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US appeals court upholds key parts of Texas abortion law
Legal News |
2015/06/13 00:25
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A federal appeals court upheld key parts of Texas's strict anti-abortion law on Tuesday, a decision that could leave as few as seven abortion clinics in the nation's second largest state.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds requirements that abortion clinics meet hospital-level operating standards, which owners of small clinics say demand millions of dollars in upgrades they can't afford and will leave many women hundreds of miles away from an abortion provider. But the court said abortion clinics failed to prove that the restrictions would unduly burden a "large fraction" of women.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women's health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to block access to abortions in Texas, and they promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily sidelined the law last year.
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrop, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Texas will be able to start enforcing the restrictions in about three weeks unless the Supreme Court steps in and temporarily halts the decision, said Stephanie Toti, an attorney for the center. Only seven abortion facilities in Texas, including four operated by Planned Parenthood, meet the more robust requirements.
The ruling, made by a three-judge panel, is the 5th Circuit's latest decision in a lawsuit challenging some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country. |
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Man accused of Jewish site shootings to appear in court
Court Watch |
2015/06/12 00:24
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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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Court allows hotly disputed discount contact lens price law
Court Line |
2015/06/12 00:24
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A federal appeals court ruling has cleared the way for discount contact lens retailers to drop prices while a legal battle is waged between the state of Utah and manufacturers who want to impose minimum prices on their products.
The decision handed down from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Friday comes after three of the nation's largest contact lens manufacturers sued to halt a hotly contested law.
Supporters, including Utah-based discount seller 1-800 Contacts, say the newly enacted legislation bans price fixing for contact lenses. But opponents, including Alcon Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson and Bausch & Lomb, say it's a brazen overreach that allows discount sellers to violate interstate commerce regulations and skirt industry price standards.
Utah's attorney general has said the companies are wrongly driving up prices, and the law is a legitimate antitrust measure designed to enhance competition and help customers. Attorney General Sean Reyes' office didn't have a comment on the decision Friday.
The ruling allows the law to go into effect while a legal battle over the measure works its way through the courts. The appeals court did agree to fast-track the case and new briefs are due in the case later this month.
Donna Lorenson, a spokeswoman for Alcon, says the company is "extremely disappointed" and maintains the law violates interstate commerce rules. |
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New Jersey's top court sides with Christie on pensions
Court Watch |
2015/06/11 00:24
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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.
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Appeals court sides with tribes in fight over land decisions
Legal News |
2015/06/05 07:22
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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.
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