|
|
|
Court case to tackle jails' medication-assisted treatment
Headline Legal News |
2019/02/11 02:10
|
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine started making its case in federal court on Monday against the ban on medication-assisted treatment in county jail amid the opioid crisis.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills recently lifted the Maine Department of Corrections' ban on medication-assisted treatment. The ACLU's lawsuit filed in September argued that it's unconstitutional and harmful for Maine jails to prohibit such treatment.
Madawaska resident Brenda Smith sued, asking to continue using medication-assisted treatment to keep her opioid use disorder in remission. Smith, who is expected to report to Aroostook County Jail this year, testified Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland during a court case that is expected to last all week.
Smith wept on the stand while describing how access to the medicine is critical to stabilizing her life. ACLU lawyers said they will spend the week making the case that such access is a constitutional issue, as well as a protected right under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
"It makes me feel normal, like I'm a normal human being," Smith said.
Smith's lawsuit against the jail comes at a time when jails and prisons across the country are starting to provide addiction medications to inmates, as resistance from long-skeptical corrections officials appears to be loosening amid the national drug epidemic.
Attorneys for the jail have pushed back at the idea that a ban on medically assisted treatment is a violation of a prisoner's rights. Attorney Peter Marchesi, an attorney representing the jail Monday, has previously said medical staff members at the jail have the ability to manage prisoners' withdrawal symptoms.
Monday's court action also included an expert witness, Dr. Ross MacDonald, who has overseen medical care for New York City's jail system. The medical literature supports medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, and it's important to have that option available to prisoners, he said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appellate judge announces run for Supreme Court seat
Headline Legal News |
2019/02/04 11:00
|
An appellate judge has announced he will run for a spot on the Kentucky Supreme Court days after Justice Bill Cunningham retired.
Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Christopher "Shea" Nickell told The Paducah Sun that he is running in November's election for the vacant seat, which represents the First Supreme Court District encompassing 24 counties in western Kentucky. The winner of the general election will serve the rest of Cunningham's current term ending in 2022.
Gov. Matt Bevin will appoint a temporary justice to the seat until November, but Nickell did not submit his name for consideration. He says that would have required him to step down from the appeals court.
Nickell practiced law for 22 years before he became an appellate judge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ginsburg makes 1st public appearance since cancer surgery
Headline Legal News |
2019/02/03 11:03
|
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is making her first public appearance since undergoing lung cancer surgery in December.
The 85-year-old Ginsburg is attending a concert at a museum a few blocks from the White House that is being given by her daughter-in-law and other musicians. Patrice Michaels is married to Ginsburg’s son, James. Michaels is a soprano and composer.
The concert is dedicated to Ginsburg’s life in the law.
Ginsburg had surgery in New York on Dec. 21. She missed arguments at the court in January, her first illness-related absence in more than 25 years as a justice.
She has been recuperating at her home in Washington since late December.
Ginsburg had two previous bouts with cancer. She had colorectal cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009.
The justice sat in the back of the darkened auditorium at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
The National Constitution Center, which sponsored the concert, did not permit photography.
James Ginsburg said before the concert that his mother is walking a mile a day and meeting with her personal trainer twice a week.
The performance concluded with a song set to Ginsburg’s answers to questions.
In introducing the last song, Michaels said, “bring our show to a close, but not the epic and notorious story of RBG.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Congo court poised to rule on presidential vote challenge
Headline Legal News |
2019/01/16 22:59
|
Congo's constitutional court is poised to rule on a challenge to the presidential election, with the government on Friday dismissing an unprecedented request by the African Union continental body to delay releasing the final results because of "serious doubts" about the vote.
Upholding the official results could spark new violence in a country hoping for its first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960. At least 34 people have been killed since provisional results were released on Jan. 10, the United Nations said.
The AU on Monday will send a high-level delegation to Congo to address the crisis in the vast Central African nation rich in the minerals key to smartphones and electric cars around the world. Its neighbors are concerned that unrest could spill across borders.
Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende called the matter one for the country's judicial bodies, and "the independence of our judiciary is no problem."
The declared runner-up in the Dec. 30 election, Martin Fayulu, has requested a recount, alleging fraud. He asserts that Congo's electoral commission published provisional results wildly different from those obtained at polling stations.
Fayulu welcomed the AU's stance and urged Congolese to support it.
Congo faces the extraordinary accusation of an election allegedly rigged in favor of the opposition. Fayulu's supporters have asserted that outgoing President Joseph Kabila made a backroom deal with the declared winner, Felix Tshisekedi, when the ruling party's candidate did poorly. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Colorado man of missing Colorado woman in court
Headline Legal News |
2018/12/24 12:29
|
A Colorado man suspected of killing his fiance has made his first court appearance. Patrick Frazee appeared by teleconference at a Teller County District Court hearing. Frazee was arrested earlier Friday in the disappearance of 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth. Authorities say the 32-year-old Frazee faces charges of first-degree murder and solicitation of murder.
Berreth was last seen in the Colorado town of Woodland Park on Thanksgiving Day. KOAA-TV reports a public defender was appointed for Frazee.
Officials say the daughter of woman her fiance is suspected of killing will live with the woman's family. Woodland Park police Chief Miles de Young said the family of 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth does not want to comment.
He told reporters Friday that Berreth's cellphone was found in Idaho and that investigators are working to recover it. The fiance, Patrick Frazee, was charged with the murder of Berreth and solicitation to commit murder.
The two lived separately and De Young says authorities have evidence suggesting the killing happened at Berreth's home in Woodland Park, in central Colorado.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court agrees to hear case involving Trump DC hotel
Headline Legal News |
2018/12/22 12:31
|
A federal appeals court agreed Thursday to take up a case accusing Donald Trump of profiting off the presidency in violation of the U.S. Constitution, giving the president's legal team its first major victory in the case.
The order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, hits the pause button on the ongoing federal court case in Maryland before deadlines to respond to subpoenas issued earlier this month seeking tax returns, receipts and other records from 13 Trump businesses and other entities.
It came just three days after Justice Department lawyers filed papers seeking a writ of mandamus appeal, criticizing U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte and arguing that that the "intrusive" discovery that has already begun would distract the president from his performance of his constitutional duties and could cause separation of powers concerns.
For Justice to succeed at the appeals level, they must meet a demanding standard that would partly rest on showing Messitte's decisions to be clearly wrong.
The lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia alleges that because Trump has not divested himself of his business holdings, foreign and domestic government spending at Trump's Washington hotel amounts to gifts to the president in violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause.
Oral arguments before the three-judge appeals court are scheduled for March, delaying what had been a brisk discovery schedule set in the district court by several months. The order also notes that lawyers should be prepared to also address substantive issues such as whether the plaintiffs in the case can even sue and, if victorious, compel the president to stop violating the Constitution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
