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Appeals court: Apple must submit to imposition of monitor
Topics in Legal News |
2015/06/02 22:40
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A federal appeals panel has refused to disqualify a court-appointed monitor after a judge found Apple colluded with book publishers in 2010 to raise electronic book prices.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled against Apple Inc. Thursday. The three-judge panel concluded that a judge did not act improperly when she declined Apple's request to disqualify a monitor she had appointed to evaluate Apple's antitrust policies.
A lawyer for Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 2nd Circuit did not yet rule on a separate appeal in which Apple is challenging the judge's finding that it colluded with publishers.
After a 2013 civil trial, a judge ordered the technology giant to modify contracts with publishers to prevent price fixing.
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Supreme Court to hear Texas Senate districts case
Legal Opinions |
2015/06/01 22:42
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The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear an important case about whether states must count only those who are eligible to vote, rather than the total population, when drawing electoral districts for their legislatures.
The case from Texas could be significant for states with large immigrant populations, including Latinos who are children or not citizens. The state bases its electoral districts on a count of the total population, including non-citizens and those who aren't old enough to vote.
But those challenging that system argue that it violates the constitutional requirement of one person, one vote. They claim that taking account of total population can lead to vast differences in the number of voters in particular districts, along with corresponding differences in the power of those voters.
A ruling for the challengers would shift more power to rural areas and away from urban districts in which there are large populations of immigrants who are not eligible to vote because they are children or not citizens. Latinos have been the fasting growing segment of Texas' population and Latino children, in particular, have outpaced those of other groups, according to census data.
"And because urban areas are more Democratic, the ruling could help Republicans," said Richard Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California-Irvine law school.
The Project on Fair Representation is funding the lawsuit filed by two Texas residents. The group opposes racial and ethnic classifications and has been behind Supreme Court challenges to affirmative action and the federal Voting Rights Act. |
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Abortion ban based on heartbeat rejected by appeals court
Top Court Watch |
2015/06/01 22:41
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A federal appeals court struck down one of the nation's toughest abortion restrictions on Wednesday, ruling that women would be unconstitutionally burdened by an Arkansas law that bans abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy if a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with doctors who challenged the law, ruling that abortion restrictions must be based on a fetus' ability to live outside the womb, not the presence of a fetal heartbeat that can be detected weeks earlier. The court said that standard was established by previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
The ruling upholds a decision of a federal judge in Arkansas who struck down the 2013 law before it could take effect, shortly after legislators approved the change. But the federal judge left in place other parts of the law that required doctors to tell women if a fetal heartbeat was present; the appeals court also kept those elements in place.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office was reviewing the decision "and will evaluate how to proceed," office spokesman Judd Deere said Wednesday afternoon.
The ruling wasn't a surprise to Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented the two doctors challenging the law. She said the case was a waste of taxpayer time, and that the decision leaves medical decisions to doctors and their patients, rather than politicians.
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Court: State can’t order unions, companies to reach binding contracts
Legal Blog News |
2015/05/18 16:55
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A California appeals court sided with one of the largest fruit farms in the nation, ruling that a law allowing the state to order unions and farming companies to reach binding contracts was unconstitutional.
Labor activists say the mandatory mediation and conciliation law is a key to helping farm workers improve working conditions.
However, the 5th District Court of Appeal said Thursday it does not clearly state the standards that the contracts are supposed to achieve.
The ruling came in a fight between Gerawan Farming and the United Farm Workers, the union launched by Cesar Chavez. The union won the right to represent Gerawan workers in 1992, but the two sides did not agree to a contract.
At the union’s request, the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 2013 ordered Gerawan and the UFW to enter into binding mediation. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement so a deal was crafted by the mediator and adopted by the labor relations board, the appeals court said. Gerawan objected to the terms. |
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Attorney: Court orders release of anti-nuclear activists
Legal Blog News |
2015/05/16 16:54
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A federal appeals court has ordered the immediate release of an 85-year-old nun and two fellow Catholic peace activists who vandalized a uranium storage bunker, their attorney said Friday.
The order came after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week overturned the 2013 sabotage convictions of Sister Megan Rice, 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and ordered resentencing on their remaining conviction for injuring government property. The activists have spent two years in prison, and the court said they likely already have served more time than they will receive for the lesser charge.
On Thursday, their attorneys petitioned the court for an emergency release, saying that resentencing would take weeks if normal court procedures were followed. Prosecutors on Friday afternoon responded that they would not oppose the release, if certain conditions were met.
After the close of business on Friday, attorney Bill Quigley said the court had ordered the activists' immediate release. He said he was working to get them out of prison and was hopeful they could be released overnight or on the weekend.
"We would expect the Bureau of Prisons to follow the order of the court and release them as soon as possible," he said.
Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed are part of a loose network of activists opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons. To further their cause, in July 2012, they cut through several fences to reach the most secure area of the Y-12 complex. Before they were arrested, they spent two hours outside a bunker that stores much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium, hanging banners, praying and spray-painting slogans.
In the aftermath of the breach, federal officials implemented sweeping security changes, including a new defense security chief to oversee all of the National Nuclear Security Administration's sites.
Rice was originally sentenced to nearly three years and Walli and Boertje-Obed were each sentenced to just over five years. In overturning the sabotage conviction, the Appeals Court ruled that the trio's actions did not injure national security. |
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