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Marijuana opponents using racketeering law to fight industry
Topics in Legal News |
2015/07/16 08:58
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A federal law crafted to fight the mob is giving marijuana opponents a new strategy in their battle to stop the expanding industry: racketeering lawsuits.
A Colorado pot shop recently closed after a Washington-based group opposed to legal marijuana sued not just the pot shop but a laundry list of firms doing business with it — from its landlord and accountant to the Iowa bonding company guaranteeing its tax payments. One by one, many of the defendants agreed to stop doing business with Medical Marijuana of the Rockies, until the mountain shop closed its doors and had to sell off its pot at fire-sale prices.
With another lawsuit pending in southern Colorado, the cases represent a new approach to fighting marijuana. If the federal government won't stop its expansion, pot opponents say, federal racketeering lawsuits could. Marijuana may be legal under state law, but federal drug law still considers any marijuana business organized crime.
"It is still illegal to cultivate, sell or possess marijuana under federal law," said Brian Barnes, lawyer for Safe Streets Alliance, a Washington-based anti-crime group that brought the lawsuits on behalf of neighbors of the two Colorado pot businesses.
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US appeals court upholds EPA plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay
Topics in Legal News |
2015/07/08 14:29
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A U.S. appeals court has upheld a federal plan limiting pollution in the Chesapeake Bay despite objections from farmers who accuse the Environmental Protection Agency of abusing its power.
The ruling Monday upholds restrictions on farm and construction runoff and wastewater treatment and is a clear win for environmentalists.
Six states have agreed to the pollution limits: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, along with Washington, D.C.,
The American Farm Bureau Federation and others fought the restrictions. They argued that the EPA was usurping state authority to regulate waterways.
The EPA says animal waste and fertilizer that moves from streams into the Chesapeake is the single largest source of bay pollution.
Third Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro says Chesapeake Bay pollution is a complex problem that affects more than 17 million people.
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In Supreme Court loss, death penalty foes see an opening
Topics in Legal News |
2015/07/01 15:58
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A strongly worded dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court's narrow decision this week upholding the use of an execution drug offered a glimmer of hope to death penalty opponents in what they considered otherwise a gloomy ruling. One advocate went so far Tuesday as to call it a blueprint for a fresh attack on the legality of capital punishment itself.
But even those who see Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent as a silver lining think it will take time to mount a viable challenge.
And Breyer's words don't change the fact that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld capital punishment for nearly four decades. The five justices forming the majority in Monday's decision made it clear they feel that states must somehow be able to carry out the death penalty.
In disagreeing with the 5-4 ruling that approved Oklahoma's use of an execution drug, Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called it "highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment," which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
"It was a sweeping and powerful dissent that issues an invitation that we should accept, which is to make the case for why today the death penalty itself is no longer constitutional," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the Capital Punishment Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. |
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French court rules police illegally targeted minorities
Topics in Legal News |
2015/06/24 09:03
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A French appeals court ruled Wednesday that police carried out unjustified identity checks on five minority men, ordering the government to pay them damages in an unprecedented ruling that activists hope will help reduce widespread discrimination.
The collective case was the first of its kind in France, where anti-racism groups say non-whites are unfairly targeted by police. Gratuitous ID checks have long been cited as a prime reason for troubled relations between police and residents of poor suburbs.
Thirteen men, all of black or Arab origin, originally filed suit in the case. None of the 13 men has a police record, but each said he was victim of multiple, humiliating ID checks, widely known as "stop and frisk" and considered by police as an important crime-fighting tactic.
A lower court ruled in 2013 that police didn't overstep legal boundaries with the ID checks. The Paris appeals court overturned part of that ruling, saying Wednesday that the checks against five men were illegal, and ordered the state to pay 1,500 euros ($1,680) euros to each man.
Lawyers say they haven't yet decided whether to appeal the other eight cases.
While the sum of damages is small, the significance of the ruling could be broad.
Lawyer Slim Ben Achour said that with this precedent they now plan to multiply such suits around France. |
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Man accused of Jewish site shootings to appear in court
Topics in Legal News |
2015/06/11 13:58
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A Missouri man facing capital murder charges in Kansas is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing on motions in his case, one asking a judge to let him stay in the courtroom during recesses and another to suppress certain evidence.
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, of Aurora, Missouri, is accused of killing three people last year at two Jewish sites in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.
The avowed white supremacist has told various media outlets, including The Associated Press, he is dying from emphysema and went to the sites with the intent to kill Jewish people.
All three of the victims of the April 13, 2014, rampage — William Lewis Corporon, 69, his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, and Terri LaMano, 53 — were Christians.
Also known as Frazier Glenn Cross, Miller got permission last month from Johnson County District Judge Kelly Ryan to fire his attorneys and represent himself. However, Ryan ruled that the attorneys would stay involved in the case on a stand-by basis and could be restored as Miller's counsel if he gets kicked out of the courtroom during his trial or decides he wants them back.
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