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Supreme Court won't reinstate case of man who went missing
Law & Court News |
2015/02/25 11:29
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Bobby Chen's legal luck has finally run out. The Supreme Court on Monday refused to reinstate Chen's appeal in a legal dispute with the city of Baltimore.
Chen beat long odds last year when he convinced the court — without the help of an attorney — to hear his case. But then he disappeared for two months and court officials couldn't reach him. The court dismissed the case last month after he missed a filing deadline.
Chen later re-emerged with a high-powered lawyer who said his client was traveling, experienced a slip-and-fall injury, and was unaware his case had been granted.
But the court declined to give him a second chance.
Chen had been fighting Baltimore officials for years, claiming the city illegally demolished his row house. |
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NC Supreme Court considers status of private school vouchers
Law & Court News |
2015/02/16 13:05
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The state Supreme Court is about to decide whether millions of dollars in taxpayer money that started flowing this year to pay student tuition at private and religious schools continues for a second year.
The state's highest court hears arguments Tuesday on a ruling last summer that the Opportunity Scholarships program violates the state constitution because religious schools can discriminate based on faith. Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood also said privately run K-12 schools are not required to meet state curriculum standards.
Supreme Court justices showed they're in a hurry to decide whether private school vouchers will continue by latching on to the case early. Parents are already looking ahead and the deadline for them to submit scholarship applications for the next academic year is March 1.
So far, more than $4.2 million has paid for 1,200 students to attend 216 private schools around the state, according to the State Education Assistance Authority. That's a fraction of the 5,500 students whose families sought one of the scholarships, said Darrell Allison, who heads a group that advocates for expanding the program. Three out of four applicants for the vouchers, which pay private schools up to $4,200 per child per year to schools that admit them, were minority students.
"There are literally thousands of families who are looking forward to their day in court — desperately hopeful for a favorable ruling," Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, said in a statement.
The program opened this year to families whose income qualified their children for free or discounted school lunches, a ceiling of about $44,000 for a family of four. Eligibility increases for the year starting in August as the ceiling rises to nearly $59,000 per family.
Opponents of the voucher law complain that it violates the constitution because money from collected taxes goes to religious schools that have the option of ruling out students who don't follow their faith's beliefs, turning away the disabled or refusing the children of gay parents. |
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Philippine court convicts 9 Chinese of poaching
Law & Court News |
2014/11/25 10:29
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A Philippine court convicted nine Chinese fishermen Monday of poaching and taking hundreds of endangered giant sea turtles from a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, fining each of them nearly $103,000 but imposing no jail term.
The fishermen were arrested in May at Half Moon Shoal and their boat and catch of 555 endangered sea turtles were seized. The arrests sparked another spat between the Asian neighbors in the increasingly volatile South China Sea.
Judge Ambrosio de Luna of the regional trial court in western Palawan province found them guilty of violating the country's fisheries code, ordering them to pay a fine of $100,000 each for poaching in Philippine waters plus 120,000 pesos ($2,666) each for taking wildlife, said Attorney Hazel Alaska, the clerk of court.
Alaska said de Luna could have imposed a jail term of up to 20 years for the taking of threatened or endangered species but decided to impose only a fine. In case the fishermen fail to pay the fine, they will have to serve a maximum of six months in jail for each of the two cases, or a total of one year.
Once the fines are settled, the fishermen will be released from the provincial jail, she said. But if they fail to pay the fine, the time spent in detention since their arrest May 6 can be counted and they can be released by next May. |
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Court won't overturn ruling on Arizona no-bail law
Law & Court News |
2014/11/17 16:16
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Hundreds of immigrants who have been denied bail under a strict Arizona law will now have the opportunity to be released after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday in the closely watched case.
The high court kept intact a lower-court ruling from three weeks ago that struck down the law, which was passed in 2006 amid a series of immigration crackdowns in Arizona over the past decade. The law denies bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been charged with a range of felonies that include shoplifting, aggravated identity theft, sexual assault and murder.
As a result, immigrants spend months in jail and often simply plead guilty and get turned over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
The decision clears the way for a wave of bail hearings for immigrants across Arizona. |
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Court: IURC erred in approving Duke fee hike
Law & Court News |
2014/09/09 16:14
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The Indiana Court of Appeals has determined that state utility regulators wrongly approved $61 million in ratepayer fees for the Edwardsport coal gasification plant.
Duke Energy is seeking the money to cover construction costs for the new plant. But Appeals Court Judge James Kirsch wrote in an opinion issued Monday that members of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission should have better analyzed arguments from Duke Energy and plant opponents before approving the fee increase.
Duke officials have said a three-month delay led to increased project costs. But opponents led by the Citizens Action Coalition have argued that IURC regulators have been "rubber-stamping" fees and a rate hike sought by Duke.
The case is one of many surrounding the Edwardsport plant that is locked in battle inside the Indiana courts. |
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