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Justice Ginsburg's future plans closely watched
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/07/05 13:12
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Democrats and liberals have a nightmare vision of the Supreme Court's future: President Barack Obama is defeated for re-election next year and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 78 the oldest justice, soon finds her health will not allow her to continue on the bench.
The new Republican president appoints Ginsburg's successor, cementing conservative domination of the court, and soon the justices roll back decisions in favor of abortion rights and affirmative action.
But Ginsburg could retire now and allow Obama to name a like-minded successor whose confirmation would be in the hands of a Democratic-controlled Senate. "She has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine law school. "On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?"
For now, Ginsburg's answer is, you don't.
There are few more indelicate questions to put to a Supreme Court justice, but Ginsburg has said gracefully, and with apparent good humor, that the president should not expect a retirement letter before 2015.
She will turn 82 that year, the same age Justice Louis Brandeis was when he left the court in 1939. Ginsburg, who is Jewish, has said she wants to emulate the court's first Jewish justice.
While declining an interview on the topic, Ginsburg pointed in a note to The Associated Press to another marker she has laid down, that she is awaiting the end of a traveling art exhibition that includes a painting that usually hangs in her office by the German emigre Josef Albers. |
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Ga. court says store can be liable for beer sale
Legal Career News |
2011/07/05 11:12
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The Georgia Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and found a convenience store can be held liable for a fatal highway accident that took place after a driver purchased a 12-pack of beer.
The court ruled 6-1 Tuesday that Exprezit! Stores 98-Georgia can be held liable for selling beer to a man named Billy Grundell, who was noticeably intoxicated when he made the purchase. His vehicle later struck a van, killing him and five other people.
The families of those injured sued, but the trial court and Georgia Court of Appeals awarded summary judgment to the store on grounds the beer was not sold for consumption on premises. The Supreme Court disagreed.
Attorneys for the store argued that clerks couldn't know Grundell would soon be driving. |
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Law school enrollment in Missouri lags as legal jobs dry up
Headline News |
2011/07/04 10:49
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Missouri law schools expect fewer students in the fall after several years of significant enrollment growth both regionally and nationally.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this week that the University of Missouri's flagship campus in Columbia has received 17 percent fewer applications this year. Applications at Washington University dropped 13.3 percent, while St. Louis University is seeing a nearly 20 percent decline.
A national group that tracks law school enrollment says that applications are down more than 10 percent overall compared to this time last year.
The economic downturn means that law school graduates can no longer count on landing lucrative jobs straight out of college. The declining interest comes one year after many schools reported record enrollment.
"The stories about the legal market have certainly dampened some people's enthusiasm," said Paul Pless, assistant dean for admissions and financial aid at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Law. Applications at Illinois are down nearly 8 percent so far this year.
Melissa Hamilton, 35, is a recent University of Missouri law school graduate still looking for a job. She's applied for a few government positions but is waiting until she passes the bar exam before making a stronger push. She's also looking into jobs where she could also use her master's degree in social work. |
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In Strauss-Kahn case, DA weighs limited options
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/07/04 06:50
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At first, prosecutors said their sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn was growing more formidable by the day. Six weeks later, they said his accuser's history of lying raised major red flags, but they weren't dropping the case, at least for now.
With the former International Monetary Fund leader freed from house arrest because the case has weakened, prosecutors aren't saying what their next move may be.
Some legal experts say prosecutors will all but have to abandon the case because of the damage to the accuser's overall credibility, even if they believe Strauss-Kahn attacked the woman, a housekeeper at a New York City hotel where he was staying. Still, at least one former high-level prosecutor thinks the case isn't doomed.
For now, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. is saying only that prosecutors will keep investigating "until we have uncovered all relevant facts."
"Sometimes the road to get to the truth has twists and turns in it, which are not always apparent at the outset," he said in a statement Sunday. "What is important is not a win or a loss, but rather to ensure the criminal justice system balances the rights of all those who come before it."
Prosecutors have a number of options, including going ahead with the current charges or reducing them.
They could try to negotiate a plea deal, though it's unclear whether Strauss-Kahn would entertain one. He has asserted his innocence, and the doubts raised about the woman's trustworthiness would likely improve his chances at a trial. While prosecutors haven't questioned her account of the alleged attack itself, they say she's been untruthful about a number of other things, including what she did right afterward. That could make potential jurors reluctant to take her word over Strauss-Kahn's. |
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Administration supports lesbian employee's case
Court Feed News |
2011/07/03 18:50
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In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration has said the federal act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.
The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit claiming the government wrongly denied health insurance coverage to her same-sex spouse.
The Justice Department says Karen Golinski's suit should not be dismissed because the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.
"The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Though the administration has previously said it will not defend the marriage act, the brief is the first court filing in which it urges the court to find the law unconstitutional, said Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. |
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Lawyer: Mladic to boycott court appearance
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/07/03 06:50
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Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic plans to boycott Monday's hearing at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, where he is scheduled to enter pleas to charges including genocide, his Serbian lawyer said.
Mladic is boycotting to demand the power to choose his own defense attorneys, lawyer Milos Saljic said.
"Mladic has decided not to attend the court session to insist on his defense team choice," Saljic told The Associated Press.
The court in the Hague, Netherlands has asked for more time to vet the list of lawyers Mladic has submitted to verify their qualifications and eligibility. Saljic said that Mladic wants him and a Russian lawyer.
Mladic was extradited to the tribunal from Serbia on May 31 after being captured following 15 years as a fugitive. He is charged with orchestrating atrocities committed by Serb forces throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted. |
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