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VA asks US Supreme Court to reinstate removals of 1,600 voter registrations
Lawyer Interview |
2024/10/27 08:57
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Virginia on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to allow the state to remove roughly 1,600 voters from its rolls that it believes are noncitizens.
The request comes after a federal appeals court on Sunday unanimously upheld a federal judge’s order restoring the registrations of those 1,600 voters, whom the judge said were illegally purged under an executive order by the state’s Republican governor.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he ordered the daily removals in an effort to keep noncitizens from voting. But U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ruled late last week that Youngkin’s program was illegal under federal law because it systematically purged voters during a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of the November election.
The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued to block Youngkin’s removal program earlier this month. They argued that the quiet period is in place to ensure that legitimate voters aren’t removed from the rolls by bureaucratic errors or last-minute mistakes that can’t be rectified in a timely manner.'
The ruling Sunday from the three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, sided with the judge who ordered the restoration of voters’ registrations.
The appeals court said Virginia is wrong to assert that it is being forced to restore 1,600 noncitizens to the voter rolls. The judges found that Virginia’s process for removing voters established no proof that those purged were actually noncitizens.
Youngkin’s executive order, issued in August, required daily checks of data from the Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls to identify noncitizens.
State officials said any voter identified as a noncitizen was notified and given two weeks to dispute their disqualification before being removed. If they returned a form attesting to their citizenship, their registration would not be canceled.
The plaintiffs said that, as a result of the program, a legitimate voter and citizen could have his or her registration canceled simply by checking the wrong box on a DMV form. The plaintiffs presented evidence showing that at least some of those removed were in fact citizens.
A similar lawsuit was filed in Alabama, and a federal judge there last week ordered the state to restore eligibility for more than 3,200 voters who had been deemed ineligible noncitizens. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that roughly 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were made inactive were actually legally registered citizens.
The appeal filed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday by Virginia’s Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, asks the high court to intervene by Tuesday. Without any intervention, the injunction issued last week by Giles requires Virginia to notify affect voters and local registrars by Wednesday of the restorations she ordered. |
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Kenya’s deputy president pleads not guilty in impeachment process
Court News |
2024/10/22 07:51
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Kenya’s deputy president, who faces impeachment, pleaded not guilty in a senate hearing Wednesday to all allegations including corruption, inciting ethnic divisions and support for anti-government protests that saw demonstrators storm the country’s parliament.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who has called the allegations politically motivated, could be the first sitting deputy president impeached in Kenya.
The case highlights the friction between him and President William Ruto — something that Ruto once vowed to avoid after his past troubled relationship as deputy to Kenya’s previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Gachagua has said he believes the impeachment process has Ruto’s blessing, and has asked legislators to make their decision “without intimidation and coercion.”
The tensions risk introducing more uncertainty for investors and others in East Africa’s commercial hub. Court rulings this week allowed the parliament and senate to proceed with the impeachment debate, despite concerns over irregularities raised by the deputy president’s lawyers.
The impeachment motion was approved in parliament last week and forwarded to the senate. Gachagua’s legal team will have Wednesday and Thursday to cross-examine witnesses, and the senate will vote Thursday evening.
Under the Kenyan Constitution, the removal from office is automatic if approved by both chambers, though Gachagua can challenge the action in court — something he has said he would do.
Kenya’s president has yet to publicly comment on the impeachment process. Early in his presidency, he said he wouldn’t publicly humiliate his deputy.
Ruto, who came to office claiming to represent Kenya’s poorest citizens, has faced widespread criticism for his efforts to raise taxes in an effort to find ways to pay off foreign creditors. But the public opposition led him to shake up his cabinet and back off certain proposals. |
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South Korean court acquits former police chief over deadly crowd crush
Attorney Career |
2024/10/18 06:19
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A South Korean court found the former police chief of the country’s capital and two other officers not guilty over a botched response to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in 2022.
The verdict by the Seoul Western District Court drew angry responses from grieving relatives and their advocates, who accused the court of refusing to hold high-level officials accountable for an incident that was largely blamed on a lack of disaster planning and an inadequate emergency response.
Kim Kwang-ho, former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, was the most senior police officer among more than 20 police and government officials indicted over the crush in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul. Prosecutors had sought a five-year prison term for Kim.
