|
|
|
Court tosses $43M award against Ford in crash case
Court Center |
2011/11/04 15:59
|
The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out an Illlinois jury's $43 million award against Ford Motor Co. in a product-liability lawsuit linked to a fiery 2003 crash that killed a Missouri man and disfigured his wife.
The high court, in a Sept. 22 ruling made public Wednesday, among other things found that the lawsuit on Dora and John Jablonski's behalf did not give sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude Ford negligently "breached its duty of reasonable care" in designing the Lincoln Town Car involved in the wreck.
Justices also found that Illinois law does not require a company to warn of defects undetected before the product left the manufacturer.
Pinning the tragic wreck on the distracted motorist who hit the Jablonskis from behind at 60 mph, Ford said in an emailed statement Thursday it was "gratified" by the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling that "recognized and corrected the substantial efforts and deficiencies in the earlier proceedings."
The automaker said the 1993 Town Car exceeded all federal crash safety standards and received a five-star safety rating — the highest possible — from the U.S. government. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
High court reinstates 'shaken baby' conviction
Court Center |
2011/10/31 15:38
|
The Supreme Court has again reinstated the conviction of a California woman for shaking her 7-week-old grandson to death, a final ruling that ends a protracted dispute with the federal appeals court in San Francisco.
The justices voted 6-3 Monday to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Shirley Ree Smith. The appeals court had three times set aside Smith's conviction, saying the case likely was "a miscarriage of justice." The appeals court said there was "no demonstrable support" for the prosecution's theory of the case.
But the high court said that even though doubts about Smith's guilt are "understandable," the appeals court should have deferred to state courts that upheld Smith's conviction.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, said the court should have passed up the chance to "teach the 9th Circuit a lesson" in a tragic case.
"What is now known about shaken baby syndrome casts grave doubt on the charge leveled against Smith; and uncontradicted evidence shows that she poses no danger whatever to her family or anyone else in society," Ginsburg said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alabama immigration fight recalls civil rights era
Court Center |
2011/10/30 15:38
|
The epicenter of the fight over the patchwork of immigration laws in the United States is not Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico and became a common site for boycotts. Nor was it any of the four states that were next to pass their own crackdowns.
No, the case that's likely to be the first sorted out by the U.S. Supreme Court comes from the Deep South state of Alabama, where the nation's strictest immigration law has resurrected ugly images from the state's days as the nation's battleground for civil rights a half-century ago.
And Alabama's jump to the forefront says as much about the country's evolving demographics as it does the nation's collective memory of the state's sometimes violent path to desegregation.
With the failure of Congress in recent years to pass comprehensive federal immigration legislation, Arizona, Georgia, Utah, South Carolina and Indiana have passed their own. But supporters and opponents alike agree none contained provisions as strict as those passed in Alabama, among them one that required schools to check students' immigration status. That provision, which has been temporarily blocked, would allow the Supreme Court to reconsider a decision that said a kindergarten to high school education must be provided to illegal immigrants. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US House group files motion in gay marriage suit
Court Center |
2011/10/17 17:09
|
Gays and lesbians are not entitled to the same heightened legal protection and scrutiny against discrimination as racial minorities and women in part because they are far from politically powerless and have ample ability to influence lawmakers, lawyers for a U.S. House of Representatives group said in a federal court filing.
The filing Friday in San Francisco's U.S. District Court comes in a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit that claims the government wrongly denied health insurance coverage to her same-sex spouse. Karen Golinski says the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.
But attorneys representing the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group counter that DOMA is subject to a lower level of court scrutiny because gays and lesbians don't meet the legal criteria for groups who receive heightened protection from discrimination. Under that lower standard, DOMA is constitutional, they argue. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
High court to rule on Stolen Valor Act
Court Center |
2011/10/16 17:10
|
The Supreme Court will decide whether a law making it a crime to lie about having received military medals is constitutional.
The justices said Monday they will consider the validity of the Stolen Valor Act, which passed Congress with overwhelming support in 2006. The federal appeals court in California struck down the law on free speech grounds and appeals courts in Colorado, Georgia and Missouri are considering similar cases.
The Obama administration is arguing that the law is reasonable because it only applies to instances in which the speaker intends to portray himself as a medal recipient. Previous high court rulings also have limited First Amendment protection for false statements.
The court almost always reviews lower court rulings that hold federal laws unconstitutional.
The case concerns the government's prosecution of Xavier Alvarez of Pomona, Calif. A member of the local water district board, Alvarez said at a public meeting in 2007 that he was a retired Marine who received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration. In fact, he had never served in the military. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US court turns down Philly DA in cop-killing case
Court Center |
2011/10/11 16:47
|
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request from prosecutors who want to re-impose a death sentence on former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing a white Philadelphia police officer 30 years ago.
The justices on Tuesday refused to get involved in the racially charged case. A federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal after finding that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial were potentially misleading.
Courts have upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing Officer Daniel Faulkner over objections that African-Americans were improperly excluded from the jury.
The federal appeals court in Philadelphia said prosecutors could agree to a life sentence for Abu-Jamal or try again to sentence him to death. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court seems divided over Miranda rights case
Court Center |
2011/10/05 17:46
|
The Supreme Court seemed split Tuesday on whether to require police to read Miranda rights to prison inmates every time they interrogate them about crimes unrelated to their current incarceration.
The high court heard arguments from lawyers from the state of Michigan who want a federal appeals court decision overturning Randall Lee Fields' conviction thrown out.
Fields was serving a 45-day sentence in prison on disorderly conduct charges when a jail guard and sheriff's deputies from Lenawee County, Mich., removed him from his cell and took him to a conference room. The deputies, after telling him several times he was free to leave at any time, then questioned him for seven hours about allegations that he had sexually assaulted a minor. Fields eventually confessed and was charged and convicted of criminal sexual assault.
Fields was then sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison but appealed the use of his confession, saying that he was never given his Miranda rights on the sexual assault charges.
On appeal, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati threw out his confession and conviction, ruling that it is required that police read inmates their Miranda rights anytime they are isolated from the rest of the inmates in situations where they would be likely to incriminate themselves. |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
