|
|
|
White House criticizes court's health care ruling
Topics |
2011/08/15 07:20
|
The White House is expressing confidence that it's constitutional to require people to have health insurance and believes that President Barack Obama's health care law will be survive all legal challenges in the end.
Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter says the White House strongly disagrees with an appeals court ruling Friday that struck down the insurance requirement at the center of a law.
She says the White House is confident that ruling will not stand.
Cutter notes on the White House blog that four other courts, including a different appeals court, has upheld the law.
Many legal observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to have the final say on the issue. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court strikes health insurance requirement
Law Center |
2011/08/14 09:20
|
A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties.
The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional.
The states and other critics argued the law violates people's rights, while the Justice Department countered that the legislative branch was exercising a quintessential power.
The decision, penned by Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull, found that the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress's enumerated commerce power.
What Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die, the opinion said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Serbia seeks to block execution of citizen in Nev.
Headline News |
2011/08/14 09:19
|
The Serbian government is asking a Nevada court to block the execution of one of its citizens, saying its consulate was not informed of his 1994 arrest as required by international law.
Serbia, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week in Washoe County District Court in Reno, maintains the notification would have provided Avram Nika with assistance that could have spared him the death penalty.
Nika, 41, is on death row at Ely State Prison for the 1994 killing of a good Samaritan who stopped to help him along Interstate 80 near Reno. He has yet to exhaust his state and federal appeals.
(Nika was) particularly vulnerable to the denial of consular assistance due to his inability to speak English and his lack of familiarity with the U.S. legal system and culture, Serbia's brief says.
The failure to notify the consulate caused no mitigating evidence to be presented at his sentencing hearing — such as that he was a hard-working family man who came from poverty and was discriminated against because he was a member of a nomadic ethnic group known as Roma, also called Gypsies, according to the document.
District Attorney Dick Gammick says there was no consulate to contact because the former Yugoslavia where Nika was from was undergoing drastic change at the time. Serbia did not exist as a country then, he said, and other countries in the region came and went. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dougherty siblings to appear in Colorado court
Court Watch |
2011/08/12 10:24
|
A woman caught with her two brothers after a nationwide manhunt told Colorado authorities she deserved to get shot after pointing a gun at a police chief at the end of the siblings' run from the law, according to a court document.
Lee Grace Dougherty, 29, Dylan Dougherty Stanley, 26, and Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, are being held in Pueblo County, Colo., on bonds of $1.25 million each. The three made their first court appearance Thursday by video from jail, and none made any statement during the brief hearing.
They face charges of attempted murder of a peace officer and assault on a peace officer. The charges stem from allegations that they shot rounds from an AK-47 at four patrol cars during a chase Wednesday on Interstate 25 in Colorado. The chase ended when troopers deployed spike strips to puncture the tires of the trio's Subaru, and the vehicle rolled and crashed into a guardrail. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miss. judge suspended for misconduct
Law Firm News |
2011/08/12 10:24
|
The Mississippi Supreme Court has suspended Alcorn County Justice Court Judge Jimmy McGee for misconduct.
The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance had accused McGee of interfering with a criminal case and making statements in open court encouraging others to engage in vigilante justice.
The complaint involved a case in another court in which McGee's relative was a crime victim. He allegedly said in open court in 2008 that his relative's case should have been handled down on the farm instead of in the justice system.
The Supreme Court ordered a suspension without pay for 270 days, a public reprimand and assessed $100 in court costs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lawyer: NJ student didn't mean to spy on roommate
Law Center |
2011/08/12 10:23
|
A lawyer for a former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man says in newly filed legal papers that prosecutors got it all wrong and that the case should be dropped.
Nineteen-year-old Dharun Ravi faces charges, including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy, in the case that's been linked to roommate Tyler Clementi's death last September when he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
Clementi's suicide sparked a national discussion about bullying and gay youth that prompted celebrities, senators and President Barack Obama to speak out.
But defense lawyer Steven Altman said in a brief filed Wednesday that his client was not spying on Clementi. Altman said Ravi initially turned on his webcam from a friend's computer to see what was going on in the dorm room because he was concerned about whether the man Clementi had over might steal Ravi's iPad. He stopped watching two seconds after seeing the men kissing, Altman said.
Altman provided text messages that he said Ravi sent Clementi on Sept. 22 - about the time the 18-year-old violinist from Ridgewood was on the suspension bridge crossing the Hudson River.
I turned on my camera and saw you in the corner of the screen and I immediately closed it. I felt uncomfortable and guilty of what happened, the message said. Obviously I told people what occurred so they could give me advice. Then Tuesday when you requested the room again I wanted to make sure what happened Sunday wouldn't happen again ... I turned my camera away and put my computer to sleep so even if anyone tried it wouldn't work. I wanted to make amends for Sunday night. I'm sorry if you heard something distorted and disturbing but I assure you all my actions were good natured.
Another said, in part: I've known you were gay and I have no problem with it.
Altman argued in the brief that prosecutors did not present evidence that Ravi would have broken the law by using a webcam to monitor what was happening in the dorm room he shared with Clementi, that he actually viewed any sexual images from his webcam, that he copied or distributed them, or that he deleted Twitter posts about what was on the webcam to hide evidence from investigators. |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
