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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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Court says Disneyland can keep Segway ban
Headline News |
2013/07/26 10:15
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A California appeals court says Disneyland Resort can keep a ban on Segways at its parks.
The Orange County Register says the court ruled last week against a woman with muscular dystrophy who sued for discrimination four years ago because she couldn't use a Segway at Disneyland.
The 4th District Court of Appeal says Disney showed that the stand-up, two-wheeled scooter was unsafe to use inside the crowded Anaheim park.
Disney has since developed its own four-wheel standing scooter for use in the park. |
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Court: Legal status can't be used in civil cases
Headline News |
2013/07/17 22:45
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A person's legal status in the country can't be used in civil cases by attorneys to intimidate or coerce under a new rule approved by the Washington Supreme Court last week.
Since 2007, advocates have been working to make the change to the Rules of Professional conduct that attorneys licensed in the state must adhere to following. The lobbying began after members of the Latino/a Bar Association of Washington had seen attorneys and, in some cases, judges discuss a person's legal status in the country openly in court to intimidate.
"We thought it was unethical to do," said Lorena Gonzalez, who was president of the attorney association at the time. "We looked at the rules there was silence on the issue."
The rule does not affect criminal cases, but does cover civil matters, such as family disputes, personal injury claims, workplace cases, medical malpractice and other fields. |
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Adoption case returns to SC from US Supreme Court
Court Watch |
2013/07/02 09:32
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The U.S. Supreme Court is pushing South Carolina courts to quickly take up a custody case that will decide whether a Native American girl's life will be with her biological father in Oklahoma or the South Carolina couple who adopted her.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that federal law doesn't require that the girl named Veronica stay with her biological father, but also doesn't give her adoptive parents immediate custody of the now 3-year-old child.
The high court issued an order Friday speeding up the case being sent back to South Carolina's Supreme Court.
Melanie and Matt Capobianco of James Island had lost in South Carolina courts before the nation's highest court ruled the Indian Child Welfare Act didn't apply because the biological father never had custody of the child and abandoned her before birth.
Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation, invoked the federal law to stop the adoption arranged by the girl's non-Indian mother when she was pregnant. The Capobiancos were was present at Veronica's birth in Oklahoma. Brown had never met his daughter and, after the mother rebuffed his marriage proposal, played no role during the pregnancy and paid no child support after Veronica was born.
But when Brown found out Veronica was going to be adopted, he objected and said the law favored the girl living with him and growing up with tribal traditions.
South Carolina courts sent Veronica back to Oklahoma at the end of 2011, even though she had lived with the Capobiancos for the first 27 months of her life. |
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