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NC Supreme Court considers status of private school vouchers
Attorney News |
2015/02/16 20:03
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The state Supreme Court is about to decide whether millions of dollars in taxpayer money that started flowing this year to pay student tuition at private and religious schools continues for a second year.
The state's highest court hears arguments Tuesday on a ruling last summer that the Opportunity Scholarships program violates the state constitution because religious schools can discriminate based on faith. Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood also said privately run K-12 schools are not required to meet state curriculum standards.
Supreme Court justices showed they're in a hurry to decide whether private school vouchers will continue by latching on to the case early. Parents are already looking ahead and the deadline for them to submit scholarship applications for the next academic year is March 1.
So far, more than $4.2 million has paid for 1,200 students to attend 216 private schools around the state, according to the State Education Assistance Authority. That's a fraction of the 5,500 students whose families sought one of the scholarships, said Darrell Allison, who heads a group that advocates for expanding the program. Three out of four applicants for the vouchers, which pay private schools up to $4,200 per child per year to schools that admit them, were minority students.
"There are literally thousands of families who are looking forward to their day in court — desperately hopeful for a favorable ruling," Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, said in a statement.
The program opened this year to families whose income qualified their children for free or discounted school lunches, a ceiling of about $44,000 for a family of four. Eligibility increases for the year starting in August as the ceiling rises to nearly $59,000 per family.
Opponents of the voucher law complain that it violates the constitution because money from collected taxes goes to religious schools that have the option of ruling out students who don't follow their faith's beliefs, turning away the disabled or refusing the children of gay parents. |
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Court says Chuck Yeager can sue Utah gun safe company
Attorney News |
2015/02/16 20:03
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A federal appeals court says record-setting test pilot Chuck Yeager can sue a Utah gun safe company that named a line of safes after him.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled Tuesday that the 91-year-old can sue Fort Knox Security Products over an oral agreement from the 1980s that allowed the use of his name and picture in exchange for free safes.
The decision says the arrangement ended around 2008, after Yeager's wife started asking questions about it.
The court dismissed some claims but ruled that Yeager can sue over claims that the company kept using his likeness after the agreement ended. The company disputes that accusation.
Yeager served during World War II and became the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947. |
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Supreme Court refuses to halt execution of Ga. man
Attorney News |
2015/01/30 17:37
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The Supreme Court has refused to halt the execution of a Georgia man whose lawyers say he is ineligible to be executed because he is intellectually disabled. Warren Lee Hill's lawyers argue he shouldn't be executed because he is intellectually disabled.
The justices on Tuesday turned away a last-minute plea from Warren Lee Hill. He is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia.
Different courts have intervened with temporary reprieves at the last minute on three previous occasions. Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have granted Hill another reprieve.
State and federal courts had already rejected his filings this time around, and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles —the only entity authorized to commute his sentence to life in prison — denied him clemency Tuesday. Hill has filings pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which is now the only potential barrier between him and a lethal injection of the drug pentobarbital.
"The clemency board missed an opportunity to right a grave wrong," Brian Kammer, a lawyer for Hill, said in an emailed statement Tuesday. "It is now up to the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that an unconstitutional execution of a man with lifelong intellectual disability is prevented."
Hill was sentenced to serve life in prison for the 1986 killing of his 18-year-old girlfriend, who was shot 11 times. While serving that sentence, he beat a fellow inmate, Joseph Handspike, to death using a nail-studded board. A jury in 1991 convicted Hill of murder and sentenced him to death. |
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Arizona sheriff could face civil contempt hearing in court
Attorney News |
2015/01/19 22:36
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An Arizona sheriff could face a civil contempt hearing in federal court for his office's repeated violations of orders issued in a racial-profiling case.
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow held a telephonic conference Thursday and told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's attorneys that the six-term sheriff may face an April 21-24 hearing.
But a top lawyer with the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that Snow stopped short of officially ordering the hearing. The judge has given both sides until Jan. 23 to file additional paperwork.
At a Dec. 4 hearing, Snow sent strong signals that he intended to pursue contempt cases that could expose Arpaio to fines and perhaps jail time.
Lawyers for the sheriff didn't immediately return calls for comment on the possible civil contempt hearing.
Dan Pochoda, senior counsel for the Arizona ACLU, said Friday that Arpaio's office could face sanctions or fines for not following court orders and "fines to deter future bad acts and fines to compensate anyone permanently harmed" in the racial-profiling cases.
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Court won't hear free speech challenge to metals dealers law
Attorney News |
2015/01/13 00:22
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The Supreme Court won't consider the constitutionality of an Ohio law that bars precious metals dealers from advertising without a license.
The justices on Monday declined to take up an appeal from Liberty Coins, a gold and silver dealer that claims the law violates the free speech rights of businesses.
Ohio officials say the 1996 law was enacted to protect consumers from theft and help police track down stolen wedding rings, gold bracelets and other items resold at stores that buy gold and silver merchandise.
A federal judge in 2012 ruled the law unconstitutional because the state failed to prove the license requirement was effective in curbing theft, fraud and terrorism. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling last year. |
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