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Religious clerks in Kentucky follow law, but see conflict
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/17 15:26
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Clerk Mike Johnston prays twice a day, once each morning and once each night, and asks the Lord to understand the decision he made to license same-sex marriage.
“It’s still on my heart,” said Johnston, whose rural Carter County sits just to the east of Rowan County, where clerk Kim Davis sparked a national furor by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, a decision that landed her in jail.
Johnston is one of Kentucky’s 119 other clerks, many of them deeply religious, who watched the Kim Davis saga unfold on national television while trying to reconcile their own faith and their oath of office. Sixteen of them sent pleading letters to the governor noting their own religious objections. But when forced to make a decision, only two have taken a stand as dramatic as Davis and refused to issue licenses.
And others say they find the controversy now swirling around their job title humiliating.
“I wish (Davis) would just quit, because she’s embarrassing everybody,” said Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins, whose office serves the state’s second-largest city, Lexington.
After the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered clerks across the state to issue licenses, launching them along markedly different paths. The clerk in Louisville, Bobbie Holsclaw, issued licenses that very day and the mayor greeted happy couples with bottles of champagne. |
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Ferguson panel recommends police, court reform, transparency
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/15 15:27
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A reform panel formed after the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown is recommending the consolidation of the metro area's police departments and municipal courts, a newspaper reported Monday.
Gov. Jay Nixon and others have scheduled an afternoon news conference to release details of the Ferguson Commission report that has been 10 months in the making. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch received a copy of the commission's 198-page report ahead of its official release.
"The law says all citizens are equal," the report's introduction states. "But the data says not everyone is treated that way."
The events in Ferguson raised concerns about police departments and municipal courts in that north St. Louis County town, but also elsewhere in the region. The departments and courts have been accused of targeting minorities to raise revenue, leading to the mistrust that was a key component of the unrest following Brown's death.
In addition to court and police department consolidation, the commission recommends changes in several other areas to address social and economic divisions highlighted since the shooting. The 16-person commission suggested establishing a statewide, publicly accessible database to track police shootings and developing a statewide plan to deal with mass demonstrations that focuses on preserving life.
It recommends establishing school-based healing centers to address behavioral and health issues.
The commission was established in November during the unrest that followed the fatal shooting in August of Brown, 18, who was black and unarmed, by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson. A St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Wilson, who is white, but the shooting spurred a national "Black Lives Matter" movement and led to protests and rioting in and around Ferguson. |
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Washington Supreme Court rules against Backpage.com
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/04 00:18
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The website Backpage.com may not be immune from state liability law and a lawsuit filed by three young girls who said they were sold as prostitutes on the website can proceed to trial, the Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said the federal Communications Decency Act does not protect Backpage from state lawsuits because of allegations that the company didn't just host the ads, but helped develop the content.
"The plaintiffs before us have been the repeated victims of horrific acts committed in the shadows of the law," said Justice Steven Gonzalez, writing for the majority. "They brought this suit in part to bring light to some of those shadows: to show how children are bought and sold for sexual services online on Backpage.com in advertisements that, they allege, the defendants help develop."
The case should proceed because the girls have alleged facts that, if proved, would show that Backpage helped produce illegal content, the justices said.
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Juvenile court decision due in Slender Man stabbing case
Topics in Legal News |
2015/08/09 23:53
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A pivotal decision is due this week in the case of two 13-year-old Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing a classmate to please online horror character Slender Man — keep them in adult court or move them into the juvenile system.
The stakes are enormous: Each girl faces a charge of attempted first-degree homicide in adult court and could spend up to 65 years in the state prison system if convicted. Should Waukesha County Circuit Judge Bohren move them into the juvenile system, they could be held for only five years and all records of the proceedings would be sealed, giving them a chance to restart their lives.
Bohren, due to rule Monday, faces thorny questions about how young is too young to face adult consequences for crimes. Defense attorneys for both girls argue their clients are mentally ill — one attorney says his client is a schizophrenic who still believes fictional characters such as Slender Man and Harry Potter truly exist — and will receive better treatment in the juvenile system. Prosecutors say transferring them out of adult court would depreciate the seriousness of the crime.
"It's obviously a very tough decision for him," said former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, who attended law school with Bohren. "They're very young. They clearly have some serious mental health issues. That pushes you toward putting them in juvenile court.
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Crimean Filmmaker Pleads Not Guilty in Terrorism Trial
Topics in Legal News |
2015/07/22 11:36
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A Ukrainian filmmaker who has been in a Russian jail for more than a year on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Critics have dismissed Oleh Sentsov's prosecution as revenge for his pro-Ukrainian position in Russia-occupied Crimea. Sentsov, a Crimean native, was a vocal voice against Russia's annexation of Crimea which followed a hastily called referendum in March.
The 39-year-old Sentsov was arrested in Crimea's capital in May 2014 after a pro-Ukrainian rally protesting the annexation.
At the opening of his trial in the southern city of Rostov-on Don on Tuesday, Sentsov pleaded not guilty and insisted the case against him is a fabrication, Russian news agencies reported.
Sentsov's defense team describes Sentsov's arrest in May 2014 as a kidnapping.
Sentsov, who unlike many Crimeans didn't apply for Russian citizenship, was grabbed on the street in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, by Russian security agents and resurfaced days later in custody in Moscow.
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