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Supreme Court limits reach of tax crime statute
Attorney Blog News |
2018/03/06 14:09
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The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday to make it harder for the federal government to use a section of tax law to convict someone of obstruction.
The government had interpreted a section of the tax code to give it a broad ability to charge someone with obstructing or impeding the work of the Internal Revenue Service. It argued that someone could violate the statute by doing something intended to obstruct the IRS' work, like shredding records, even if the person wasn't under investigation at the time or was under investigation but didn't know it.
But the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 to limit the application of the statue. The justices said that to convict someone, the government must show a connection between the obstructive action the person takes and a particular investigation or audit that was pending, or at least reasonably foreseeable.
The court's majority opinion pointed out problems with reading the law broadly. "Interpreted broadly, the provision could apply to a person who pays a babysitter $41 per week in cash without withholding taxes, leaves a large cash tip in a restaurant, fails to keep donation receipts from every charity to which he or she contributes, or fails to provide every record to an accountant.
Such an individual may sometimes believe that, in doing so, he is running the risk of having violated an IRS rule, but we sincerely doubt he would believe he is facing a potential felony prosecution for tax obstruction," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for court. |
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Brazil court largely upholds law that some fear hurts Amazon
Law & Court News |
2018/03/05 19:20
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Brazil's Supreme Court has batted down challenges to key parts of a law that environmentalists say has contributed to increasing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
The 2012 law included an amnesty for illegal deforestation that occurred before July 2008, including releasing perpetrators from the obligation to replant areas in compensation. It also weakened protections for some preservation areas by expanding the sorts of activity allowed in them. It was backed by farming interests.
Wednesday's court ruling rejected most of the challenges to the law.
Brazil's non-governmental Socio-environmental Institute says researchers believe the law contributed to rising rates of Amazon deforestation starting in 2012 after years of decreases. However, the rate fell in 2017 as compared to 2016, which saw an exceptionally large swath of forest cut.
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Court rules in favor of fired transgender funeral director
Legal Blog News |
2018/03/04 19:20
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A woman was illegally fired by a Detroit-area funeral home after disclosing that she was transitioning from male to female and dressed as a woman, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home in Garden City discriminated against director Aimee Stephens by firing her in 2013.
In a 3-0 decision, the court said "discrimination against employees, either because of their failure to conform to sex stereotypes or their transgender and transitioning status, is illegal under Title VII" of federal civil rights law.
The court overturned a decision by U.S. District Judge Sean Cox, who said the funeral home had met its burden to show that keeping Stephens "would impose a substantial burden on its ability to conduct business in accordance with its sincerely held religious beliefs."
The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"The unrefuted facts show that the funeral home fired Stephens because she refused to abide by her employer's stereotypical conception of her sex," said judges Karen Nelson Moore, Helene White and Bernice Donald.
The EEOC learned that the funeral home, until fall 2014, provided clothing to male workers dealing with the public but not females. The court said it was reasonable for the EEOC to investigate and discover the "seemingly discriminatory clothing-allowance policy."
Stephens said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union that nobody "should be fired from their job just for being who they are," adding "I'm thrilled with the court's decision." |
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Court overturns conviction in fatal school bathroom attack
Top Court Watch |
2018/03/02 10:47
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Delaware's Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a 17-year-old girl in a school bathroom attack that left a 16-year-old classmate dead.
The girl was adjudicated delinquent for criminally negligent homicide by a Family Court judge last year and sentenced to six months in a juvenile facility for the April 2016 death of Amy Joyner-Francis.
An autopsy found that Joyner-Francis, who had a rare, undetected, heart condition, died of sudden cardiac death, aggravated by physical and emotional stress from the fight at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington. Cellphone video of the attack, which gained national attention, shows Joyner-Francis struggling to fight back and escape as she is repeatedly hit and kicked in the head while her assailant holds on to her hair.
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court agreed with defense attorney John Deckers that no reasonable fact-finder could have found that the girl acted with criminal negligence. Even if she did, the court said, it would be unjust to blame her for Joyner-Francis' death given how unforeseeable it was that the fight would lead to a young teen dying of cardiac arrest.
The Associated Press has not published the name of the girl because she is a juvenile. The Supreme Court in its ruling referred to the defendant using the pseudonym "Tracy," while referring to Joyner-Francis as "Alcee."
The justices said a person can't be held responsible for criminally negligent homicide unless her failure to perceive the risk of death was a "gross deviation from what a reasonable person would have understood." No reasonable fact-finder could conclude that the attack, which inflicted only minor injuries on Joyner-Francis, posed a risk of death so great that her assailant was grossly deviant for not recognizing it, the court concluded.
While the Family Court judge said the girl should have realized that her attack might have deadly consequences because of the close confines of the bathroom, with its tile floor and hard fixtures, the Supreme Court said Joyner Francis' death had nothing to do with those risks, and they were too far removed from the way that she died to blame her assailant for her death.
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Brazil court largely upholds law that some fear hurts Amazon
Top Court Watch |
2018/03/01 10:46
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Brazil's Supreme Court has batted down challenges to key parts of a law that environmentalists say has contributed to increasing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
The 2012 law included an amnesty for illegal deforestation that occurred before July 2008, including releasing perpetrators from the obligation to replant areas in compensation. It also weakened protections for some preservation areas by expanding the sorts of activity allowed in them. It was backed by farming interests.
Wednesday's court ruling rejected most of the challenges to the law.
Brazil's non-governmental Socio-environmental Institute says researchers believe the law contributed to rising rates of Amazon deforestation starting in 2012 after years of decreases. However, the rate fell in 2017 as compared to 2016, which saw an exceptionally large swath of forest cut.
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