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Court hears discrimination case over wedding cake
Current Cases |
2013/12/05 13:13
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A Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony should not be forced to violate his religious beliefs, his attorney told a judge deciding whether the cake-maker should be made to accommodate gay couples. But an attorney representing a gay couple countered Wednesday that the baker's faith doesn't give him a right to discriminate.
At issue in the complaint from David Mullins and Charlie Craig against Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver is whether religious freedom can protect a business from discrimination allegations from gay couples.
Mullins and Craig wanted to buy a cake last year, but when one of the shop owners, Jack Phillips, found out the cake was to celebrate a gay wedding, he turned the couple of away and cited his religious faith.
"(His) faith, whatever it may have to say about marriage for same-sex couples or the expressive power of a wedding cake, does not give the respondents a license to discriminate," Amanda Goad, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told an administrative judge in Colorado's Civil Rights Commission.
Phillips' attorney, Nicolle Martin, said her client shouldn't be forced to ignore his Christian faith while running the business he's had for nearly 40 years. She said Phillips feels "privileged to design and create the cakes that celebrate the joyous events of people's lives."
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Black LA firefighter awarded $1.1m in bias lawsuit
Current Cases |
2013/12/02 12:15
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Six years after losing in his first trial, a black Los Angeles firefighter was awarded $1.1 million Monday by a jury that found he suffered discrimination during his nearly three-decade career.
After 16 days of deliberations and a seven-week trial, the jurors found in favor of Jabari S. Jumaane in a lawsuit alleging a pattern of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Jumaane alleged that he was subjected to racial slurs and jokes and that his supervisors falsified his performance evaluations, leading to suspensions and reprimands.
"We are grateful to the jury for this historic verdict which clearly indicts the department and the city for its systemic discrimination and retaliation against black fire members which it has condoned and perpetuated for decades," Jumaane's attorney Nana Gyamfi said in a statement.
Jumaane said he was grateful the jury was able to render the only reasonable verdict.
Attorneys for the city argued that Jumaane's poor performance evaluations were justified, and his harassment allegations were false.
Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for City Attorney Mike Feuer, said the city hasn't yet chosen its next move. |
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High court weighs Mich. ban on affirmative action
Current Cases |
2013/10/14 13:16
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After the Supreme Court ruled a decade ago that race could be a factor in college admissions in a Michigan case, affirmative action opponents persuaded the state's voters to outlaw any consideration of race.
Now, the high court is weighing whether that change to Michigan's constitution is itself discriminatory.
It is a proposition that even the lawyer for civil rights groups in favor of affirmative action acknowledges a tough sell, at first glance.
"How can a provision that is designed to end discrimination in fact discriminate?" said Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet that is the difficult argument Rosenbaum will make on Tuesday to a court that has grown more skeptical about taking race into account in education since its Michigan decision in 2003.
A victory for Rosenbaum's side would imperil similar voter-approved initiatives that banned affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies.
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Military high court to hear Kan. HIV exposure case
Current Cases |
2013/09/30 13:29
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The highest court for the U.S. armed forces has agreed to hear the appeal of a Kansas airman convicted of assault for exposing multiple sex partners to HIV at swinger parties in Wichita, his attorney said Friday.
David Gutierrez was a sergeant serving at McConnell Air Force base in Kansas when he was sentenced in 2011 to eight years in prison and stripped of his rank in an aggravated assault case. Prosecutors told the trial judge that a stiff sentence would send a message that the military values the integrity of its service members, saying Gutierrez played Russian roulette with his sexual partners' lives.
The defense on appeal has won a rare opportunity to present before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces an argument that his attorney says could set a far-reaching precedent across the military.
"It will set the table for the entire military services as to what kind of evidence is necessary to find that someone can cause grievous bodily injury after testing positive for HIV," said Kevin McDermott, one of his defense attorneys.
In addition to the HIV issue, the military appeals court agreed Tuesday to decide whether the evidence was sufficient to find Gutierrez committed adultery. The defense contends Gutierrez can't be guilty of adultery because his wife participated with her husband in the "swinger's lifestyle." |
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Calif. asks Supreme Court to halt inmate releases
Current Cases |
2013/08/12 13:08
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Against growing odds, Gov. Jerry Brown formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Friday to intervene once again in California's yearslong battle with federal judges over control of the state's prison system.
The Democratic governor filed his formal appeal asking the justices to overturn a lower court decision requiring the state to reduce its prison population by nearly 10,000 inmates by the end of the year to improve conditions.
The appeal came the same day as the U.S. Justice Department indicated that it may intervene in an ongoing lawsuit over California's treatment of inmates with severe mental illness, and as a lower federal court dumped cold water on the administration's plan to transfer more inmates to private prisons in other states.
Brown filed the appeal just a week after the Supreme Court soundly rejected the state's request to postpone the lower court's requirement that California reduce what once was the nation's largest correctional system to hold no more than 110,000 inmates in its major prisons. |
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Court in NYC upholds insider trading conviction
Current Cases |
2013/07/02 09:31
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A stock trader nicknamed "the Octopussy" because he had access to so many sources of inside information was properly convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, a federal appeals court concluded Monday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of Zvi Goffer and two others in a case the government had once touted as the biggest insider trading prosecution in history.
In all, more than two dozen defendants were convicted, including a one-time billionaire whose hedge funds had commanded as much as $7 billion.
The Israeli-born Goffer was convicted with two others in 2011 in a conspiracy to pay bribes to two lawyers at a Manhattan law firm. The government said Goffer and others earned more than $10 million illegally.
Goffer, whose nickname is a reference to a James Bond film, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after prosecutors said he arranged to pay two attorneys nearly $100,000 in 2007 and 2008 for inside tips on mergers and acquisitions. Prosecutors said Goffer's network used prepaid cellphones to avoid detection and destroyed them after each successful tip.
His lawyers challenged his conviction and sentence on several grounds, including that wiretap evidence should have been suppressed, that jury instructions were erroneous and that Goffer was punished for refusing to plead guilty.
A three-judge panel of the Manhattan appeals court noted the novelty of using wiretaps in a securities fraud case as it rejected defense arguments that the law permitting wiretaps does not list securities fraud as an offense for which it can be used.
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Justices voice skepticism of voting rights law
Current Cases |
2013/03/04 11:28
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The Supreme Court's conservative justices voiced deep skepticism Wednesday about a section of a landmark civil rights law that has helped millions of Americans exercise their right to vote.
In an ominous note for supporters of the key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy both acknowledged the measure's vital role in fighting discrimination and suggested that other important laws in U.S. history had run their course. "Times change," Kennedy said during the fast-paced, 70-minute argument.
Kennedy's views are likely to prevail on the closely divided court, and he tends to side with his more conservative colleagues on matters of race.
The court's liberals and conservatives engaged in a sometimes tense back-and-forth over whether there is an ongoing need in 2013 for the part of the voting rights law that requires states with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before making changes in the way elections are held. |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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