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Court rules for AT&T in dispute with Internet firm
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/25 19:04
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for AT&T in the company's antitrust dispute with an Internet service provider over prices for high speed Internet access.
The court reversed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The San Francisco-based appeals court had ruled the telecom company was setting its wholesale prices so high that an Internet service provider could not compete with the low prices AT&T charged in the retail market.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, LinkLine Communications Inc., buys access to AT&T's transmission lines. Linkline then competes with AT&T in selling high-speed Internet access. "Under these circumstances, AT&T was not required to offer this service at the wholesale prices the plaintiff would have preferred," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. Roberts was joined in his opinion by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito. Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter concurred only with the judgment. The ruling does not end the case. The justices sent the case back to a trial judge, who can decide whether AT&T was charging too little for its product in hopes of running its competitors out of business. The case is Pacific Bell Telephone Co. d/b/a AT&T California v. LinkLine Communications Inc., 07-512. |
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Court finds Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/25 19:03
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An international tribunal found three Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty of crimes against humanity.
The court found all three guilty of forced marriage, marking the first time the charge has been handed down in an international tribunal.
Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon, two top leaders of the Revolutionary United Front, were found guilty on 16 of 18 counts. They include sexual slavery, forced marriage, amputation, murder and the enlistment of child soldiers. Augustine Gbao, a battlefield commander, was found guilty on 14 of the 18 counts. The convictions mark the end of the Special Court that was set up after the country's disastrous civil war. The rebels were infamous for amputating the arms of victims, as dramatized in the film "Blood Diamond." |
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Court rules for Utah city in religious marker case
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/25 19:03
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The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a small religious group cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display.
In a case involving the Salt Lake City-based Summum, the court said that governments can decide what to display in a public park without running afoul of the First Amendment.
Pleasant Grove City, Utah, rejected the group's marker, prompting a federal lawsuit that argued that a city can't allow some private donations of displays in its public park and reject others. The federal appeals court in Denver agreed. In his opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito distinguished the Summum's case from efforts to prevent groups from speaking in public parks, which ordinarily would violate the First Amendment's free speech guarantee. Alito said "the display of a permanent monument in a public park" requires a different analysis. Because monuments in public parks help define a city's identity, "cities and other jurisdictions take some care in accepting donated monuments," he said. |
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Court will rule in dispute over 8-foot cross
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/24 18:03
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The Supreme Court agreed Monday to step into a long-running legal fight over an 8-foot cross that stands as a war memorial in the vast Mojave National Preserve in California.
The justices said that in court arguments set for this fall, they will consider throwing out an appeals court ruling that ordered the cross be torn down.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a former National Park Service employee have been challenging the cross' continued presence on national parkland for nearly eight years. A cross has stood on the site since 1934, when a local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars erected it atop an outcropping known as Sunrise Rock. Congress has transferred ownership of the land on which it sits to a private party. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals twice said the cross must come down. It invalidated the 2004 congressionally approved land transfer, saying that "carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast preserve — like a donut hole with the cross atop it — will do nothing to minimize the impermissible governmental endorsement" of the religious symbol. |
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Barry Bonds' personal trainer ordered to court
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/24 12:03
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A federal judge has ordered Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, to court to disclose whether he intends to testify at the slugger's trial next month.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston scheduled a hearing for Wednesday morning and ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to tell Anderson and provide him with transportation, if needed.
The judge has barred prosecutors from using key evidence, such as positive steroids tests, at Bonds' March 2 trial unless Anderson testifies. Anderson has said through his attorney he will refuse to testify, and he may be sent to prison on contempt of court charges. Anderson was sent to prison after refusing to testify about Bonds before a federal grand jury in 2006. |
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Court rules against al-Qaida member, a US citizen
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/23 16:41
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The Supreme Court won't review the conviction of a Virginia man for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush.
The court said Monday that it will leave undisturbed the conviction of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, despite an appeals court finding that his constitutional rights were violated when a judge allowed jurors, but not Abu Ali, to see classified evidence against him.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond determined that the error made no difference to the outcome of the trial. Abu Ali has challenged various aspects of the legal process, including that he was tortured by interrogators in Saudi Arabia. Federal courts have denied all his appeals. Born in Houston, Abu Ali grew up in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Va., and was valedictorian of a private Islamic high school. He joined al-Qaida after traveling to Saudi Arabia to attend college in 2002. As a member of a Medina-based al-Qaida cell, Abu Ali discussed numerous potential terrorist attacks, including a plan to assassinate Bush and a plan to establish a sleeper cell in the United States. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling that the trial judge ignored federal sentencing guidelines that called for life in prison. |
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