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Court program in Dona Ana County focuses on veterans
Court Watch |
2018/05/17 13:34
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A new court program has opened in Dona Ana County that focuses on the substance abuse and mental health issues facing military veterans who have been charged with non-violent crimes.
Las Cruces Sun-News reports that the first hearing in the 3rd Judicial District Court's Veterans Treatment Court program was held on Wednesday.
It's the first veterans court program in southern New Mexico
The judicial district already has other "problem-solving courts," such as a drug court for juveniles and adults that tries to help rehabilitate repeat offenders whose offenses are driven by substance abuse.
Veterans participating in the new program will be given individualized treatment and counseling programs that run an average of 14 months or longer.
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Dutch court says time ripe for law to recognize 3rd gender
Law Firm News |
2018/05/13 13:34
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A court in the Netherlands says that lawmakers should recognize a neutral, third gender, in a groundbreaking ruling for a person who does not identify as male or female.
The court in the southern city of Roermond said Monday that the person's gender could not be definitively determined at birth. The person was registered as male but later had treatment to become a woman and successfully applied to have her gender officially changed to female.
However the applicant later sought to be listed as a "third gender" — neither male nor female.
The court said in a statement that "the time is ripe for recognition of a third gender," adding that "it is now up to lawmakers."
Transgender activists hailed the ruling as a revolutionary step in Dutch law. |
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Supreme Court limits warrantless vehicle searches near homes
Marketing |
2018/05/07 13:34
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The Supreme Court is putting limits on the ability of police to search vehicles when they do not have a search warrant.
The court sided 8-1 Tuesday with a Virginia man who complained that police walked onto his driveway and pulled back a tarp covering his motorcycle, which turned out to be stolen. They acted without a warrant, relying on a line of Supreme Court cases generally allowing police to search a vehicle without a warrant.
The justices said the automobile exception does not apply when searching vehicles parked adjacent to a home.
The court ruled in the case of Ryan Collins, who was arrested at the home of his girlfriend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Collins had twice eluded police in high-speed chases in which he rode an orange and black motorcycle.
The authorities used Collins' Facebook page to eventually track the motorcycle to his girlfriend's home.
Collins argued that police improperly entered private property uninvited and without a warrant.
Virginia's Supreme Court said the case involved what the Supreme Court has called the "automobile exception," which generally allows police to search a vehicle without a warrant if they believe the vehicle contains contraband.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said for the court Tuesday that the state court was wrong. Sotomayor said that constitutional protections for a person's home and the area surrounding it, the curtilage, outweigh the police interest in conducting a vehicle search without a warrant. |
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Trump administration defends Keystone XL pipeline in court
Court Watch |
2018/05/02 13:35
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Trump administration attorneys defended the disputed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline in federal court on Thursday against environmentalists and Native American groups that want to derail the project.
President Barack Obama rejected the 1,179-mile (1,800-kilometer) line proposed by TransCanada Corporation in 2015 because of its potential to exacerbate climate change.
President Donald Trump revived the project soon after taking office last year, citing its potential to create jobs and advance energy independence.
Environmentalists and Native American groups sued to stop the line and asked U.S. District Judge Brian Morris to halt the project. They and others, including landowners, are worried about spills that could foul groundwater and the pipeline's impacts to their property rights.
Morris did not immediately rule following a four-hour Thursday hearing in federal court in Great Falls.
U.S. government attorneys asserted that Trump's change in course from Obama's focus on climate change reflected a legitimate shift in policy, not an arbitrary rejection of previous studies of the project.
"While the importance of climate change was considered, the interests of energy security and economic development outweighed those concerns," the attorneys recently wrote.
Morris previously rejected a bid by the administration to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Trump had constitutional authority over the pipeline as a matter of national security.
Keystone XL would cost an estimated $8 billion. It would begin in Alberta and transport up to 830,000 barrels a day of crude through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with lines to carry oil to Gulf Coast refineries.
Federal approval is required because the route crosses an international border.
TransCanada, based in Calgary, said in court submissions that the pipeline would operate safely and help reduce U.S. reliance on crude from the Middle East and other regions.
The project is facing a separate legal challenge in Nebraska, where landowners have filed a law |
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Court won't reconsider making public family slain autopsies
Law Center |
2018/04/25 10:47
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The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday once again rejected requests for unredacted autopsy reports from the unsolved slayings of eight family members.
The court ruled 5-2 without comment against reconsidering its December decision that the Pike County coroner in southern Ohio does not have to release the reports with complete information.
The case before the court involved seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family who were found shot to death at four homes near Piketon, in rural southern Ohio, on April 22, 2016. No arrests have been made or suspects identified.
Heavily redacted versions of the autopsy reports released in 2016 showed all but one of the victims were shot multiple times in the head, but details about any other injuries and toxicology test results weren't released.
In the 4-3 December ruling, Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, writing for the majority, said Ohio law regarding coroner records clearly exempts the redacted material as "confidential law enforcement investigatory records."
Once a criminal investigation ends, confidential information in autopsy reports can become public records, but the process leading to a suspect can sometimes take time, O'Connor wrote. |
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Italy's high court refuses to release migrant rescue ship
Law Firm News |
2018/04/25 10:46
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Italy's highest court has rejected a request by a German group to release its migrant rescue boat seized eight months ago by prosecutors investigating allegations that non-governmental organizations colluded with migrant smugglers.
The German group, Jugend Rettet, said Tuesday that it was devastated by the Cassation Court's ruling and that "we will fight for the right to rescue people in danger at sea."
Doctors Without Borders said the ruling "sends a working signal (that) Europe will continue to criminalize humanitarian organizations conducting search-and-rescue operations ... rather than strengthening capacities to save lives at sea."
Prosecutors told the court that the Iuventa was seized based on three episodes in which crew members had contact with migrant smugglers. The group's spokesman, Philipp Kulker, said in Berlin that the evidence had been fabricated.
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