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Some Michigan counties pause jury trials amid COVID surge
Legal Business |
2022/01/17 13:43
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Jury trials have been paused in some western Michigan counties due to a surge in coronavirus cases, court officials said Monday.
Chief Judge Mark Trusock said all jury trials in Kent County 17th Circuit Court, based in Grand Rapids, were on hold until March 7. Ottawa County Probate Court and the 20th Judicial Circuit Court, based in Grand Haven, will not summon the public to courthouses to serve as jurors until at least Feb. 1, according to a statement released by the court.
Michigan health officials said last week that the state’s record-high COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations could peak in late January or early February, and they urged the public to take steps to help control the spread.
Ottawa County court officials said their decision was made in consultation with the Ottawa County Department of Public Health. Circuit Court Administrator Susan Franklin said judges don’t want to bring large numbers of people into the courthouses given the current rates of COVID transmission.
Courts across the U.S. have paused jury trials at various points during the pandemic. The highly contagious omicron variant has prompted additional pauses in recent days, including in Indiana’s largest county and in the state’s second most-populous county.
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Appeals court: Illinois counties must end ICE contracts
Legal Business |
2022/01/14 14:06
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A federal appeals court has ruled two counties that hold immigrant detainees at local jails must terminate contracts with federal authorities starting Thursday.
Leaders in Kankakee and McHenry counties sued over an Illinois law aimed at ending immigration detention in the state by Jan. 1 and lost. But they were allowed to delay while on appeal.
In the ruling, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the counties hadn’t made their case.
“We conclude that the counties have not made a ‘strong showing’ that they are likely to succeed on the merits,” the three-judge panel concluded.
Roughly 100 detainees remain at the jails. Winding down the contracts is expected to take a few weeks.
The Illinois law has been celebrated by immigrant rights activists who say detaining people awaiting immigration hearings is inhumane and costly. They’re pushing to release detainees instead of transferring them elsewhere.
Last year, downstate Pulaski County cleared its jail of immigrant detainees. Court records show 15 were released. Dozens of others were transferred to Kansas and the two Illinois facilities.
Officials in McHenry and Kankakee counties, who didn’t return messages Thursday, have previously said they’d continue to appeal. They say the contracts are lucrative and argue that ending them simply transfers detainees further from their families.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t return a message Thursday.
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Griffis beginning 8-year term on Mississippi Supreme Court
Legal Business |
2021/12/25 14:02
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The Mississippi Supreme Court is holding a ceremony Monday for Justice Kenny Griffis to begin a new term of office.
Griffis served 16 years on the state Court of Appeals. In February 2019, then-Gov. Phil Bryant appointed him to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court.
Griffis won an election to the Supreme Court in November 2020. The court has nine justices, and Griffis holds one of two seats with a delay of more than a year between the election and the beginning of the new term.
During the ceremony Monday at the Gartin Justice Building in Jackson, Griffis will take the oath for an eight-year term.
Griffis is a Meridian native who now lives in Ridgeland. He earned accounting and law degrees from the University of Mississippi. He is an adjunct professor at the Mississippi College School of Law and the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Griffis was chief judge of the 10-member Court of Appeals when Bryant moved him to the Supreme Court.
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NC voter ID trial delayed as US Supreme Court examines case
Legal Business |
2021/12/21 14:01
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A federal trial set for January on litigation challenging North Carolina’s voter photo identification law has been delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether legislative leaders should be permitted to help defend the law in court.
The Supreme Court said last month it would consider the request of House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger to formally step in to the case and defend the 2018 law along with state government attorneys.
The lawsuit was previously scheduled to go to trial in Winston-Salem on Jan. 24. In an order issued Thursday, presiding U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs said it makes sense to delay the start to avoid further confusion over voter ID. Otherwise, a Supreme Court ruling favoring GOP legislators could require a repeal trial.
“While the court is mindful that parties have been preparing for trial, there is no reason that such preparation must go to waste,” Biggs wrote. No new starting date was set.
Berger and Moore have argued that state attorneys led by Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, have not adequately represented the state to defend the law. Biggs and the full U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals have rejected the GOP leaders’ requests.
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Georgia high court says gov naming judge was legal
Legal Business |
2021/12/16 10:59
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The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision Tuesday dismissing a challenge to the governor’s appointment of a former state senator as a superior court judge.
The ruling allows Jesse Stone to remain a judge in the Augusta Judicial Circuit. His appointment by Gov. Brian Kemp had been challenged by lawyer Maureen Floyd, who argued Kemp had waited too long to appoint him to fill a vacancy on the court.
The vacancy was created when former judge Michael Annis sent a letter to the governor in December 2019 saying he intended to resign Feb. 1, 2020. The state’s Judicial Nominating Commission on Feb. 17, 2020, submitted a list of four potential candidates to fill the seat, including Stone. Kemp appointed Stone to the seat on Feb. 22, 2021, for a term to end Dec. 31, 2022.
Floyd argued Kemp had waited too long because Annis’ term expired at the end of 2020. Senior Judge Michael Karpf ruled Kemp had not violated the state constitution’s requirement that Kemp fill the vacancy “promptly” and wrote that it did not matter that Annis’ term had run out because previous case law stated that judicial terms of office are eliminated when judges resign.
The judge also rejected Floyd’s claims that Kemp manipulated the appointment process to give Stone a longer period in office before he had to face voters.
Karpf noted Stone will face voters in a nonpartisan election next year, the same time he would have gone before voters even if Kemp had appointed him in February 2020, because state law requires at least a six-month delay before an appointed judge faces voters. Judicial elections generally take place in May, not on the November ballot that includes partisan elected officials.
The high court upheld Karpf’s ruling and noted that removing Stone would prolong the vacancy of that office.
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