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Court tosses challenge to Virginia's 'habitual drunkard' law
Legal Business |
2018/08/09 16:25
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A federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit challenging a Virginia law that allows police to arrest and jail people designated by courts as "habitual drunkards" if they are caught with alcohol.
The unanimous ruling Thursday by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court judge who dismissed the lawsuit last year. But one of the judges criticized the law, saying it "criminalizes the otherwise legal behavior of individuals suffering from a serious illness."
The Legal Aid Justice Center argued in its lawsuit that the law is used to punish homeless alcoholics who have nowhere else to drink but in public.
Virginia's attorney general argued that the state has a legitimate interest in discouraging alcohol and drug abuse. |
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Child remains found at New Mexico compound, man due in court
Legal Business |
2018/08/08 16:25
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For months, neighbors worried about a squalid compound built along a remote New Mexico plain, saying they brought their concerns to authorities long before sheriff's officials first found 11 hungry children on the lot, and then the remains of a small boy.
Two men and three women also had been living at the compound, and were arrested following a raid Friday that came as officials searched for a missing Georgia boy with severe medical issues.
Medical examiners still must confirm whether the body found at the property in a second search on Monday is that of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, who was 3 in December when police say his father took him from his mother in Jonesboro, Georgia.
The boy's father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was among those arrested in the compound raid that has since resulted in the series of startling revelations on the outskirts of Amalia, a tiny town near the Colorado state line marked by scattered homes and sagebrush. Authorities said they found the father armed with multiple firearms, including an assault rifle.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a warrant from Georgia that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son from that state last December. He had expressed wanting to perform an exorcism on his son, the warrant said.
The group arrived in Amalia in December, with enough money to buy groceries and construction supplies, according to Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old auto mechanic who lives nearby.
He said Tuesday he helped the newcomers install solar panels after they arrived but eventually stopped visiting. |
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Weinstein pleads not guilty, released on bail
Legal Business |
2018/07/09 09:45
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Harvey Weinstein, who was previously indicted on charges involving two women, was released on bail on Monday while fighting sex crime accusations that now include a third woman.
"We fight these battles one day at a time, and today we won this round," defense attorney Ben Brafman said outside court. Brafman said during the arraignment that he expects more charges.
Weinstein pleaded not guilty after he was brought into the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was then uncuffed for the proceeding.
An updated indictment unveiled last week alleges the movie mogul-turned-#MeToo villain performed a forcible sex act on a woman in 2006. The new charges include two counts of predatory sexual assault, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison upon conviction.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the third woman, said outside court that her client will testify if the case goes to trial. She said she doubts Weinstein's lawyer would allow him to do the same because it would subject him to cross examination by prosecutors.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said the 66-year-old Weinstein is charged with "some of the most serious sexual offenses" that exist under state law.
"Mr. Weinstein maintains that all of these allegations are false and he expects to be fully vindicated," Brafman said.
More than 75 women have accused Weinstein, who was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, of wrongdoing as allegations detailed in Pulitzer Prize-winning stories last October in The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine swelled into the #MeToo movement. |
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McConnell touts Thapar for Supreme Court seat
Legal Business |
2018/07/03 09:50
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday he has touted fellow Kentuckian Amul Thapar to fill a looming vacancy on the Supreme Court, but acknowledged he has "no idea" who President Donald Trump will choose.
McConnell told reporters he has encouraged Trump to consider Thapar, and said he hopes the federal appeals court judge is "in the final group" as the president looks for a successor to retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Thapar is a former U.S. District Court judge in Kentucky. He has already been nominated once by Trump, for his current seat on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnell has been a longtime supporter of Thapar, stretching back to the judge's tenure as a federal prosecutor.
"I think he's absolutely brilliant, with the right temperament," McConnell said of Thapar. "But others have their favorites. And I have no idea who the president may choose."
Trump has said he will announce his choice on July 9. The president has promised to draw the next justice from a list of 25 prospective candidates that was first established during the 2016 presidential campaign and updated last fall, with advice from conservatives. Thapar's name has come up among possible nominees being eyed.
In a speech Saturday to a GOP gathering in Louisville, McConnell said the goal is to have a new justice in place in time for the start of the Supreme Court's next term in October. As majority leader, McConnell sets the schedule in the narrowly divided Senate.
"There's not any doubt in my mind that we'll be able to get this new nominee confirmed, and I'm confident the president is going to send up an all-star, somebody of very high quality," McConnell told reporters later.
McConnell predicted the nominee will be similar to Trump's first Supreme Court selection, Neil Gorsuch, in terms of background and philosophy on the judiciary's role. |
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Court deals major financial blow to nation's public employee unions
Legal Business |
2018/07/01 09:50
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A deeply divided Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the nation's public employee unions Wednesday that likely will result in a loss of money, members and political muscle.
After three efforts in 2012, 2014 and 2016 fell short, the court's conservative majority ruled 5-4 that unions cannot collect fees from non-members to help defray the costs of collective bargaining. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the decision, announced on the final day of the court's term, with dissents from Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
About 5 million workers could be affected by the decision overruling the court's 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education — those who pay dues or "fair-share" fees to unions in 22 states where public employees can be forced to contribute. Workers in 28 states already cannot be forced to join or pay unions.
"We recognize that the loss of payments from nonmembers may cause unions to experience unpleasant transition costs in the short term and may require unions to make adjustments in order to attract and retain members," Alito wrote. "But we must weigh these disadvantages against the considerable windfall that unions have received under Abood for the past 41 years."
From the bench, he noted that Illinois, whose Republican governor initiated the challenge, "has serious financial problems" that are exacerbated by costly union contracts. Gov. Bruce Rauner has sought to renegotiate public employee contracts.
Kagan's main dissent for the four liberal justices accused the court of "weaponizing the First Amendment in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy."
"It wanted to pick the winning side in what should be -- and until now has been -- an energetic policy debate," she wrote. "Today, that healthy -- that democratic -- debate ends. The majority has adjudged who should prevail."
Justice Neil Gorsuch cast the deciding vote against what conservative opponents have labeled a form of compelled speech. The money helps labor unions maintain political power in some of the nation's most populous states, including California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
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