An investigation led by the National Police Agency found that police and local officials failed to plan effective crowd control measures even though they expected more than 100,000 people to gather for Halloween events in Itaewon.
The investigators found that Seoul police assigned just 137 officers to Itaewon on the day of the crush. Police also ignored hotline calls placed by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds before the surge turned deadly. Once people began getting crushed in an alley near Hamilton Hotel, police failed to establish control over the site and allow paramedics to reach the injured in time.
Some experts have called the crush a “manmade disaster” that could have been prevented with relatively simple steps like employing more police and public workers to monitor bottleneck points, enforcing one-way walking lanes, and blocking narrow pathways.
The Seoul court acquitted Kim of professional negligence, saying that prosecutors failed to prove that he had violated his duties or to establish a connection between his conduct and the high toll of deaths and injuries. The court also acquitted two lower-ranking police officers who faced similar charges.
The court stated that while Kim received status updates from various departments in his agency and the Yongsan police station about the situation in Itaewon before the crush on Oct. 29, 2022, this information would not have been sufficient for him to recognize the possibility of an incident of such magnitude.
The court also noted that Kim had instructed various police stations in Seoul, including Yongsan, to establish plans to maintain safety during Halloween celebrations.
“Based solely on evidence submitted by prosecutors, it’s insufficient to conclude that the defendants’ professional negligence and its relationship to the occurrence or escalation of this incident are fully established beyond reasonable doubt,” the court said in a statement. Relatives of the victims embraced and cried outside the court after the verdict was announced.
“This court just granted immunity to the police for whenever these kinds of incidents happen again!” one of them shouted. Others scuffled with security as they tried to approach Kim’s car as he left the court.
Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families, a group representing the victims, said the ruling was “dishonest” and “impossible to understand” and called for prosecutors to appeal.
“We strongly condemn that the main officials of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who ignored their duties for prevention, preparation and response despite anticipating that a large crowd would develop, and who have been denying their responsibility until now, are being given a free pass,” the group said.
The same court last month sentenced the former chief of Yongsan police station, Lee Im-jae, to three years in prison and convicted two of his colleagues of professional negligence resulting in death, citing their failure to properly prepare for the crowd and respond to the crush.
The court acquitted Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan ward office, and three other ward officials, saying that they had no legal authority to control or break up crowds.
Lee and another Yongsan police official who received a one-year sentence appealed the ruling earlier this month. The other police official had received a suspended sentence.
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to stay in jail while appeals court takes up bail fight
Lawyer Interview |
2024/10/15 06:20
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A federal appeals court judge has ruled to keep Sean “Diddy” Combs locked up while he makes a third bid for bail in his sex trafficking case, which is slated to go to trial in May.
In a decision filed Friday, Circuit Judge William J. Nardini denied the hip-hop mogul’s immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel weighs his bail request.
Combs’ lawyers appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 30 after two judges rejected his release.
Combs, 54, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest on charges that he used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “Freak Offs.”
Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected the defense’s $50 million bail proposal that would’ve allowed the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer to be placed under house arrest at his Florida mansion with GPS monitoring and strict limits on visitors.
Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who has since recused himself from the case, said that prosecutors had presented “clear and convincing evidence” that Combs is a danger to the community. He said “no condition or set of conditions” could guard against the risk of Combs obstructing the investigation or threatening or harming witnesses.
In their appeal, Combs’ lawyers argued that the judge had “endorsed the government’s exaggerated rhetoric” and ordered Combs detained for “purely speculative reasons.”
“Indeed, hardly a risk of flight, he is a 54-year-old father of seven, a U.S. citizen, an extraordinarily successful artist, businessman, and philanthropist, and one of the most recognizable people on earth,” the lawyers wrote.
Combs’ lawyers have not asked the new trial judge, Arun Subramanian, to consider releasing him on bail. At a hearing Thursday, as Combs sat alongside his lawyers in a beige jail jumpsuit, Subramanian suggested he would at least be open to taking up the issue.
After setting a May 5 trial date, Subramanian briefly questioned Combs’ lawyers about his treatment at the Metropolitan Detention Center, which has been plagued by violence and dysfunction for years.
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Supreme Court grapples with governor’s 400-year veto, calling it ‘crazy’
Attorney Career |
2024/10/11 11:43
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Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Wednesday that Gov. Tony Evers’ creative use of his expansive veto power in an attempt to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years appeared to be “extreme” and “crazy” but questioned whether and how it should be reined in.
