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UN court orders US to lift some Iran sanctions
Attorney News |
2018/10/03 22:37
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The United Nations' highest court on Wednesday ordered the United States to lift sanctions on Iran that affect imports of humanitarian goods and products and services linked to civil aviation safety.
The ruling by the International Court of Justice is legally binding, but it remains to be seen if the administration of President Donald Trump will comply.
Trump moved to restore tough U.S. sanctions in May after withdrawing from Tehran's nuclear accord with world powers. Iran challenged the sanctions in a case filed in July at the International Court of Justice.
In a preliminary ruling, the court said that Washington must "remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from" the re-imposition of sanctions to the export to Iran of medicine and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities and spare parts and equipment necessary to ensure the safety of civil aviation.
By limiting the order to sanctions covering humanitarian goods and the civil aviation industry, the ruling did not go as far as Iran had requested.
The U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Hoekstra, pointed that out in a tweet.
"This is a meritless case over which the court has no jurisdiction," the ambassador tweeted. "Even so, it is worth noting that the Court declined today to grant the sweeping measures requested by Iran. Instead, the Court issued a narrow decision on a very limited range of sectors."
While imposing the so-called "provisional measures," the court's president, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, stressed that the case will continue and the United States could still challenge the court's jurisdiction.
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States urge Supreme Court to hear Kennedy cousin case
Attorney News |
2018/09/15 12:55
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Eleven states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Connecticut's appeal in the murder case of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel and reinstate his conviction.
The states filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Monday, saying a ruling in Connecticut's favor is needed to thwart excessive appeals that focused on mistakes made by defense lawyers. The court has not yet decided whether to hear Connecticut's appeal.
Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, cited his trial lawyer's failure to contact an alibi witness in his successful appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The state court in 2016 upheld Skakel's 2002 murder conviction in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley in their wealthy Greenwich neighborhood in 1975, when they were teenagers. But the court reversed that ruling in May and vacated the conviction, after a justice in the 4-3 majority retired and a new justice sided with Skakel - a move that has also drawn scrutiny.
Connecticut prosecutors argue the state high court did not properly weigh the overall performance of Skakel's defense, which they described as vigorous. They say the U.S. Supreme Court needs to correct a misperception by other state and federal courts that any mistake by defense counsel demonstrates incompetence and warrants a new trial.
The friend-of-the-court brief, filed by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes' office, said allowing the nitpicking of defense lawyer performance produces a variety of problems, including flooding the courts with appeals as a result of lower legal standards and making it harder for defendants to find lawyers willing to undergo such scrutiny. |
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Chicago, surfer group oppose US Steel settlement in court
Attorney News |
2018/09/13 12:55
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The city of Chicago and a surfing organization have told a judge that a proposed federal settlement over U.S. Steel's repeated chemical spills into Lake Michigan is inadequate.
The Chicago Law Department and the Surfrider Foundation urged the federal judge Thursday to impose tougher penalties on the steelmaker for last year's hexavalent chromium discharges from its Midwest Plant in Portage, Indiana, into the region's primary source of drinking water, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The nearly $900,000 in fines and penalties proposed by the federal government fall short when compared with the ecological damage caused by the carcinogenic discharges, according to court documents filed by the city of Chicago and the nonprofit foundation. The settlement also requires the steelmaker to test for hexavalent chromium daily, create a preventative maintenance program and upgrade all pollution monitoring.
"The government's inadequate oversight ... demonstrates the need for Surfrider to remain vigilant," said Mark Templeton, the group's attorney.
The University of Chicago's Abrams Environmental Law Clinic discovered last year that the manufacturing and finishing plant had violated chromium limits in its federal water pollution permit at least four times since 2013. The plant's chromium discharges are limited to 30 pounds a day, while hexavalent chromium is limited to about half a pound a day.
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Audit: West Virginia Supreme Court skirted pay law
Attorney News |
2018/09/08 13:27
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A new legislative audit report says West Virginia's Supreme Court skirted state law concerning pay for senior status judges.
News outlets report the audit released last week found 10 senior-status judges were authorized overpayments. State law prohibits them from making more than active circuit judges. The audit said that to circumvent the law, Supreme Court officials began converting senior status judges from employees to independent contractors.
The audit by the Legislative Auditor's Office Post Audit Division also pegged renovations for Supreme Court offices between 2012 and 2016 at $3.4 million, including $1.9 million for the five justices' chambers. Auditors say invoices for renovations to the court's law library and administrative offices were not made available.
Four justices who were impeached by the House of Delegates are due to go before the state Senate on Tuesday.
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Rancorous, partisan start for Kavanaugh high court hearing
Attorney News |
2018/09/04 22:41
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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh declared fervently at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday the court "must never, never be viewed as a partisan institution." But that was at the end of a marathon day marked by rancorous exchanges between Democrats and Republicans, including dire Democratic fears that he would be President Donald Trump's advocate on the high court.
The week of hearings on Kavanaugh's nomination began with a sense of inevitability that the 53-year-old appellate judge eventually will be confirmed, perhaps in time for the first day of the new term, Oct. 1, and little more than a month before congressional elections.
However, the first of at least four days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee began with partisan quarreling over the nomination and persistent protests from members of the audience, followed by their arrests.
Strong Democratic opposition to Trump's nominee reflects the political stakes for both parties in advance of the November elections, Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump's 2016 campaign and the potentially pivotal role Kavanaugh could play in moving the court to the right.
Democrats, including several senators poised for 2020 presidential bids, tried to block the proceedings in a dispute over Kavanaugh records withheld by the White House. Republicans in turn accused the Democrats of turning the hearing into a circus.
Trump jumped into the fray late in the day, saying on Twitter that Democrats were "looking to inflict pain and embarrassment" on Kavanaugh.
The president's comment followed the statements of Democratic senators who warned that Trump was, in the words of Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, "selecting a justice on the Supreme Court who potentially will cast a decisive vote in his own case."
In Kavanaugh's own statement at the end of more than seven hours of arguing, the federal appeals judge spoke repeatedly about the importance of an independent judiciary and the need to keep the court above partisan politics, common refrains among Supreme Court nominees that had added salience in the fraught political atmosphere of the moment. |
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