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Appeals panel sides with CBS over Super Bowl fine
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/11/03 16:08
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In the latest court battle over the steamy 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that CBS should not be fined $550,000 for Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction."
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals held its ground even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a review in light of the high court's ruling in a related Fox television case. In that case, it said the Federal Communications Commission could threaten fines over the use of even a single curse word uttered on live TV.
But Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell said the Fox case only "fortifies our opinion" that the FCC was wrong to fine CBS over the halftime show.
The three-judge panel reviewed three decades of FCC rulings and concluded the agency was changing its policy, without warning, by fining CBS for fleeting nudity.
"An agency may not apply a policy to penalize conduct that occurred before the policy was announced," Rendell wrote.
CBS argues that the FCC had previously applied the same decency standards to words and images — and excused fleeting instances of both.
Rendell said that long-standing policy appeared to change without notice in March 2004 — a month after the act at the Super Bowl, held in Houston. |
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Court upholds convictions of 5 in Fla. terror plot
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/11/02 15:43
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the convictions of five men accused of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy a landmark Chicago skyscraper and bomb FBI offices in several cities.
A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected numerous claims by ringleader Narseal Batiste and his followers, including questions about the sufficiency of the evidence, the FBI's use of an informant posing as an al-Qaida operative and the dismissal of a juror by a federal judge during deliberations.
Batiste, 37, and the other four were convicted in May 2009 of conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida and wage war against the U.S. stemming from a plot to blow up the 110-story Sears Tower — now known as the Willis Tower — and bomb FBI offices in five cities, including Miami. The eventual goal, testimony showed, was to overthrow the U.S. government.
It took federal prosecutors three trials to obtain convictions; the first two ended in mistrials and two of the original "Liberty City Seven" were acquitted. One of those found not guilty, Lyglenson Lemorin, was nonetheless deported to his native Haiti.
The case was built on recordings of FBI conversations and the group never came close to staging an attack, although the FBI informant posing as a terrorist led them in a videotaped oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden. They also videotaped the Miami FBI office and downtown courthouse buildings as potential targets. |
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SF court to hear appeal by Tucson rampage suspect
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/11/01 17:01
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A federal appeals court will hear arguments Tuesday on requests from attorneys for the Tucson, Ariz., shooting rampage suspect to halt their mentally ill client's forced medication with psychotropic drugs and rescind his stay at a Missouri prison facility.
Jared Lee Loughner's lawyers have asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to end their client's commitment at the prison in Springfield, Mo., where mental health experts are trying to make him psychologically fit to stand trial.
Loughner has been treated for his mental illness in Missouri after U.S. District Judge Larry Burns in May declared him mentally unfit to stand trial.
However, Burns ruled in late September that it's probable the 23-year-old can be made fit for trial, and ordered that Loughner's four-month stay in Missouri be extended by another four months.
Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges stemming from the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson that killed six people and injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others. |
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High court avoids dispute over highway crosses
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/10/31 15:52
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal of a ruling that 12-foot-high crosses along Utah highways in honor of dead state troopers violate the Constitution.
The justices voted 8-1 Monday to reject an appeal from Utah and a state troopers' group that wanted the court to throw out the ruling and take a more permissive view of religious symbols on public land.
Since 1998, the private Utah Highway Patrol Association has paid for and erected more than a dozen memorial crosses, most of them on state land. Texas-based American Atheists Inc. and three of its Utah members sued the state in 2005.
The federal appeals court in Denver said the crosses were an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity by the Utah state government.
Justice Clarence Thomas issued a 19-page opinion dissenting from Monday's order. Thomas said the case offered the court the opportunity to clear up confusion over its approach to disputes over the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the prohibition against governmental endorsement of religion. |
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PETA lawsuit seeks to expand animal rights
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/10/26 09:33
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A federal court is being asked to grant constitutional rights to five killer whales who perform at marine parks — an unprecedented and perhaps quixotic legal action that is nonetheless likely to stoke an ongoing, intense debate at America's law schools over expansion of animal rights.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is accusing the SeaWorld parks of keeping five star-performer whales in conditions that violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery. SeaWorld depicted the suit as baseless.
The chances of the suit succeeding are slim, according to legal experts not involved in the case; any judge who hews to the original intent of the authors of the amendment is unlikely to find that they wanted to protect animals. But PETA relishes engaging in the court of public opinion, as evidenced by its provocative anti-fur and pro-vegan campaigns.
The suit, which PETA says it will file Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, hinges on the fact that the 13th Amendment, while prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, does not specify that only humans can be victims. |
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Missouri appeals court upholds red-light camera fines
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/10/25 11:57
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A Missouri appeals court has upheld an ordinance in a suburban St. Louis city that imposes a $100 fine when cameras catch vehicles running red lights.
The Eastern District appeals court on Tuesday rejected an argument that the Creve Coeur ordinance violates due process rights by ticketing a vehicle's owner without knowing if the owner was driving when the vehicle ran a red light.
The appeals panel said the city's traffic-camera ordinance is similar to a parking ticket in that it is a civil penalty — not a criminal violation. The court said such tickets can be issued to the vehicle owner without regard to who was driving the vehicle. |
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