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Court blocks Ala. from checking student status
Headline News |
2011/10/17 09:34
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Armando Cardenas says he has thought about leaving Alabama because of the possibility of being arrested as an illegal immigrant and the hostility he feels from residents.
But now that a federal appeals court has sided with the Obama administration and dealt a blow to the state's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, Cardenas said he will stay for at least a while longer.
It's not easy to leave everything you have worked so hard for, Cardenas said after the appeals court blocked public schools from checking the immigration status of students.
The decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said police can't charge immigrants who are unable to prove their citizenship, but it let some parts of the law stand, giving supporters a partial victory. The decision was only temporary and a final ruling isn't expected for months, after judges can review more arguments.
Unlike in other states where immigration crackdowns have been challenged in the courts, Alabama's law was left largely in effect for about three weeks, long enough to frighten Hispanics and drive them away from the state. Construction businesses said Hispanic workers had quit showing up for jobs and schools reported that Latino students stopped coming to classes. |
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High court to rule on Stolen Valor Act
Headline News |
2011/10/15 09:34
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The Supreme Court will decide whether a law making it a crime to lie about having received military medals is constitutional.
The justices said Monday they will consider the validity of the Stolen Valor Act, which passed Congress with overwhelming support in 2006. The federal appeals court in California struck down the law on free speech grounds and appeals courts in Colorado, Georgia and Missouri are considering similar cases.
The Obama administration is arguing that the law is reasonable because it only applies to instances in which the speaker intends to portray himself as a medal recipient. Previous high court rulings also have limited First Amendment protection for false statements.
The court almost always reviews lower court rulings that hold federal laws unconstitutional.
The case concerns the government's prosecution of Xavier Alvarez of Pomona, Calif. A member of the local water district board, Alvarez said at a public meeting in 2007 that he was a retired Marine who received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration. In fact, he had never served in the military. |
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Court mulls trial in absentia for Hariri case
Topics |
2011/10/15 09:34
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A panel of judges at a U.N.-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will consider whether to stage a trial in absentia for four Hezbollah members accused in the slaying.
The suspects were indicted earlier this year, but Hezbollah has refused to arrest them and send them for trial in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's purpose-built courtroom.
The court said in a statement Monday that a pretrial judge preparing the case has asked trial judges to determine whether proceedings in absentia should be initiated against the four men.
Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah denies involvement in the Feb. 14, 2005, truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others, including the suicide bomber, in Beirut. |
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NY motorist pleads not guilty in fatal Amish crash
Court Watch |
2011/10/14 09:26
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A motorist arrested after a wreck that killed six Amish farmers in rural upstate New York pleaded not guilty Friday to aggravated vehicular homicide and manslaughter charges.
Steven Eldridge entered his plea in Penn Yan, his hometown in the Finger Lakes region. The former garbage collector didn't speak during his arraignment in Yates County Court.
The 42-year-old Eldridge also was arraigned on a charge of driving while impaired by drugs, a misdemeanor.
No relatives of the victims or the seven Amish injured in the crash appeared during Eldridge's 15-minute court appearance.
Authorities said his car sideswiped a van carrying 13 Amish farmers from neighboring Steuben County on a Finger Lakes tour on July 19. The Amish van careened into a slow-moving tractor traveling a country road in Benton, 45 miles southeast of Rochester.
Five farmers were killed, and a sixth later died of her injuries.
Police say Eldridge was driving in the town of Benton when he passed the tractor on a curve and ran into a van carrying 15 people, 13 of them Amish who were visiting local farms. Rescuers struggled for hours to free victims from the wreckage lodged under the tractor. |
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SEC backs ban on banks trading for own profit
Law Firm News |
2011/10/14 09:26
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The Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday backed a proposal to bar banks from trading for their own profit instead of their clients.
The SEC voted 4-0 to send the ban on so-called proprietary trading out for public comment. The rule was required under the financial regulatory overhaul.
Critics on the left have dismissed the effort as weak and marred by loopholes. Banks argued it would hurt the economy.
The SEC is the third federal regulator to support the proposal, called the Volcker Rule after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. On Tuesday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve both backed it.
For years, banks bet on risky investments with their own money. But when those bets go bad and banks fail, taxpayers may have to bail them out. That happened during the 2008 financial crisis.
Under the proposal, banks must hold investments for more than 60 days and bank managers must make sure employees comply with restrictions.
The public has until Jan. 13 to comment on the rule, which is expected to take effect by July after a final vote by all the regulators. Banks would have until July 2014 to comply.
Critics on the left contend that the rule as written is too vague and its effect on risk-taking will be limited. Banks have a history of working around rules and exploiting loopholes. In this case, banks can make most trades simply by arguing that the trade offsets another risk that the bank bet on. |
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No class-action status in Countrywide case
Court Watch |
2011/10/14 09:26
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A federal judge in Kentucky has rejected class-action status in a lawsuit accusing Countrywide Bank of charging African-American and Hispanic borrowers more for home loans than Caucasian borrowers.
U.S. District Judge John Heyburn II on Thursday ruled that Countrywide's policy put a great deal of discretion in the hands of individual loan officers, leaving too many variables at play to conclude that even unconscious discriminatory motive or thought similarly animated thousands of mortgage rate decisions.
However, the idea that thousands of loan officers in hundreds of separate locations around the country would exercise their discretion in a similarly discriminatory fashion as to each purported class member defies belief, Heyburn wrote. Whether an individual loan officer or a single office did so, might be a different question.
A dozen people sued Countrywide, which is now owned by Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, in 2008, claiming they and others were treated differently from other customers looking for a home loan between 2005 and 2007. |
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