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For new Supreme Court justice, a host of big issues awaits
Legal Line News |
2018/06/29 17:35
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Justice Anthony Kennedy's successor will have a chance over a likely decades-long career to tackle a host of big issues in the law and have a role in shaping the answers to them.
Most court-watchers and interest groups are focused on abortion and whether a more conservative justice may mean more restrictions on abortions get upheld or even whether the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision affirming a woman's right to abortion might someday be overturned.
But Kennedy's replacement will quickly confront a host of issues, some prominent and others not. Whomever President Donald Trump chooses, the person is expected to move the court to the right. Conservative groups, seeing a court friendlier to their views, might look at the new court and think it's time to bring challenges to liberal laws currently on the books. And conservative state lawmakers may also attempt to pass legislation testing boundaries they wouldn't have while Kennedy was on the court.
The Supreme Court in the term that ended Wednesday had two cases before it dealing with whether electoral maps can give an unfair advantage to a political party. The justices ducked that question, sending cases from Wisconsin and Maryland back to lower courts for further review. Kennedy had been the justice who left the door open to court challenges to extreme partisan redistricting, but he never found a way to measure it that satisfied him. A case involving North Carolina's heavily Republican congressional districting map now in a lower court could provide an opportunity for the justices to revisit the issue as soon as next term.
Another unresolved issue recently before the court is whether a business can cite religious objections in order to refuse service to gay and lesbian people. The court could have tackled that issue in a case argued this term about a Colorado baker who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Instead, the justices found that a member of the Colorado commission that looked at the case displayed an anti-religious bias against the baker but left for another day the broader question.
The justices could have added another case on the issue to the list of cases they'll begin hearing arguments in this fall, a case that involved a flower shop owner who cited her religious beliefs in declining to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding. For now they've sent that case back to a lower court. That same case or another one like it could quickly be in front of the court again.
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Drug court graduates get second chance at life
Legal Line News |
2018/06/21 16:59
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Kevin Hunter's day job doesn't typically lend itself to feel-good moments, but he got to share in 34 of them Monday afternoon.
Hunter, a Fort Wayne police captain, was among the first to congratulate nearly three dozen graduates of the 45th Allen Superior Court Drug Court. He runs the police department's Vice and Narcotics Division, which often sees decidedly fewer happy outcomes for people it investigates.
"I usually talk about very depressing things," Hunter said. "Today, I get to see hope and action."
The court was established as one of the state's first in 1996 by the late Judge Ken Scheibenberger, and it allows drug dealers and users a chance at life without those substances. Hundreds have taken part in drug court, and many have had charges against them dismissed because they completed counseling and treatment programs.
Hunter, who joined the department in 1989, said the court is valuable, particularly as the opioid crisis rages in northeast Indiana. A vice and narcotics sergeant attends drug court meetings, he said.
The program offers positive options to people who once might have been arrested by officers, sent to court and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, said Hunter, a member of the county's Opioid Task Force.
"Many times it's (that) they made a bad choice," he said, referring to people who have sold or used drugs. "But they're still human beings. |
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USCIS Helps Get Conviction in Asylum Fraud
Legal Line News |
2018/06/16 10:50
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) played an integral part in yesterday’s sentencing of Ali Vahdani Pour.
Pour, a 28 –year- old national of Iran, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes to 137 days in prison. He had pled guilty to lying under oath in an immigration matter.
In the plea agreement, Pour admitted having lied on his asylum application. Specifically, Pour admitted he falsely denied having served in the Iranian military and falsely denied having received refugee status in Italy, before seeking asylum in the United States.
“Making false staments to support your claim for asylum in the U.S. will not be tolerated,” said USCIS Los Angeles Asylum Director David Radel.
The investigation in this case was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, USCIS, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. |
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Court upholds Phoenix law over same-sex wedding invitations
Legal Line News |
2018/06/07 16:44
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An Arizona appeals court on Thursday upheld a Phoenix anti-discrimination law that makes it illegal for businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples because of religion.
The ruling comes days after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The high court found Monday that a Colorado civil rights commission showed anti-religious bias when it ruled against Jack Phillips for refusing to make the cake at his Masterpiece Cakeshop.
The decision, however, did not address the larger issue of whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gay and lesbian people.
In the Arizona case, the state Court of Appeals sided with the city in a lawsuit first brought in 2016 by a wedding invitation business, saying the ordinance is constitutional and does not violate freedom of religion or speech.
"We have previously found that eliminating discrimination constitutes a compelling interest," Judge Lawrence Winthrop wrote, adding that "antidiscrimination ordinances are not aimed at the suppression of speech, but at the elimination of discriminatory conduct."
The court said if Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, "want to operate their for-profit business as a public accommodation, they cannot discriminate against potential patrons based on sexual orientation."
Attorney Jonathan Scruggs of Alliance Defending Freedom, who represented the women, said they intend to appeal the decision to the Arizona Supreme Court. |
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