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High court uphold WV congressional districts
Law & Politics |
2012/09/27 23:16
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld West Virginia's congressional redistricting plan against a challenge that small population variations among its three congressional districts violate the Constitution.
The justices, in an unsigned opinion, reversed a lower federal court ruling that struck down the plan because of the population differences.
The high court said the West Virginia plan easily passes muster and said the population variations are too small to trigger constitutional concerns about the principle of one person, one vote. In addition, the court said the plan adopted by the West Virginia legislature served other legitimate goals, including keeping counties intact and not pitting incumbents against each other.
"It is clear that West Virginia has carried its burden," the high court said.
The justices had previously blocked the ruling to allow the state to conduct elections under the map approved by state lawmakers.
The lower court still can consider challenges to the plan under the state Constitution.
Both the state House and Senate passed the map with bipartisan and nearly unanimous margins. The difference between the smallest and largest districts was about 4,900 people.
The Jefferson County Commission, encompassing Charles Town and Harpers Ferry, challenged the redrawing, which moved one county from one congressional district to another. |
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MacDonald goes to court in 'Fatal Vision' case
Court Feed News |
2012/09/22 23:16
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Jeffrey MacDonald, a clean-cut Green Beret and doctor convicted of killing of his pregnant wife and their two daughters, is getting another chance to try proving his innocence — more than four decades after the nation was gripped by his tales of Charles Manson-like hippies doped up on acid slaughtering his family.
The case now hinges on something that wasn't available when he was first put on trial: DNA evidence. A federal judge planned to hold a hearing Monday to consider new DNA evidence and witness testimony that MacDonald and his supporters say will finally clear him of a crime that became the basis of Joe McGinniss' best-selling book "Fatal Vision" and a made-for-TV drama.
It's the latest twist in a case that has been the subject of military and civilian courts, intense legal wrangling and shifting alliances. |
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Appeals court reverses ruling on campaign donors
U.S. Legal News |
2012/09/20 23:16
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An appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling that likely would have led to greater disclosure of who is paying for certain election ads.
In March, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Federal Election Commission overstepped its bounds in allowing groups that fund certain election ads to keep their financiers anonymous.
But Tuesday's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sent the case back to Jackson, with instructions to refer the matter to the FEC for further consideration.
At issue are electioneering communications — ads that don't expressly advocate voting for or against a candidate running for federal office. In 2007, the FEC ruled that only contributors whose donations were "made for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications" had to be identified; those who gave unrestricted money did not have to be identified. The FEC regulation came in response to a Supreme Court ruling that gave more latitude to nonprofit groups — like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and the President Barack Obama-leaning Priorities USA — on pre-election ads.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sued the FEC over the regulation, which he called a "loophole" that made the disclosure requirements meaningless. He won a summary judgment from Jackson, who was appointed by Obama. The judge ruled that "Congress spoke plainly" in passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law — and did not delegate authority to the FEC to narrow the disclosure requirement. |
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KC law firm owner faces murder, forgery charges
Attorneys News |
2012/09/14 19:14
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The owner of a Kansas City law firm was indicted Friday on first-degree murder and forgery charges, but authorities would not confirm whether it's related to the 2010 shooting death of the attorney's father.
The Jackson County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that Susan Elizabeth Van Note, 44, of the Kansas City suburb Lee's Summit, was arrested shortly after the indictment and that the charges are in connection to an investigation into a 2010 homicide in Camden County. The release does not name the homicide victim.
Van Note's father, 67-year-old accountant William Van Note, was shot in October 2010 along with his companion, Sharon Dickson, 59. Dickson died in the shooting at their Sunrise Beach home at the Lake of the Ozarks in Camden County. Van Note died four days later in a hospital in Boone County. |
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Outgoing NC Sen. Stevens resigns, joins law firm
Law Firm News |
2012/09/12 19:14
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A state senator has resigned from the North Carolina General Assembly and is joining a Raleigh law firm to help clients on economic development, regulatory and other government policy issues.
Five-term Republican Sen. Richard Stevens of Cary resigned effective last Friday, and the Smith Anderson law firm announced his hiring Monday.
Stevens already had announced in February he wasn't seeking re-election this fall. He served in the budget-adjusting session that ended in early July. Stevens is a former Wake County manager who once served as the trustee board chairman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
It's unclear whether Wake County Republican leaders will choose someone to serve out the remaining four months of Stevens' term, since there are no plans for the Legislature to reconvene this year. |
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N.Y. probing equity firms, including Bain
U.S. Legal News |
2012/09/07 23:08
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New York's attorney general is investigating tax strategies of some of the nation's largest private equity firms, including Bain Capital, founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, an official familiar with the probe said Sunday.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is examining whether the firms have abused a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe. The practice involves converting some fees collected for managing accounts into fund investments, resulting in a lower tax rate.
Some tax experts who spoke to The New York Times, which first reported the investigation Sunday, believed the strategy was potentially illegal, though other experts said it was commonplace and proper.
The Democratic attorney general sent subpoenas to more than a dozen firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, according to the official. |
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