“It does feel like the sky is the limit, the stratosphere is the limit,” Justice Jill Karofsky said during oral arguments, referring to the governor’s veto powers. “Perhaps today we are at the fork in the road ... I think we’re trying to think should we, today in 2024, start to look at this differently.”
The case, supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long fight over just how broad Wisconsin’s governor’s partial veto powers should be. The issue has crossed party lines, with Republicans and Democrats pushing for more limitations on the governor’s veto over the years.
In this case, Evers made the veto in question in 2023. His partial veto increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.
“The veto here approaches the absurd and exceeds any reasonable understanding of legislative or voter intent in adopting the partial veto or subsequent limits,” attorneys for legal scholar Richard Briffault, of Columbia Law School, said in a filing with the court ahead of arguments.
That argument was cited throughout the oral arguments by justices and Scott Rosenow, attorney for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center, which handles lawsuits for the state’s largest business lobbying group and brought the case.
The court should strike down Evers’ partial veto and declare that the state constitution forbids the governor from striking digits to create a new year or to remove language to create a longer duration than the one approved by the Legislature, Rosenow argued.
Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget bill, Rosenow argued.
Justices appeared to agree that limits were needed, but they grappled with where to draw the line.
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US court to review civil rights lawsuit alleging environmental racism
Court News |
2024/10/07 13:24
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A federal appellate court is set to hear oral arguments Monday in a civil rights lawsuit alleging a south Louisiana parish engaged in racist land-use policies to place polluting industries in majority-Black communities.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is reviewing a lawsuit filed by community groups claiming St. James Parish “intentionally discriminated against Black residents” by encouraging industrial facilities to be built in areas with predominantly Black populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”
The groups, Inclusive Louisiana, Rise St. James and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, seek a halt to future industrial development in the parish.
The plaintiffs note that 20 of the 24 industrial facilities were in two sections of the parish with majority-Black populations when they filed the complaint in March 2023.
The parish is located along a heavily industrialized stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known as the Chemical Corridor, often referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley” because of the high levels of suspected cancer-causing pollution emitted there.
The lawsuit comes as the federal government has taken steps during the Biden administration to address the legacy of environmental racism. Federal officials have written stricter environmental protections and committed tens of billions of dollars in funding.
In the Louisiana case, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana in November 2023 dismissed the lawsuit largely on procedural grounds, ruling the plaintiffs had filed their complaint too late. But he added, “this Court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory.”
Barbier said the lawsuit hinged primarily on the parish’s 2014 land-use plan, which generally shielded white neighborhoods from industrial development and left majority-Black neighborhoods, schools and churches without the same protections. The plan also described largely Black sections of the parish as “future industrial” sites. The plaintiffs missed the legal window to sue the parish, the judge ruled.
Yet the parish’s land-use plan is just one piece of evidence among many revealing ongoing discrimination against Black residents in the parish, said Pamela Spees, a lawyer for the Center of Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs. They are challenging Barbier’s ruling under the “continuing violations” doctrine on the grounds that discriminatory parish governance persists, allowing for industrial expansion in primarily Black areas.
The lawsuit highlights the parish’s decision in August 2022 to impose a moratorium on large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre (1,580-hectare) solar project upset residents of the mostly white neighborhood of Vacherie, who expressed concerns about lowering property values and debris from storms. The parish did not take up a request for a moratorium on heavy industrial expansion raised by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit states.
These community members “have tried at every turn to simply have their humanity and dignity be seen and acknowledged,” Spees said. “That’s just been completely disregarded by the local government and has been for generations.”
Another part of the complaint argues the parish failed to identify and protect the likely hundreds of burial sites of enslaved people by allowing industrial facilities to build on and limit access to the areas, preventing the descendants of slaves from memorializing the sites. The federal judge tossed out that part of the lawsuit, noting the sites were on private property not owned by the parish.
At its core, the complaint alleges civil rights violations under the 13th and 14th amendments, stating the land-use system in the parish allowing for industrial buildout primarily in majority-Black communities remains shaped by the history of slavery, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws and governance.
Lawyers for St. James Parish said the lawsuit employed overreaching claims and “inflammatory rhetoric.” St. James Parish did not respond to a request for comment. |
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