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Mentally disabled detainees granted class status
Legal Career News |
2011/12/21 14:42
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A federal judge has granted class-action status to a case brought on behalf of mentally disabled detainees who lack legal representation in immigration court.
The order issued under seal in November by U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee was made public Monday. The case involves detainees in California, Washington and Arizona who have been deemed mentally incompetent to represent themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant advocates want the federal government to appoint lawyers to represent mentally disabled detainees. Advocates brought the case last year on behalf of two men who had been detained for years.
A message left seeking comment at the Department of Justice was not immediately returned.
Immigrants are not required to use attorneys in deportation proceedings and attorneys are not provided free-of-charge in immigration court. |
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Calif. company due in court for Colo. fire deaths
Legal Career News |
2011/12/19 17:10
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A California specialty painting company is expected to plead guilty in the 2007 deaths of five workers at a Colorado power plant, in the rare prosecution of a company.
RPI Coatings Inc. of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., is expected to plead guilty Monday to five misdemeanor counts of workplace safety violations resulting in death.
During a court hearing earlier this month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jaime Pena said the company likely would pay a substantial compensation to the victims' survivors as part of a plea deal.
The workers died after a fire broke out inside a pipeline at Xcel Energy's Cabin Creek hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colo., about 40 miles west of Denver.
A jury in June acquitted Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc., which owns the power plant, of all criminal charges. The company has paid millions in compensation to the families. |
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Next ICC prosecutor warns against sex crimes
Legal Career News |
2011/12/14 20:57
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The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court pledged Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes.
A day after her election by the 119 countries that support the tribunal, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda said too often gender crimes go unreported and unpunished and the victims are trivialized, denigrated, threatened and silenced, which enables the abuses to continue unimpeded.
In its first cases, she said, the ICC has sent the message that this is no longer acceptable and must stop.
The International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002, is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. It is a court of last resort, stepping in only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the moment, the ICC is dealing with cases from Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the recent Libyan uprising, and post-election violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast.
At present, crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution and pregnancy are alleged in some cases before the court in all of these situations except Libya, where an investigation of alleged gender-based crimes is still under way. |
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Court: Can lawsuit against casino go forward?
Legal Career News |
2011/12/12 10:56
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The Supreme Court will decide whether a lawsuit attempting to shut down a new tribal casino in southwestern Michigan can move forward.
The justices on Monday agreed to hear from the government and the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, also known as the Gun Lake Tribe.
The tribe opened a casino earlier this year in Wayland Township, 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. But casino foe David Patchak sued to close the casino down, challenging how the government placed the land in trust for the tribe. A federal judge threw out his lawsuit, but the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit said it could move forward. The justices will hear arguments next year. |
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Ark. court affirms $50M verdict for rice farmers
Legal Career News |
2011/12/09 18:10
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The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed a nearly $50 million verdict for farmers who say they lost money because a company's genetically altered rice seeds contaminated the food supply and drove down crop prices.
Bayer, the German conglomerate whose Bayer CropScience subsidiary produced the seeds, had argued that Arkansas tort laws set a limit on punitive damages and that courts should set aside jury awards that "shock the conscience." In the April 2010 verdict, a Lonoke County jury awarded $42 million in punitive damages and $5.9 million in actual damages.
The company said a lower court erred last year in ruling that a cap on punitive damages is unconstitutional.
But in its 24-page opinion released Thursday, the state Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that the cap on punitive damages was unconstitutional. Associate Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson wrote that the cap "limits the amount of recovery outside the employment relationship," while the Arkansas constitution only allows limits on compensation paid by employers to employees. |
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Court upholds landmark California water pact
Legal Career News |
2011/12/08 16:57
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A state appeals court on Wednesday upheld a landmark agreement on how Southern California gets its water, overruling a judge who called the method unconstitutional.
The decision by California's 3rd Appellate District Court is a major victory for backers of the accord that created the nation's largest farm-to-city water transfer and set new rules for how the state divides its share of the Colorado River.
The case is being closely watched in six other western states and Mexico, which share water from the 1,450-mile river that runs from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez.
A three-judge panel in Sacramento disagreed with a lower court judge who found the state violated its Constitution by essentially writing a blank check to save the Salton Sea in rural Imperial Valley. California's largest lake is rapidly shrinking, and the transfer of water from Imperial Valley to San Diego threatens to accelerate its decline. |
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