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US appeals court sides with Trump in lawsuit involving hotel
Court Watch |
2019/07/07 12:52
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A federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of illegally profiting off the presidency through his luxury Washington hotel, handing Trump a significant legal victory Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the ruling of a federal judge in Maryland who said the lawsuit could move forward.
The state of Maryland and the District of Columbia sued in 2017, claiming Trump has violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by accepting profits through foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel. The case is one of three that argue the president is violating the provision, which prohibits federal officials from accepting benefits from foreign or state governments without congressional approval.
In the case before the 4th Circuit, the court found the two jurisdictions lack standing to pursue their claims against the president, and granted a petition for a rare writ of mandamus, directing U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte to dismiss the lawsuit.
Trump heralded the decision in a tweet, saying, "Word just out that I won a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt." Trump tweeted that he doesn't make money but loses "a fortune" by serving as president.
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Census, redistricting top remaining Supreme Court cases
Court Watch |
2019/06/23 11:16
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The Supreme Court enters its final week of decisions with two politically charged issues unresolved, whether to rein in political line-drawing for partisan gain and allow a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Both decisions could affect the distribution of political power for the next decade, and both also may test Chief Justice John Roberts’ professed desire to keep his court of five conservatives appointed by Republican presidents and four liberals appointed by Democrats from looking like the other, elected branches of government. Decisions that break along the court’s political and ideological divide are more likely to generate criticism of the court as yet another political institution.
In addition, the justices could say as early as Monday whether they will add to their election-year calendar a test of President Donald Trump’s effort to end an Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation. The court’s new term begins in October.
Twelve cases that were argued between November and April remain to be decided. They include disputes over: a trademark sought by the FUCT clothing line, control of a large swatch of eastern Oklahoma that once belonged to Indian tribes and when courts should defer to decisions made by executive branch agencies.
But the biggest cases by far involve the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the census and two cases in which lower courts found that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland went too far in drawing congressional districts to benefit their party at the expense of the other party’s voters.
The Supreme Court has never invalidated districts on partisan grounds, but the court has kept the door open to these claims. The court has struck down districts predominantly based on race. |
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Oregon city stops jailing poor who can't pay court debts
Court Watch |
2019/06/16 16:45
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The eastern Oregon city of Pendleton has stopped jailing people unable to pay fines, a city official said, following the settlement of a federal lawsuit contending city officials were running a debtors' prison.
The East Oregonian reports in a story on Saturday that city attorney Nancy Kerns said city court officials recently adopted new policies that ban the use of jail time for fines arising from minor violations.
"No person shall be incarcerated for the inability and lack of financial resources to pay financial obligations to the Court, including fines, costs and restitution," the policy states.
The policy also requires the city court to consider defendants' ability to pay and appoint attorneys to indigent defendants who face jail time.
Anglea Minthorn spent nearly two months in jail in 2017 for owing about $1,000.
She sued in early 2018, contending the city was violating the U.S. Constitution by incarcerating a debtor unable to pay the debt.
Minthorn's "experience is not unique," the lawsuit said. "It is a reflection of how defendants operate a modern-day debtors' prison in which people who cannot afford to pay court-imposed fines arising out of minor violations are arrested, incarcerated, and fined further."
The lawsuit described Minthorn as a low-income person with disabilities who struggled to get stable housing, medical care and food. The lawsuit said she was hospitalized for 74 days in 2016 because of stroke-like symptoms. |
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NC’s highest court hears arguments about Blackbeard flagship
Court Watch |
2019/05/15 14:00
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A lawsuit over the rights to photos and video from the wreckage of the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship is still winding its way through North Carolina courts, four years after the legal conflict began.
The New Bern Sun Journal reports the state Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday about the ownership issue. The state’s highest court will decide which lower court should hear the case next.
A Florida-based company found the wreckage of the Queen Anne’s Revenge off the North Carolina coast in 1996. Intersal contends the state breached a contract giving the company some exclusivity to images.
An Intersal attorney argued the case should be heard in Business Court, where monetary damages can be awarded. State lawyers argue the case qualifies only for administrative court, where they say it’s been settled. |
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Supreme Court says 1 state can’t be sued in another’s courts
Court Watch |
2019/05/09 14:05
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The Supreme Court decided Monday that one state cannot unwillingly be sued in the courts of another, overruling a 40-year precedent and perhaps, foreshadowing an argument over the viability of other high court decisions.
The outcome left one dissenting justice wondering “which cases the court will overrule next.”
The justices divided 5-4 to end a long-running dispute between California officials and Nevada inventor Gilbert Hyatt.
Hyatt is a former California resident who sued California’s tax agency for being too zealous in seeking back taxes from him. Hyatt won a judgment in Nevada courts.
But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court’s conservative justices that the Constitution forbids states from opening the doors of their courts to a private citizen’s lawsuit against another state. In 1979, the high court concluded otherwise.
The four liberal justices dissented, saying they would have left alone the court’s decision in Nevada v. Hall. Justice Stephen Breyer said there are good reasons to overrule an earlier case, including that it is no longer workable or a vestige of an otherwise abandoned legal doctrine.
But Breyer said that justices should otherwise adhere to the principle of stare decisis, Latin for to stand by things decided. |
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