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Fla. high court: Immigrant can't get law license
Top Court Watch |
2014/03/07 15:43
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The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that immigrants in the country illegally can't be given a license to practice law.
The question was raised when a man who moved here from Mexico when he was 9 years old sought a license in Florida. The court said Thursday that federal law prohibits people who are unlawfully in the country from obtaining professional licenses. The justices said state law can override the federal ban, but Florida has taken no action to do so.
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court granted a law license to Sergio Garcia, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager with his father. But that ruling was only after the state approved a law that allows immigrants in the country illegally to obtain the license. |
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Two men found guilty for selling U.S. company’s technology
Topics in Legal News |
2014/03/07 15:43
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A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
The jury returned the verdicts against Robert Maegerle and Walter Liew.
They were accused of stealing Delaware-based DuPont Co.’s method for making titanium oxide, a chemical that fetches $17 billion a year in sales worldwide and is used to whiten everything from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies.
A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
Prosecutors said DuPont was unwilling to sell its method to China, so it was stolen and sent to a company called Pangang Group Co. Ltd., according to testimony during the diplomatically dicey proceedings. The jury heard six weeks of testimony.
Prosecutors alleged that Pangang’s factory is the only facility inside China known to be producing titanium oxide the DuPont way, which uses chlorination. |
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California court: Drivers can read cellphone maps
Attorney Blog News |
2014/03/05 15:01
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Drivers in California can legally read a map on their hand-held cellphones while behind the wheel, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed the case of a Fresno man who was ticketed in January 2012 for looking at a map on his iPhone 4 while stuck in traffic. The driver, Steven Spriggs, challenged the $165 fine.
But Spriggs said he's no champion of those who think they can get away with cruising down the road while staring at their phone or engaging in other such dangerous behavior. Spriggs would like the law that ensnared him to be rewritten so officers can do their job unencumbered.
"We're distracted all the time," he said. "If our distractions cause us to drive erratically, we should be arrested for driving erratically."
It's personal for Spriggs, whose son suffered a broken leg from a driver who was chatting on a cellphone. Spriggs said he uses a hands-free device to talk and drive.
The incident that ensnared Spriggs happened when he was stopped by roadwork. He had grabbed his cellphone to find an alternate route when a California Highway Patrol officer on a motorcycle spotted him and wrote the ticket.
Spriggs first challenged the case in traffic court, where he lost, and then appealed it himself to a three-judge panel in Fresno County Superior Court, where he lost a second time.
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S.C. high court hearing Certificate of Need case
Top Court Watch |
2014/03/05 14:58
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South Carolina's highest court is gearing up for a debate over whether the state's health agency can end a program that regulates the building or expansion of medical facilities.
On Thursday, the state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments over the Certificate of Need program, an approvals process administered by the Department of Health and Environmental Control and required under state law for any medical facilities seeking to build or expand.
The program has been on hold since June, when Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed the $1.7 million needed to run it, saying she thinks it's an impediment to the free market and isn't needed. The House sustained Haley's veto after Ways and Means Chairman Brian White took the floor and said the veto was just about the money, not whether the program should continue.
Since that vote, some House Republicans have said they didn't intend to nix the program entirely, pointing out last summer that an executive decision to discontinue the program "may be contrary to law but is certainly contrary to the will and intent of the House of Representatives."
Three dozen states have similar programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
State law still requires medical facilities to acquire a Certificate of Need from DHEC before building, expanding, offering a new service or buying medical equipment costing more than $600,000. When Haley vetoed the funding, about three dozen projects worth about $100 million were being reviewed by DHEC.
Groups including the South Carolina Hospital Association sued over the issue, saying the state law requiring the review is still on the books and can't be suspended just because DHEC didn't set aside money to pay for it. Supporters also have argued that the Certificate of Need program is needed to keep costly medical services or hospital beds from going unused and that it ensures that rural communities keep access to health care. |
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Court: School ban of US flag shirts allowed
Law Firm Press Release |
2014/02/28 16:06
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A Northern California high school's decision to order students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during a celebration of the holiday Cinco de Mayo was appropriate, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the school officials' concerns of racial violence outweighed students' freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day.
The unanimous three-judge panel said past problems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable reasons for their actions. The court said schools have wide latitude in curbing certain civil rights to ensure campus safety.
"Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence," Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. The past events "made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real," she wrote.
The case garnered national attention as many expressed outrage that students were barred from wearing patriotic clothing. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based American Freedom Law Center, a politically conservative legal aid foundation, and other similar organizations took up the students' case and sued the high school and the school district.
William Becker, one of the lawyers representing the students, said he plans to ask a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court to rehear the case. Becker said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses again. |
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