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Court: Texas can use existing voting maps in 2014
Firm News/Texas |
2013/09/09 11:52
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A federal court said Friday it will not delay Texas' primary elections and ordered the state to use political maps drawn by the Legislature — but only temporarily, while the judges sort out a complex and possibly precedent-setting lawsuit.
The three-judge panel in San Antonio gave both sides in the lawsuit over Texas' voting maps reason to claim victory. The court will not draw its own map for the 2014 elections, as civil rights groups wanted, but it also did not throw out the lawsuit completely, as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott requested.
The court order, signed by all three judges, also allows the civil rights and minority groups to argue that all changes to Texas election law should be reviewed by federal authorities before they can be implemented. The Justice Department has sought to intervene in the case after a recent Supreme Court decision requiring Congress to make changes to the Voting Rights Act.
The fundamental issue of the lawsuit, filed in 2011, is whether the Legislature illegally drew political maps that intentionally diminish the voting power of minorities in Texas. Abbott's office has argued in court papers that Republicans who control the Legislature drew maps to boost the chances of their party — which is legal — and that if minorities who vote predominantly Democratic are hurt as a result, that does not constitute a civil rights violation. |
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Federal court upholds California's foie gras ban
Headline News |
2013/09/03 19:45
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A federal appeals court ruled Friday that California can keep in place its ban on the sale of foie gras.
In doing so, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals signaled that a lawsuit filed by foie gras producers seeking to invalidate the California law was on its last legs.
The appeals court said the producers of the delicacy — the fatty liver of a force-fed goose or duck — "failed to raise a serious question that they are likely to succeed on the merits" of the lawsuit. The producers wanted the appeals court to lift the ban while their lawsuit is under consideration in a Los Angeles federal court.
The three-judge appeals panel rejected the producers' arguments that the ban illegally interferes with commerce and is too vaguely worded, among other claims, indicating the court's doubts about the underlying lawsuit in the process.
The ruling upheld a lower court decision, which expressed similar skepticism about the lawsuit filed last year by Canadian and New York producers of foie gras.
Nonetheless, Marcus Henley, the operations manager of New York's Hudson Valley farm, said he and his lawyers would continue to fight the California law. Henley said lawyers would appeal Friday's ruling while continuing to argue in the Los Angeles district court for the invalidation of the California law. |
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Judge denies motions in WVU media rights laws
Headline News |
2013/08/26 23:43
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A judge has denied several motions to dismiss West Virginia Radio Corp.'s lawsuit over how West Virginia University awarded a media rights contract for sporting events.
Judge Thomas Evans on Monday rejected requests by WVU Board of Governors, the WVU Foundation and other parties to dismiss the lawsuit in Monongalia County Circuit Court. The motions were based on arguments that West Virginia Radio had failed to make a case for fraud and a violation of public procurement laws. Evans ruled these are important public policy matters and need to be heard.
The network wants Evans to stop WVU from finalizing a 12-year contract with North Carolina-based IMG College.
The judge also is hearing arguments on West Virginia Radio's motion to block the deal and reset the clock to June.
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Minn. Supreme Court sides with HIV-positive man
Headline News |
2013/08/22 15:20
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The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a prosecutor's effort to reinstate the conviction of an HIV-positive man accused of passing the virus to another man, ruling Wednesday that the statute under which he was convicted was ambiguous.
Groups supporting gay rights said the ruling affirms the need for government to respect the personal and private decisions of consenting adults regarding sexual intimacy. The prosecutor contended the case was never a civil rights issue, but rather about protecting the public from people who know they're infected but practice unprotected sex anyway.
The high court affirmed a Court of Appeals decision that reversed the attempted first-degree assault conviction of Daniel James Rick, 32, of Minneapolis, who learned he was HIV positive in 2006. He had consensual sex several times starting in early 2009 with a man identified in court papers as D.B., who tested positive that October.
A jury acquitted Rick in 2011 under the first part of a Minnesota statute that applies to cases involving sex without first informing the other person that the defendant has a communicable disease. But it convicted him under another section that the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday applies only "to the donation or exchange for value of blood, sperm, organs, or tissue and therefore does not apply to acts of sexual conduct." |
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Ala. courts seek $8.5 million to avoid layoffs
Law Firm News |
2013/08/19 13:36
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When the state government's new budget year begins on Oct. 1, Chief Justice Roy Moore says he will need assurances that the courts are going to get an extra $8.5 million in state funding or he will have to lay off 150 employees.
The governor and a legislative budget chairman say it's going to be hard to come up with that much money.
Gov. Robert Bentley said he has sympathy for the court system, but the state General Fund is tight. "I don't see $8.5 million being awarded. We'll have to see what's available," he said.
The state's $1.7 billion General Fund for the new fiscal year starting Oct. 1 is 0.4 percent larger than the current year's budget.
The budget will increase the court system's appropriation from $102.8 million this fiscal year to $108.4 million for the new year. That $5.6 million increase is second only to the $16.7 million increase given to the prison system. But Moore, who oversees the state court system, said $8.5 million more was needed to maintain court services at their current level.
To help the court system, the budget includes what legislators call a "first-priority conditional appropriation" of $8.5 million. The budget allows the governor to release extra funding to some state programs if tax collections exceed expectations. The budget requires that if the governor wants to release any extra funding, the court system has to get its $8.5 million first before any other program gets a penny extra.
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Calif. asks Supreme Court to halt inmate releases
Law Firm News |
2013/08/15 09:58
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Against growing odds, Gov. Jerry Brown formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Friday to intervene once again in California's yearslong battle with federal judges over control of the state's prison system.
The Democratic governor filed his formal appeal asking the justices to overturn a lower court decision requiring the state to reduce its prison population by nearly 10,000 inmates by the end of the year to improve conditions.
The appeal came the same day as the U.S. Justice Department indicated that it may intervene in an ongoing lawsuit over California's treatment of inmates with severe mental illness, and as a lower federal court dumped cold water on the administration's plan to transfer more inmates to private prisons in other states.
Brown filed the appeal just a week after the Supreme Court soundly rejected the state's request to postpone the lower court's requirement that California reduce what once was the nation's largest correctional system to hold no more than 110,000 inmates in its major prisons.
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