's impending collapse. Fuld was paid $100 million in salary and stock grants from 2005-2007, according to the complaint.
Long Beach says its $19,963,250 investment in Lehman's short-term paper has been written down to "zero."
"Despite the fact that defendants were aware of materially adverse facts on Sept. 3, 2008, a mere two weeks before the company filed for bankruptcy, said defendants did not disclose the financial disaster that was about to decimate the company," according to the Superior Court complaint. "instead, defendants lulled the plaintiff, and the rest of the market, into a false sense of security that Lehman would survive, right up to the brink of the bankruptcy filing."
Defendants in the claim of fraud, deceit and misrepresentation are Lehman CEO and Chairman of the Board Richard S. Fuld Jr.; CFO and controller Christopher M. O'Meara; controller Erin M. Callan, who resigned in June 2008 but signed Lehman's Form 10-K for FY 2007; and directors Michael L. Ainslie, John F. Akers, Roger S. Berlind, Thomas H. Cruikshank, Marsha Johnson Evans, Sir Christopher Gent, Roland A. Hernandez, Henry Kaufman, John D. Macomber.
Ernst & Young was Lehman's auditor for FY 2005-07.
Plaintiffs are represented by Bruce Simon with Pearson Simon & Warshaw of San Francisco. |
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SEC Sued by a Stanford Financial Investor
Headline Legal News |
2009/02/26 14:39
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The Securities and Exchange Commission wrongfully froze the assets of account holders in Stanford Financial Group's Houston and Antigua institutions when it shut down the company's operations based on allegations of fraud, a Stanford investor claims in Federal Court.
J. Mark Brewster says his funds are being held for Stanford Financial by Pershing LLC, an investment firm affiliated with the Bank of New York Mellon, but the SEC prohibits Pershing from allowing him and other Stanford investors access to the $50 billion in savings Pershing is holding.
Brewster claims the SEC violated due process by to obtaining orders from a federal judge in Dallas when the courthouse was closed for President's Day "without notice to anyone and without an opportunity to be heard by anyone."
"There were no members of the public present," Brewster says. "Instead the SEC lawyers simply provided a written statement to the court to act without any 'notice or hearing.'"
They used these orders to shut down Stanford Financial's Houston offices, and to appoint Ralph Janvey, a Dallas lawyer in private practice, as receiver to manage Stanford customers' $50 billion in assets.
"The order gives absolutely no information about (Janvey) not even his address or phone number," Brewster says. "Only the SEC knows him.
"How he came to be selected by the SEC as the agency's favored take-over specialist is shrouded in mystery in violation of due process and without any transparency," Brewster states.
U.S. Marshals carried out the SEC's order to shut down Stanford Financial's offices in Houston and Antigua on Feb. 16, based on allegations that the company was running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme.
But Brewster complains, "The SEC's motion is full innuendo, bravado and hyperbole, but lacks any facts to the alleged violations by SFG or why seizure of innocent investors' accounts is warranted."
Brewster is represented by Sondra Jurica. |
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Oklahoma Employees Allowed to Keep Guns In Locked Cars
Topics in Legal News |
2009/02/23 10:04
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Oklahoma employers can't stop employees from storing guns in their locked vehicles in company parking lots, the 10th Circuit ruled. A three-judge panel reinstated laws that hold employers criminally liable for banning the storage of guns in locked cars, saying the amendments do not "materially impede or thwart" federal law.
After several employees had been fired for keeping guns in their locked vehicles, the state Legislature amended its gun laws in 2004 to hold employers criminally liable for prohibiting guns in vehicles.
A group of businesses challenged the amendments as too vague and an unconstitutional taking of company property. They also argued that the amendments violated their due process rights and were pre-empted by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).
A federal judge granted their motion for a temporary restraining order and ordered extensive briefing on the issue of pre-emption. The judge then rejected the plaintiffs' constitutional claims, but determined that the laws were pre-empted by federal law and permanently enjoined their enforcement.
On appeal, the state argued against "conflict pre-emption," saying the amendments didn't impede or block any federal laws or policies.
The federal appeals court in Denver sided with the state, saying the OSHA regulates work-related hazards, not workplace violence.
"OSHA has not indicated in any way that employers should prohibit firearms from company parking lots," Judge Baldock wrote.
The panel reversed the injunction and reinstated the amendments. |
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