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High court strikes down Ariz. campaign finance law
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/06/27 17:17
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The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a provision of a campaign financing system in Arizona that gives extra cash to publicly funded candidates who face privately funded rivals and independent groups.
The 5-4 ruling is the latest in a series of decisions by the court's conservative majority upending campaign finance laws.
The Arizona law was passed in the wake of a public corruption scandal and was intended to reward candidates who forgo raising campaign cash, even in the face of opponents' heavy spending fueled by private money.
The court said the law violates the First Amendment.
"Laws like Arizona's matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand," Chief Justice John Roberts said in the court's majority opinion.
At least four other states, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have similar "trigger" provisions that affect some political races, and could be vulnerable.
Justice Elena Kagan read her dissent aloud in court Monday, saying the law was a reasonable response to political scandal. She said that by providing candidates with additional money, the law actually provided for more, not less, political speech.
Arizonans "passed a law designed to sever political candidates' dependence on large contributors," Kagan said. "It put into effect a public financing system that attracted large numbers of candidates at a sustainable cost to the state's taxpayers."
This case follows other recent rulings striking down campaign finance laws. Among those were last year's Citizens United decision that removed most limits on election spending by corporations and organized labor, and a 2008 decision that voided the federal "millionaire's amendment" to increase contribution limits for congressional candidates facing wealthy opponents. |
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Supreme Court to review warrantless GPS tracking
Court Feed News |
2011/06/27 16:17
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The Supreme Court will weigh in on an important privacy issue for the digital age: whether the police need a warrant before using a global positioning system device to track a suspect's movements.
The justices said Monday they will hear the Obama administration's appeal of a court ruling that favored a criminal defendant. The federal appeals court in Washington overturned a criminal conviction because the police had no warrant for the GPS device they secretly installed on a man's car.
Other appeals courts have ruled that search warrants aren't necessary for GPS tracking.
The Justice Department argued that warrantless use of GPS devices does not violate the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. It also said prompt resolution of the divergent court opinions is critically important to law enforcement.
A three-judge panel of Democratic and Republican appointees unanimously threw out the conviction and life sentence of Antoine Jones of Washington, D.C., a nightclub owner convicted of operating a cocaine distribution ring.
Police put the GPS device on Jones' Jeep and tracked his movements for a month. The judges said the prolonged surveillance was a factor in their decision. |
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Court: Calif. Can't Ban Violent Video Game Sales
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/06/27 15:18
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The high court agreed Monday with a federal court's decision to throw out California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento said the law violated minors' rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments.
The law would have prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18. Retailers who violated the act would have been fined up to $1,000 for each infraction.
The court on a 7-2 vote said the law was unconstitutional. More than 46 million American households have at least one video-game system, with the industry bringing in at least $18 billion in 2010. |
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Court docs say Clayton Co. daycare worker lied about child death
Court Feed News |
2011/06/26 21:06
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Court documents indicate a Clayton County day care operator and a staffer falsified records involving the death of 2-year-old Jazmin Green.
Green died Monday after being left in a hot van outside Marlo's Magnificent Early Learning Center in Jonesboro after a field trip.
An affidavit obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says a checklist certifying that all children had been removed from the van was filled out before the van arrived at the center.
The affidavit was filed in connection with the arrests of center administrator Marlo Fallings, her daughter Quantabia Hopkins and a juvenile assistant.
It suggests that an hour or more elapsed between when center personnel realized that Jazmin was missing and when they phoned 911.
The women's attorney, Bruce Harvey, denied that Fallings and Hopkins falsified documents. |
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Conservatives limit consumer, rights lawsuits
Legal Career News |
2011/06/26 21:02
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The Supreme Court's conservative majority made it harder for people to band together to sue the nation's largest businesses in the two most far-reaching rulings of the term the justices are wrapping up on Monday. The two cases putting new limits on class-action lawsuits were among more than a dozen in which the justices divided 5-4 along familiar ideological lines, with the winning side determined by the vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Women made up one-third of the nine-member court for the first time ever this year, but missing from the court's docket was a case that could be called historic. Next year and 2013 could look very different, with potentially divisive and consequential cases on immigration, gay marriage and health care making their way to the high court. The makeup of the court, however, is not expected to change. Chief Justice John Roberts said the court would finish its business on Monday when the justices will announce decisions in four remaining cases, including two First Amendment disputes. In one, video game makers are leading a challenge to a California law that bars the sale or rental of violent video games to children. The case was argued nearly eight months ago, when it appeared a majority of the court was inclined to strike down the law. |
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Conservatives limit consumer, rights lawsuits
Headline News |
2011/06/26 17:06
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The Supreme Court's conservative majority made it harder for people to band together to sue the nation's largest businesses in the two most far-reaching rulings of the term the justices are wrapping up on Monday.
The two cases putting new limits on class-action lawsuits were among more than a dozen in which the justices divided 5-4 along familiar ideological lines, with the winning side determined by the vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Women made up one-third of the nine-member court for the first time ever this year, but missing from the court's docket was a case that could be called historic.
Next year and 2013 could look very different, with potentially divisive and consequential cases on immigration, gay marriage and health care making their way to the high court. |
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