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Indian gay activists protest top court's ruling
Headline Legal News |
2013/12/16 10:56
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Hundreds of gay rights activists gathered in India's capital and other cities across the country on Sunday to protest a decision by India's top court to uphold a law that criminalizes gay sex.
India's Supreme Court last week reversed a landmark 2009 lower court order that had decriminalized gay sex. The country's gay community is demanding that the government take immediate action to remove the colonial-era law banning same-sex relations.
About 800 protesters in New Delhi, the capital, wore black arm bands Sunday and waved rainbow-colored flags and banners. Some people wore masks and wigs to protect their identity. They said the Supreme Court's ruling had evoked anger and dismay across the country.
The activists said that they were in the process of taking legal steps to undo the court's decision and that Sunday's protest was to make their voices heard.
"It's my fundamental right to decide who I should love," said Rohan Mehta, a New Delhi-based businessman who was among the demonstrators. "I will not let the court deprive me of my rights."
The court ruled Wednesday that only lawmakers could change the law that bans gay sex and makes it punishable by up to a decade in prison.
The ruling dealt a blow to gay activists who have fought for years for the chance to live openly in India's deeply conservative society. |
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$15 SeaTac minimum wage challenged in court
Headline Legal News |
2013/12/16 10:56
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A King County Superior Court judge declined Friday to immediately rule on a challenge to the voter-approved $15 an hour minimum wage requirement for airport workers in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Judge Andrea Darvas said she'll issue a ruling with reasoning after Christmas Day but before January 1. Parties in the case had been expecting a ruling Friday.
The measure is scheduled to go into effect on January 1.
Last month voters in the city of SeaTac narrowly approved the measure, which would require a $15 minimum wage, a handful of paid sick days and other standards to around 6,000 workers at the airport and related industries, like hotels and rental car companies.
However, the legal fight over the measure is not expected to end with Darvas' ruling. An eventual appeal to the state Supreme Court could come from either side, depending on her ruling.
The challenge to the newly approved measure is being led by Alaska Airlines Group and other businesses. They say that an initiative approved by city residents doesn't have power over the airport, which is operated by the Port of Seattle. The Port of Seattle, a public entity, agrees.
Alaska Airlines Group also says state law prohibits initiatives from packaging laws. So they're arguing that the multiple requirements in the measure, such as the minimum wage and paid sick days, constitute packaging multiple laws into one initiative. |
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NY court: Reporter shielded in Colo. shooting case
Headline Legal News |
2013/12/12 13:27
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A Fox News reporter is protected by New York law from being forced to reveal her sources for a story about the suspect in the mass shooting that left 12 people dead in a suburban Denver movie theater last year, the state's top court ruled Tuesday.
The state's shield law supports refusing to recognize a Colorado court's petition for a subpoena, the New York Court of Appeals ruled, 4 to 3.
Lawyers for the suspect, James Holmes, wanted New York-based reporter Jana Winter brought to Colorado to name two law officers who told her Holmes had mailed a notebook depicting violence to a psychiatrist. They argued that the sources violated a judge's gag order, may have lied under oath about that and won't be credible as trial witnesses.
"There is a substantial likelihood that a New York reporter will be compelled to divulge the identity of a confidential source (or face a contempt sanction) if required to appear in the other jurisdiction _ a result that would offend the core protections of the shield law, a New York public policy of the highest order," the court said in overturning a mid-level appeals court's decision supporting the subpoena.
One dissenting judge said New York's law does not protect Winter because the privileged communications with her sources took place in another state.
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New Calif. court date set for ex-Nevada lawmaker
Headline Legal News |
2013/12/09 13:54
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A California court date was pushed back again for a former Las Vegas-area lawmaker jailed since a freeway chase and scuffle with police the day he was expelled last March from the Nevada Assembly.
Prosecutor Shannon Faherty said a Friday court date for Steven Brooks was reset to Jan. 10 in San Bernardino County Superior Court in Victorville at his lawyer's request.
Brooks' defense attorney, Sean O'Connor, didn't immediately respond to a message.
Brooks pleaded not guilty Aug. 6 to felony evasion, obstructing an officer and throwing a substance at a police vehicle charges and misdemeanor harming a police animal.
He's being held at the San Bernardino County Jail on $100,000 bail.
The former North Las Vegas Democrat was expelled from the Legislature March 28 as a security threat. |
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Court hears discrimination case over wedding cake
Headline Legal News |
2013/12/05 14:03
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A Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony should not be forced to violate his religious beliefs, his attorney told a judge deciding whether the cake-maker should be made to accommodate gay couples. But an attorney representing a gay couple countered Wednesday that the baker's faith doesn't give him a right to discriminate.
At issue in the complaint from David Mullins and Charlie Craig against Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver is whether religious freedom can protect a business from discrimination allegations from gay couples.
Mullins and Craig wanted to buy a cake last year, but when one of the shop owners, Jack Phillips, found out the cake was to celebrate a gay wedding, he turned the couple of away and cited his religious faith.
"(His) faith, whatever it may have to say about marriage for same-sex couples or the expressive power of a wedding cake, does not give the respondents a license to discriminate," Amanda Goad, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told an administrative judge in Colorado's Civil Rights Commission.
Phillips' attorney, Nicolle Martin, said her client shouldn't be forced to ignore his Christian faith while running the business he's had for nearly 40 years. She said Phillips feels "privileged to design and create the cakes that celebrate the joyous events of people's lives."
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