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Chief justice defends court's impartiality
U.S. Legal News |
2012/01/02 17:50
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Chief Justice John Roberts said Saturday that he has "complete confidence" in his colleagues' ability to step away from cases where their personal interests are at stake, and noted that judges should not be swayed by "partisan demands."
The comment, included in Roberts' year-end report, comes after lawmakers demanded that two Justices recuse themselves from the high court's review of President Barack Obama's health care law aimed at extending coverage to more than 30 million people. Republicans want Justice Elena Kagan off the case because of her work in the Obama administration as solicitor general, whereas Democrats say Justice Clarence Thomas should back away because of his wife's work with groups that opposed changes to the law.
While not mentioning the upcoming health care ruling, or any case in particular, Roberts' year-end report dismissed suggestions that Supreme Court Justices are subject to more lax ethical standards than lower federal courts and said each Justice is "deeply committed" to preserving the Court's role as "an impartial tribunal" governed by law.
"I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted," wrote Roberts. "They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process. I know that they each give careful consideration to any recusal questions that arise in the course of their judicial duties." |
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Budget woes squeeze federal courts in NYC
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/27 18:20
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An annual holiday show at the federal courthouse in Manhattan drew laughs, but no one is laughing now over the possibility of unfilled jobs and draconian budget cuts that court administrators say threatens the public's safety.
"Their secret plan is to ax the federal judiciary," one character said of Washington Republicans in the fictional story line during the 2011 Courthouse Follies.
By the end of the show, Republicans promised to restore "every penny" of the funding and even increase it when they realized they needed to turn to the courts to sue President Barack Obama over his policies.
A real-life ending to the budget crisis may be far less likely to entertain at Manhattan's U.S. District Court, where 39 trial judges — the largest group of federal judges in the country — preside over some of the nation's biggest criminal cases and wade through more than 12,000 lawsuits annually.
The courthouse has hosted nearly a dozen major terrorism trials, numerous mob cases and a slew of white collar prosecutions from lifestyle maven Martha Stewart to Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff. |
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Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/20 18:18
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As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school. |
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High court halts new Texas electoral maps
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/11 18:11
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Texas' March primary will likely be delayed after the Supreme Court on Friday blocked the use of state legislative and congressional district maps that were drawn by federal judges.
The court issued a brief order late Friday that applies to electoral maps drawn by federal judges in San Antonio for the Texas Legislature and Congress that would have ensured minorities made up the majority in three additional Texas congressional districts. The justices said they will hear arguments on Jan. 9.
The judges issued the new maps for the 2012 election in Texas after a lawsuit was filed in San Antonio over redistricting maps drawn by the GOP-led Legislature. The maps were to remain in place until the lawsuit was resolved.
The Supreme Court's order brings to a halt filing for legislative and congressional primary elections that began Nov. 28. The primaries had been scheduled to take place in March, but the Supreme Court's decision means those elections almost certainly will be delayed, possibly until May. |
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CA same-sex marriage ban gets another day in court
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/09 11:10
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The sponsors of California's gay marriage ban renewed their effort Thursday to disqualify a federal judge because of his same-sex relationship, but they met a skeptical audience in an appeals court panel.
It's the first time an American jurist's sexual orientation has been cited as grounds for overturning a court decision.
Lawyers for a coalition of religious conservative groups told a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have revealed he had a long-term male partner before he presided over a trial on the measure's constitutionality. He also should have stated whether he had any interest in getting married, the lawyers said.
Because he did not, Walker's impartiality stands in doubt and the decision he ultimately made to strike down Proposition 8 as a violation of Californians' civil rights must be reversed, said Charles Cooper, an attorney for the ban's backers.
"In May 2009, when Judge Walker read the allegations of the complaint, he knew something the litigants and the public did not know: He knew that he, too, like the plaintiffs, was a gay resident of California who was involved in a long-term, serious relationship with an individual of the same sex," Cooper said. "The litigants did not have any knowledge of these facts, and it appears that Judge Walker made the deliberate decision not to disclose these facts." |
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Political aide to former Md. governor found guilty
U.S. Legal News |
2011/12/07 17:15
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A political aide to former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich was convicted Tuesday of conspiring to use election-day robocalls in an effort to suppress black voter turnout during the 2010 gubernatorial election.
Paul Schurick was found guilty of all four counts he faced, including conspiracy to influence or attempt to influence a voter's decision whether to go to the polls through the use of fraud and conspiracy to publish campaign material without an authority line. A stoic Schurick comforted his wife in the courtroom after the Baltimore jury's verdict was read, but declined to comment.
His attorney, A. Dwight Pettit, said they will appeal.
Prosecutors argued the calls that went out on the evening of Election Day to about 110,000 voters in Baltimore city and Prince George's County — two jurisdictions with high percentages of black voters — were an effort by the Republican campaign to reduce the number of black Democrats voting in heavily Democratic Maryland. |
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