|
|
|
Kagan's writings suggest her view on judge's role
Headline Legal News |
2010/05/24 09:04
|
| Elena Kagan, a Supreme Court nominee without judicial experience, has suggested in writings and speeches over a quarter-century that when judges make decisions, they must take account of their values and experience and consider politics and policy, rather than act as robotic umpires.pNot since 1972 has a president picked someone for the high court who hasn't been a judge. So what the 50-year-old Kagan has said about judging might be the best indicator of the kind of justice she would be./ppRepublicans have said that because Kagan hasn't left a trail of judicial opinions, they will pore over her records as a Clinton White House aide and academic for any clues. Her speeches and papers from her time as dean of the Harvard Law School and, before that as a law professor and graduate student, are certain to get close attention at her confirmation hearing in late June./ppHer words stand in contrast to the more technical view of judging voiced by Chief Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearing five years ago. Roberts said he considered himself an umpire merely calling balls and strikes./ppKagan apparently has never directly addressed Roberts' comments. Republicans have held his description of the job as a model of judicial restraint and used it to criticize President Barack Obama for what they call his support of judicial activism — judges imposing their own views on the law./p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jury convicts man in NJ schoolyard triple slayings
Headline Legal News |
2010/05/24 05:03
|
pThe first defendant to be tried for a triple murder in a schoolyard that shocked New Jersey's largest city into action has been convicted on all counts./ppA jury returned the verdict Monday in state Superior Court in Newark against Rodolfo Godinez (goh-DEE'-nez). He was among six men and boys charged with the August 2007 slayings. The jury deliberated for nearly four hours and found him guilty on all 17 counts./ppThe victims' family members, including several parents, wept quietly as the verdict was read./ppThe three victims each suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. A fourth victim survived and testified against Godinez./ppGodinez's attorney had argued his client was at the scene but didn't take part in the attacks. Godinez could face life in prison at sentencing.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kagan Sided With Investors in Two Notable Securities Cases
Headline Legal News |
2010/05/10 09:25
|
pThe federal government has opposed business interests in two closely watched securities cases during Elena Kagan's time as solicitor general, although her brief tenure has overlapped with just a handful of notable business cases. /ppMs. Kagan has a light record on business issues outside of her 14 months of service as solicitor general, a role in which she represented the government at the high court. She hasn't served as a judge and her professional career has largely been devoted to government service and academia. /ppWith Ms. Kagan as solicitor general, the Obama administration has taken a friendlier approach to investor lawsuits. Ms. Kagan's office filed a legal brief supporting investors in a case that examined when shareholders could sue mutual-fund managers for allegedly charging excessive fees. Ms. Kagan argued that a lower-court ruling in the case did not provide enough of a check on potentially excessive fees. /ppIn another case, Ms. Kagan's office argued that shareholders of Merck amp; Co. Inc. didn't wait too long to file lawsuits alleging the drug maker misrepresented the safety of painkiller drug Vioxx. /ppThe Supreme Court, which decided both cases this spring, unanimously agreed with Ms. Kagan's position each time.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US women due in court in Philly in terrorism case
Headline Legal News |
2010/05/03 08:19
|
pTwo American women charged in a global terrorism plot allegedly aimed at killing a Swedish artist are due in court in Philadelphia./ppCourt papers show the case is largely built on e-mails and online postings allegedly made by 46-year-old Colleen LaRose of Pennsburg and 31-year-old Jamie Paulin-Ramirez of Leadville, Colo./ppThe Colorado woman's defense lawyer, Jeremy Ibrahim, says he will ask Monday for copies of computer evidence. A judge may have to screen it first because prosecutors say some of it may be classified./ppLaRose is also expected to enter a plea to a superseding indictment. Both women have previously pleaded not guilty. They were arrested this year after returning from Europe.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Florida Probing Law Firm in Foreclosures
Headline Legal News |
2010/05/02 09:24
|
pThe Florida attorney general's office is investigating possible misconduct by a large law firm that files foreclosures for banks, according to a posting on its Web site./ppThe Web site said the office is looking at whether Florida Default Law Group, based in Tampa, was involved in fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases. Mortgage documents that are used to prove a bank has a right to foreclose have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient, the Web site said./ppA spokeswoman for Florida Default declined to comment. Ryan Wiggins, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum, said the investigation began last fall./ppThe civil probe comes as some judges and federal prosecutors in Florida are paying close attention to how banks—and so-called foreclosure-mill law firms that work for banks—are attempting to take control of homes from borrowers in default. Judges across the country have chastised banks and their attorneys for attempting to seize properties they can't prove they own. /ppLast month, a Florida judge said that a mortgage document filed by a bank in a foreclosure case was part of an intentional effort to mislead the court.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Put an age limit on Supreme Court justices
Headline Legal News |
2010/04/28 08:53
|
pWhen President George W. Bush and his lawyers were insisting the commander in chief had the sole power to run the new war on terror, Judge Diane Wood sharply criticized that view./ppWood, now on President Obama's list as a possible Supreme Court nominee, wrote in a 2003 Chicago law review article that in a democracy, those responsible for national security must do more than say ‘trust us, we know best.' Secret prisons and secret evidence do not comport with the rule of law, she said./ppWhen the Bush administration argued that a Chinese Muslim could be held indefinitely as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner because he had gone to Afghanistan and may have associated with the Taliban, Judge Merrick Garland disagreed./ppGarland, also on Obama's short list for the Supreme Court, wrote two years ago for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington that Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has ‘said it thrice' does not make the allegation true. There was no evidence that the Uighurs were enemy combatants, he said.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
