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Argentina asks top US Court to stop 'catastrophe'
Attorney Blog News |
2014/02/20 15:54
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Argentina filed a long-shot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the justices in Washington to avert an "economic catastrophe" by overturning lower court rulings that could force the South American government to default on billions of dollars in debts.
Making Argentina pay cash in full to investors who didn't accept bond swaps in exchange for defaulted debt could destabilize the global economy by making other voluntary debt restructurings "substantially more difficult, if not impossible," the petition said.
"Full payment of the holdouts would cut Argentina's reserves approximately in half, an unimaginable result for any nation," Argentina's lawyers argued. "Any sovereign would protest if a foreign court issued an extraterritorial order threatening its creditors and citizens and coercing it into turning over billions of dollars from its immune reserves."
By ignoring the federal sovereign immunity law that normally protects other countries' assets from seizure outside the United States, the lower court decisions also could make U.S. assets overseas vulnerable to similar seizures by other governments, the petition said. |
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Fight over gay marriage moving to federal courts
Topics in Legal News |
2014/02/20 15:53
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The overturning of Virginia’s gay marriage ban places the legal fight over same-sex unions increasingly in the hands of federal appeals courts shaped by President Barack Obama’s two election victories.
It’s no accident that Virginia has become a key testing ground for federal judges’ willingness to embrace same-sex marriage after last year’s strongly worded pro-gay rights ruling by the Supreme Court. Judges appointed by Democratic presidents have a 10-5 edge over Republicans on the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, formerly among the nation’s most conservative appeals courts.
Nationally, three other federal appeals courts will soon take up the right of same-sex couples to marry, too, in Ohio, Colorado and California. The San Francisco-based 9th circuit is dominated by judges appointed by Democratic presidents. The Denver-based court, home of the 10th circuit, has shifted from a Republican advantage to an even split between the parties, while the 6th circuit, based in Cincinnati, remains relatively unchanged in favor of Republicans during Obama’s tenure.
U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen’s ruling Thursday, that same-sex couples in Virginia have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals, represented the strongest advance in the South for advocates of gay marriage. She put her own ruling on hold while it is being appealed. |
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Fla. man guilty of lesser counts in music shooting
Topics in Legal News |
2014/02/18 15:30
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Prosecutors say they may retry a Florida man on first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting of a teenager after an argument over loud music.
A jury convicted Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old software developer, on Saturday of attempted murder for shooting into a carful of teenagers after the argument, but jurors couldn't agree on the most serious charge of first-degree murder. A mistrial was declared on that charge. State Attorney Angela Corey said her office would consider seeking a retrial.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Cory Strolla said he plans to appeal based on several issues, including how the jury could reach guilty verdicts on four counts and deadlock on another.
Dunn was charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis, of Marietta, Ga., in 2012 after the argument over loud music coming from the SUV occupied by Davis and three friends outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Dunn, who is white, had described the music to his fiancee as "thug music." He claimed he acted in self-defense.
The trial was Florida's latest to raise questions about self-defense and race, coming six months after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, about 125 miles south of Jacksonville. The Dunn trial was prosecuted by the same State Attorney's Office that handled the Zimmerman case. |
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Appeals court reinstates BP shareholders' lawsuit
Legal Blog News |
2014/02/18 15:30
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A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a shareholders lawsuit filed against BP Alaska in the wake of two oil spills in 2006 on the North Slope that exposed problems with the company's pipeline maintenance program.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the U.S. District Court of Western Washington on several claims.
Shareholders sued BP in 2008, claiming management made misleading statements about the conditions of the company's pipelines, and its maintenance and leak detection program after the first spill of 200,000 gallons onto the North Slope tundra two years earlier. The lawsuit claims BP made the statements knowingly or with deliberate recklessness.
The shareholders claim BP's share price fell 4 percent after the second spill five months later and the subsequent field shutdown for maintenance.
The Associated Press left messages seeking comment for attorneys on both sides of the case.
BP spokeswoman Dawn Patience said in an emailed statement that the company had not had an opportunity to study the decision, so "it would not be appropriate to comment."
BP Exploration Alaska Inc. was fined $20 million in 2007 after pleading guilty to a federal environmental crime for failing to prevent the crude spill, the largest ever at Prudhoe Bay.
The problems became known after the March 2006 spill prompted the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to open an investigation into maintenance practices at the 30-year-old field.
They found that thick sludge caked along the bottom of the leaky pipe was protecting colonies of bacteria that produce a corrosive acid. The acid had eaten an almond-sized hole in the steel over the course of several years, and that's where the spill occurred. |
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CA Supreme Court justice to retire
Top Court Watch |
2014/02/13 16:06
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The longest-serving current justice of the California Supreme Court announced Tuesday that she is retiring.
Justice Joyce Kennard notified Gov. Jerry Brown that she intends to step down on April 5, ending her 24-year tenure as a member of the state's highest court.
"The state and its people have been very well served by Justice Kennard," Brown said in a statement on Tuesday. "Her independence and intellectual fortitude have left a lasting mark on the Court."
Former Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Kennard to the Supreme Court in 1989, The San Jose Mercury News reported. She previously was a Los Angeles trial judge and an appeals court justice for a brief time before being elevated to the State Supreme Court.
Kennard, 72, has a unique personal history, according to the Mercury News, because she is a native of Indonesia, moved to the Netherlands as a teenager and lost part of her right leg to a tumor, forcing her to walk with a prosthetic the rest of her life.
Kennard moved to the United States in 1961, settling in Southern California. She earned her law degree from the University of Southern California.
In her tenure on the court, she became famous for interjecting questions during oral arguments, often turning them into lengthy speeches before pointing her finger at a lawyer and demanding an answer. Despite being an appointee of the conservative Deukmejian, she was often unpredictable in her rulings and would come down on the more liberal side of social issues before the court.
Kennard was in the 4-3 majority that in 2008 struck down California's long-standing ban on gay marriage, a ruling that preceded voter approval of Proposition 8 — which restored the same-sex marriage ban until the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated it last year. |
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