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Supreme Court says Manchester property tax data private
Court Watch |
2011/12/24 16:10
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The Vermont Supreme Court says information used by towns to calculate adjustments to residents' property taxes should remain private.
In an entry order published Friday, the court reversed a Bennington County Superior Court ruling that said the town of Manchester should provide the tax information to someone who requested it.
The issue involves the amount Vermont property tax payers may have deducted from their bills based on their income, school property tax burden and if they to use a portion of their tax refund to reduce property taxes.
The state Department of Taxes calculates that amount and sends it to towns to reduce a property owner's taxes.
The Supreme Court says the law governing the deductions is covered by the state's privacy laws. Property tax bills are, however, public.
The court decision is posted on the town website, http://www.manchester-vt.gov/ |
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Egypt court orders prominent blogger freed
Politics |
2011/12/23 16:11
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An Egyptian investigative judge ordered the release Sunday of a prominent blogger detained nearly two months ago by the ruling military, which had accused him of attacking soldiers during deadly clashes in October.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah's father, Ahmed Seif, told The Associated Press his son would remain in custody for several more hours until the paperwork has been completed. He said his son has been banned from travel abroad.
Abdel-Fattah's sister, activist Mona Seif, told the AP her brother was on his way to the Egyptian capital's security headquarters where he would be freed later in the day.
Military prosecutors detained Abdel-Fattah on Oct. 30 after he refused to answer questions about their allegations that he played a role in the clashes.
The violence on Oct. 9 began when groups of stone-throwers attacked a crowd of Coptic Christians protesting an attack on a church in southern Egypt. TV footage showed the military moving in with force, including using armored vehicles to run over the crowds. |
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Pa.'s rhyming justice pens insurance fraud opinion
Headline News |
2011/12/22 10:27
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A state Supreme Court justice known for opinions written in rhyme has done it again, producing six pages of verse Thursday in the case of whether the maker of a forged check also had committed insurance fraud.
Justice J. Michael Eakin, writing for a 4-2 majority, concluded in six-line stanzas that a man's attempt to deposit a forged check appearing to be from State Farm didn't constitute insurance fraud.
Sentenced on the other crimes, he surely won't go free, but we find he can't be guilty of this final felony, Eakin wrote. Convictions for the forgery and theft are approbated -- the sentence for insurance fraud, however, is vacated. The case must be remanded for resentencing, we find, so the trial judge may impose the result he originally had in mind.
A dissenting three-page opinion by Justice Thomas G. Saylor didn't rhyme.
Eakin was first elected to the high court in 2001 after earning a reputation as the rhyming judge by issuing some opinions entirely in verse while sitting on an intermediate state appellate court in the late 1990s. Two former state Supreme Court justices, Stephen A. Zappala and the late Ralph J. Cappy, had expressed concern in the past that the practice could reflect poorly on the court. |
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Court backs stripping Chinese tire import duties
Headline News |
2011/12/21 10:37
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An appeals court has ruled that Chinese-made goods shouldn't be subject to certain kinds of import duties imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington upheld a ruling Monday that the duties, called countervailing duties, can't be applied to Chinese-made goods because it doesn't have a market economy. Chinese goods are still subject to anti-dumping duties.
Chinese tire makers GRX International Tire Corp., Hebei Starbright Tire Co. and Tianjin United Tire amp; Rubber International had challenged the imposition of countervailing duties.
Countervailing duties are intended to tax items whose sale price when exported is subsidized by a company's home government.
The Commerce Department sought to impose the duties in 2007. The court ruled that congressional moves in 1988 and 1994 barred them. |
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Mentally disabled detainees granted class status
Court Watch |
2011/12/21 10:36
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A federal judge has granted class-action status to a case brought on behalf of mentally disabled detainees who lack legal representation in immigration court.
The order issued under seal in November by U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee was made public Monday. The case involves detainees in California, Washington and Arizona who have been deemed mentally incompetent to represent themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant advocates want the federal government to appoint lawyers to represent mentally disabled detainees. Advocates brought the case last year on behalf of two men who had been detained for years. Immigrants are not required to use attorneys in deportation proceedings and attorneys are not provided free-of-charge in immigration court. |
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Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
Lawyer News |
2011/12/20 10:20
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As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job, Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed radical rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts grotesquely dictatorial. He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school. |
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