|
|
|
Supreme Court upholds key tool for fighting housing bias
Court News |
2015/06/25 09:04
|
The Supreme Court handed a surprising victory to the Obama administration and civil rights groups on Thursday when it upheld a key tool used for more than four decades to fight housing discrimination.
The justices ruled 5-4 that federal housing laws prohibit seemingly neutral practices that harm minorities, even without proof of intentional discrimination.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the court's four liberal members in upholding the use of so-called "disparate impact" cases.
The ruling is a win for housing advocates who argued that the housing law allows challenges to race-neutral policies that have a negative impact on minority groups. The Justice Department has used disparate impact lawsuits to win more than $500 million in legal settlements from companies accused of bias against black and Hispanic customers.
In upholding the tactic, the Supreme Court preserved a legal strategy that has been used for more than 40 years to attack discrimination in zoning laws, occupancy rules, mortgage lending practices and insurance underwriting. Every federal appeals court to consider it has upheld the practice, though the Supreme Court had never previously taken it up.
Writing for the majority, Kennedy said that language in the housing law banning discrimination "because of race" includes disparate impact cases. He said such lawsuits allow plaintiffs "to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification" under traditional legal theories.
"In this way disparate-impact liability may prevent segregated housing patterns that might otherwise result from covert and illicit stereotyping," Kennedy said.
Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Iowa court allows remote dispensing of abortion pill
Court News |
2015/06/20 14:14
|
The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down a restriction that would have prevented doctors from administering abortion-inducing pills remotely via video teleconferencing, saying it would have placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion.
Iowa is one of only two states that offers so-called telemedicine abortions — Minnesota offers them on a smaller scale — and doctors at Iowa's urban clinics that perform abortions had been allowed to continue offering the remotely-administered abortions while the ruling was pending.
Planned Parenthood's local affiliate, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, had sued the Iowa Board of Medicine over its 2013 decision that would have required a doctor to be in the room with a patient when dispensing abortion-inducing medication.
The board cited safety concerns when it passed the rule requiring a physical examination, but Planned Parenthood and other critics said it was just another attempt by abortion rights opponents to make it harder for women to get abortions. They said the Iowa board's restriction particularly would have made it harder for women in more rural areas who don't live near the few urban clinics where doctors who perform abortions are based.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Huguely files appeal request with U.S. Supreme Court
Court News |
2015/06/19 14:14
|
A former University of Virginia lacrosse player is taking his last shot at overturning his conviction for the 2010 murder of his former girlfriend.
Counsel for George Huguely V has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a judicial review of the case against their client. Huguely was convicted in 2012 of the second-degree murder of Yeardley Love, also a UVa student and member of the women’s lacrosse team, for which he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Huguely, now 27, has since appealed the conviction on the grounds that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when one of his two attorneys fell ill and could not be present in the courtroom nine days into his trial. Though his other attorney said he would be able to continue, Huguely asked the judge to delay the case until both of his attorneys could be present, but that request was denied.
Counsel for Huguely has argued that their client’s right to competent assistance was violated when he could not have both lawyers present in the courtroom. The petition filed Friday asks the court to “reaffirm the core of the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal defendant to have his choice of counsel by his side throughout the trial proceedings.”
“[Huguely’s] distinct interest in receiving not just competent assistance, but assistance from both his counsels of choice was given no weight,” the petition states.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
New Jersey's top court sides with Christie on pensions
Court News |
2015/06/10 13:58
|
New Jersey's top court sided with Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday, giving him a major victory in a fight with public worker unions over pension funds and sparing a new state budget crisis.
The state Supreme Court overturned a lower-court judge's order that told the Republican governor and the Democrat-controlled Legislature to work out a way to increase pension contributions for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
In a 5-2 ruling, the court said there wasn't an enforceable contract to force the full payment, as unions had argued there was.
"That the State must get its financial house in order is plain," Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote in the majority opinion. "The need is compelling in respect of the State's ability to honor its compensation commitment to retired employees. But this Court cannot resolve that need in place of the political branches. They will have to deal with one another to forge a solution to the tenuous financial status of New Jersey's pension funding in a way that comports with the strictures of our Constitution."
She noted that the state is obligated to pay individual retirees their pensions. That's not in danger this year, but unions say the funds could start going insolvent within the next decade.
Justice Barry Albin dissented and was joined by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.
"The decision unfairly requires public workers to uphold their end of the law's bargain — increased weekly deductions from their paychecks to fund their future pensions — while allowing the State to slip from its binding commitment to make commensurate contributions," Albin wrote. "Thus, public workers continue to pay into a system on its way to insolvency."
One of Christie's signature achievements as governor has been a 2011 deal on pensions for public workers. Employees had to pay more and the government was locked into making up for years of skipped or reduced contributions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court sides with tribes in fight over land decisions
Court News |
2015/06/04 22:55
|
In a victory for Native American tribes, an appeals court ruled Thursday that states cannot use negotiations for a Native American casino to challenge the federal government's decisions to recognize a tribe and set aside land for it.
An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said states have to use a separate process to contest those decisions and have a window of six years to file their challenge.
The decision removes the uncertainty many tribes faced about their land status after a smaller 9th Circuit panel reached a different conclusion, said Joe Webster, a partner with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker who was closely watching the case.
"This is certainly an important decision for tribes," he said.
The ruling came in a fight between California and the Humboldt County-based Big Lagoon Rancheria over the tribe's plan for a Las Vegas-style casino.
The tribe accused the state in a lawsuit of failing to negotiate a casino deal in good faith, and largely won its case in federal district court. A call to the state attorney general's office for comment about Thursday's ruling wasn't immediately returned.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Law Firm Web Design Information |
| Law Promo has worked with attorneys, lawyers and law firms all over the world in designing beautiful law firm websites that look great on all devices, from desktop computers to mobile phones. Law Promo can construct your law firm a brand new responsive law firm website, or help you redesign your existing site to secure your place in the mobile world. Solo Practice Law Firm Website Design |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
