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Court sends part of Wisconsin voter ID case back to judge
Headline News |
2016/04/11 08:41
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A judge must consider whether Wisconsin's voter photo identification law applies to people who face daunting obstacles in obtaining identification, a three-judge federal appellate panel ruled Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty filed a federal lawsuit in 2011 challenging the law. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman struck the law down in April 2014, saying it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters who may lack such identification.
But a three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately reversed him and upheld the law that October, ruling Wisconsin's law is substantially similar to one in Indiana that the U.S. Supreme Court declared constitutional. The law was in effect for last week's presidential primary.
The ACLU and the national homeless center have continued to argue, however, that voters who face stiff hurdles in getting a photo ID should be allowed to vote by affidavit. They say those voters include people who can't obtain IDs because of name mismatches or other errors in birth certificates or other necessary documents; those who need a credential from another agency such as the Social Security Administration that they can't get without a state photo ID; or those who need a document that no longer exists.
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Attorney: Court ruling lets Ohio political candidates lie
U.S. Legal News |
2016/03/28 19:29
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Candidates for public office in Ohio can lie and get away with it under a recent federal court ruling that struck down a state law banning false statements in campaigns, an attorney says.
Attorney Donald Brey, who has represented Republicans in cases before the Ohio Elections Commission, told The Columbus Dispatch his clients mostly tell the truth, but can legally lie as long as they don't defame anyone.
In past elections, the commission ruled on false-advertising complaints. That changed when the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals a few weeks ago upheld the 2014 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black that found the law violated the First Amendment. The Dispatch reports no further appeal is expected.
Black wrote that "lies are bad," but with some political speech, "there is no clear way to determine whether a political statement is a lie or the truth, and we certainly do not want the government deciding what is political truth."
Phil Richter, executive director of the state Elections Commission, said he has had to turn away calls from candidates alleging false-advertising claims.
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Clinton: Americans should put Court nomination at forefront
Court Feed News |
2016/03/28 19:29
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Hillary Clinton wants voters to consider what Republican front-runner Donald Trump might do to shape the Supreme Court.
Clinton planned to use in a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday to argue that Trump could roll back the rights of individuals, further empower corporations and undo some of the nation's progress.
Clinton was campaigning in Wisconsin ahead of the state's April 5 primary and speaking Monday at the University of Wisconsin about President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.
Clinton holds a large lead among delegates against Democratic rival Bernie Sanders but is trying to stamp out the Vermont senator's momentum following his victories in five of the last six states holding contests.
Clinton's campaign said ahead of the speech that the Democratic presidential candidate would call on Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa to commit to giving Garland a hearing. Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have said that the late Justice Antonin Scalia should not be replaced until the next president picks a nominee.
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Karadzic convicted of genocide, sentenced to 40 years
Lawyer News |
2016/03/24 15:59
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A U.N. court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges Thursday and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war that left 100,000 people dead.
As he sat down after hearing his sentence, Karadzic slumped slightly in his chair, but showed little emotion.
The U.N. court found Karadzic guilty of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Europe's worst mass murder since the Holocaust.
Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said Karadzic was the only person in the Bosnian Serb leadership with the power to halt the genocide.
In a carefully planned operation, Serb forces transported Muslim men to sites around the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia and gunned them down before dumping their bodies into mass graves.
Kwon said Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, intended "that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed."
Karadzic was also held criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians and terror for overseeing the deadly 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during the war and for taking hostage U.N. peacekeepers.
However, the court acquitted Karadzic in a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.
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Court gives green light to death penalty fast-tracking
U.S. Legal News |
2016/03/23 15:59
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A federal appeals court Wednesday cleared the way for the Department of Justice to allow states to have their inmates' death penalty appeals expedited through federal court.
Legal organizations that challenged the DOJ's criteria for certifying states for the fast-track program lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The court also noted that the DOJ had not yet granted any certifications, and those certifications would be reviewed by a separate appeals court.
The decision threw out a lower court ruling that blocked the certification process.
The fast-track program would require inmates to file petitions in federal court within six months of a final ruling on their appeal in state court. They normally have a year. It would also require federal courts to act faster on the inmates' petitions.
At least one state, Arizona, has asked the DOJ to certify it for the fast-track program.
Opponents say it would force attorneys representing death penalty inmates to scramble to file appeals, possibly leading some cases to be neglected. Supporters say the program could take years off the death penalty appeals process, giving crime victims faster justice.
"This decision is important not only for the families of murder victims, but also for everyone in the United States who depends upon the rule of law and relies upon the courts to follow it," Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said in a statement. The Sacramento-based nonprofit organization advocates for swift punishment for guilty defendants and filed arguments in the case.
Marc Shapiro, an attorney for the legal organizations that sued — the San Francisco-based Habeas Corpus Resource Center and the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Arizona — said he will ask a larger 9th Circuit panel to review the ruling.
"We're living in a time where our system of capital punishment is being exposed for its critical flaws," he said. "There's a heightened need for assuring we're not sending innocent or otherwise undeserving people to the execution chamber."
To qualify for the fast-track program, a state has to require a court to appoint an attorney to represent an indigent capital inmate unless the inmate rejects the attorney or is not |
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Texas man executed for killing city code enforcement worker
Court Feed News |
2016/03/22 15:59
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A Texas man on death row for killing a worker who was on his property looking for city code violations was put to death Tuesday.
Adam Ward was given a lethal injection for shooting and killing Michael Walker, a code enforcement officer who was taking photos of junk piled outside the Ward family home in Commerce, about 65 miles northeast of Dallas.
Ward insisted the 2005 shooting was in self-defense, but the 44-year-old Walker only had a camera and a cellphone.
Ward's attorneys, both at his trial and later for his appeals, described him as delusional and mentally ill. Hours before his execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal that argued his mental illness should have disqualified him from the death penalty.
The 33-year-old Ward thanked his supporters, expressed love for his parents who did not attend the execution and said he hoped "some positive change can come from this."
But he insisted the shooting was not a capital murder case.
"This is wrong what's happening," he said. "A lot of injustice is happening in all this. I'm sorry things didn't work out. May God forgive us all."
He was given a lethal dose of pentobarbital and as it took effect, he took a deep breath followed by a smaller one. He then stopped moving.
He was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. CDT — 12 minutes after the drug started to flow into him.
Ward became the ninth convicted killer executed this year nationally and the fifth in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
In their appeal to the Supreme Court, Ward's attorneys argued the high court's ban on executing mentally impaired prisoners should be extended to include inmates like Ward who have a severe mental illness and that putting him to death would be unconstitutional because of evolving sentiment against executing the mentally ill.
The justices have ruled mentally impaired people, generally those with an IQ below 70, may not be executed. However, the court has said mentally ill prisoners may be executed if they understand they are about to be put to death and why they face the punishment. |
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