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Feds seek full court review of cigarette warnings
Court Watch |
2012/10/12 10:40
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The U.S. government is asking a federal appeals court to rehear a challenge to a Food and Drug Administration requirement that tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill people.
The Justice Department filed a petition Tuesday asking for the full court to rehear the case after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington affirmed in August a lower court ruling blocking the mandate, saying it ran afoul of the First Amendment's free speech protections. However, the court rarely grants such appeals.
Some of the nation's largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sued to block the mandate to include warnings to show the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit lighting up. They argued that the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy. The government argued the photos of dead and diseased smokers are factual. |
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High court begins new term with human rights case
Court Watch |
2012/10/06 16:04
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The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday with a high-stakes dispute between businesses and human rights groups over accountability for foreign atrocities.
The justices appeared ready to impose new limits on lawsuits brought in U.S. courts over human rights violations abroad.
The argument was the first in a term that holds the prospect for major rulings about affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights.
Meeting on the first Monday in October, as required by law, the justices entered the crowded marble courtroom for the first time since their momentous decision in late June that upheld President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
The lineup of justices was the same as in June, but the bench had a slightly different look nonetheless. Justice Antonin Scalia was without the glasses he no longer needs following cataract surgery over the summer.
Chief Justice John Roberts formally opened the term and the court turned quickly to its first argument.
The dispute involves a lawsuit filed against Royal Dutch Petroleum over claims that the oil company was complicit in abuses committed by the Nigerian government against its citizens in the oil-rich Niger Delta. |
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Court upholds summary for St. Louis police measure
Court Watch |
2012/08/22 14:08
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A Missouri appellate court has upheld the proposed ballot summary for an initiative that would end state control of the St. Louis Police Department.
The Missouri Court of Appeals' Western District ruled Tuesday that the summary is fair and sufficient. The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri had filed a lawsuit challenging the summary.
The ballot measure calls for St. Louis to oversee the city's police department instead of a state commission. Election officials reported earlier this month that supporters had submitted enough valid signatures for the measure to appear on the November statewide ballot.
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Judge won't halt Pa. voter identification law
Court Watch |
2012/08/15 10:48
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A tough new voter identification law championed by Republicans can take effect in Pennsylvania for November's presidential election, a judge ruled Wednesday, despite a torrent of criticism that it will suppress votes among President Barack Obama's supporters and make it harder for the elderly, disabled, poor and young adults to vote.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said he would not grant an injunction that would have halted the law, which requires each voter to show a valid photo ID. Opponents are expected to file an appeal within a day or two to the state Supreme Court as the Nov. 6 election looms.
"We're not done, it's not over," said Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case for the plaintiffs. "It's why they make appeals courts."
The Republican-penned law — which passed over the objections of Democrats — has ignited a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest. Plaintiffs, including a 93-year-old woman who recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, had asked Simpson to block the law from taking effect in this year's election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.
Republicans defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election. But Democrats say the law will make it harder for people who lack ID for valid reasons to vote.
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Gay marriage ban backers seek Supreme Court review
Court Watch |
2012/08/03 11:46
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Backers of California's ban on same-sex marriages asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to overrule a federal appeals court that struck down the measure as unconstitutional, a move that means the bitter, four-year court fight over Proposition 8 could soon be resolved.
Lawyers for the coalition of religious conservative groups that sponsored the voter-approved ban petitioned the Supreme Court to review the lower court's finding that the 2008 amendment to the state constitution violated the civil rights of gay and lesbian Californians. The request had been expected since a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its 2-1 decision earlier this year.
If the high court declines to take the case, it would clear the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California. Gay couples could get married in the state for several months before Proposition 8 passed, a right the measure was designed to take away. Same-sex couples still have the rights and benefits of marriage controlled by state law if they register as domestic partners.
The divided appeals court panel cited those conditions, which were unique to California at the time, as grounds for striking down the ban as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection. But it also went out of its way to state it was not saying similar bans in six other states it oversees were inherently unconstitutional.
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Tenn. court says convicted killer can keep money
Court Watch |
2012/07/20 11:50
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A Tennessee appeals court has reluctantly ruled that a Johnson City man convicted of killing his wife in a bathtub for the insurance money can keep $200,000 in life insurance proceeds.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported Wednesday that the Tennessee Court of Appeals agreed with a trial court's decision to let Dale Keith Larkin keep the life insurance proceeds he collected in a settlement with the daughter of his wife, Teresa Larkin, who was found dead in a bathtub in 2003.
"This court is not happy with the results of our decision," wrote Appellate Judge D. Michael Swiney in the opinion released last week.
Teresa Larkin's body was found by her then-11-year-old daughter, Tia Gentry, in the bathtub of the Johnson City home she shared with her stepfather, Dale Keith Larkin.
The Johnson City Police Department continued to work the case and in 2009 convinced prosecutors to have her body exhumed. A second autopsy revealed that she had suffered 21 separate injuries, including a broken sternum and bone breaks in her arms, before she was found drowned in the bathtub.
Charges were filed against Dale Larkin and in February 2011 he was convicted in her death. He is now serving a life sentence.
Gentry filed a lawsuit alleging her stepfather tricked her into a settlement in the life insurance case by claiming he was innocent in her mother's death. She also cited a Tennessee law, also known as the "slayer's statute," that bars people convicted of murder from inheriting property from the victim. |
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