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Supreme Court's future hangs in the balance in 2016
Law Firm News |
2016/03/29 10:05
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Hillary Clinton said Monday that the future of the Supreme Court would hang in the balance of the 2016 election, warning that Republican front-runner Donald Trump would bring division to the court if he was allowed to shape its future.
Clinton said Trump would roll back the rights of individuals and further empower corporations, pointing to his past statements about building a wall along the Mexican border and barring all non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States.
"In a single term, the Supreme Court could demolish pillars of the progressive movement," Clinton said at the University of Wisconsin. She pointed to the possibility of a Trump presidency, asking, "What kind of justice will a President Trump appoint?"
Clinton opened a two-day campaign trip in Wisconsin ahead of the state's April 5 primary with a topic certain to unite Democrats whether they support her or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.
Republicans have said the late Justice Antonin Scalia should not be replaced until the next president picks a nominee. But Clinton argued it was reminiscent of GOP-led gridlock that stymied Obama's two terms.
"We chose a president. We chose him twice," Clinton said. "And now Republicans in the Senate are acting like our votes didn't count and President Obama is not still our nation's leader."
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2 charged in pastor's wife killing say little in court
Law Firm News |
2015/11/25 12:09
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Two young men charged in the shooting death of an Indianapolis pastor's pregnant wife gave brief answers to a judge's questions Tuesday during their first court appearance since their arrest.
Marion County Superior Court Judge Grant Hawkins entered not guilty pleas for 18-year-old Larry Taylor Jr. and 21-year-old Jalen Watson and appointed attorneys for the Indianapolis men during their initial hearing on murder, burglary, theft and several other charges. The judge also set a Jan. 8 pretrial conference for both men.
Taylor, who authorities allege fatally shot 28-year-old Amanda Blackburn earlier this month, appeared distracted, swiveling back and forth in his chair. Hawkins told Taylor more than once that he needed to respond clearly and audibly to each of his questions about whether he understood the charges, rather than only "yeah." Watson, however, said "yes" and "yes sir," throughout.
Prosecutors said Taylor and Watson entered through the unlocked front door of Blackburn's home shortly after her husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn, left for the gym about 6 a.m. Nov. 10. A probable cause affidavit says Taylor shot Amanda Blackburn three times, including once in the back of the head.
Watson faces a murder charge because Blackburn was killed during a home burglary and prosecutors allege that he was involved in it.
Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said Monday it was not clear whether Blackburn, who was 13 weeks pregnant, had been sexually assaulted; she was found partially nude. Prosecutors have filed a request with the court that seeks to enhance the murder charge Taylor faces, citing that she was pregnant at the time of her killing.
Under the state's request, an additional six to 20 years could be added to Taylor's sentence if he is convicted or pleads guilty to the murder charge, and the jury or judge finds that prosecutors have proven that Taylor caused the termination of her pregnancy. |
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Supreme Court sides with Kansas in water dispute
Law Firm News |
2015/02/25 12:47
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.
The justices also gave Nebraska some of what it asked for and ordered changes to the formula for measuring water consumption. Nebraska argued that the formula was unfair.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing the majority opinion, said the court was adopting the recommendations of the independent expert the justices appointed to help resolve the states' differences.
The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river's water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado. Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.
"Both remedies safeguard the compact; both insist that states live within its law," Kagan wrote.
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's office said it was pleased with the decision. The $5.5 million award is significantly less than the $80 million that Kansas had sought.
"We hope the decision will move the basin states forward and provide continued incentives toward shared solutions to our common problems," the office said in a statement. "We are confident that payment of the court's recommended award will finally allow us to leave the past where it belongs — in the past."
While calling the decision "reasonable," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he looked forward to working with his Kansas and Colorado counterparts to move forward. |
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Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care
Law Firm News |
2015/02/04 12:15
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Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme Court.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.
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