JURIST - Gazette: April 2008

Monday, April 28, 2008

Indiana voter ID ruling [US SC]
3:44 PM ET

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, US Supreme Court, April 28, 2008 [ruling that an Indiana voter ID law does not put an undue burden on the right to vote and therefore does not violate the US Constitution]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Louisiana school Bible distribution ruling [US DC]
3:39 PM ET

John Roe v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, et al., US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, April 22, 2008 [ruling that a school district must stop the distribution of Bibles in schools as it constitutes a religious activity without a secular purpose]. Read the full text of the order and reasons [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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UK terror suspects asset freeze ruling [UK HC]
3:34 PM ET

A, K, M, Q & G and H.M. Treasury, UK High Court of Justice Queen's Bench Division Administrative Court, April 24, 2008 [ruling that the British Treasury Department may not freeze the assets of suspected terrorists without obtaining parliamentary approval]. Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Katrina insurance fraud claim dismissal [US DC]
3:30 PM ET

Thomas C., and Pamela McIntosh, v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, et al., US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, April 21, 2008 [dismissing claims of fraud against State Farm Insurance by a Mississippi couple who claimed that the company denied their insurance claim for damage from Hurricane Katrina]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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EPA chief post-9/11 statement ruling [2nd Circuit]
3:23 PM ET

Benzman, et al. v. Whitman, et al., US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, April 22, 2008 [ruling that former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman cannot be sued for making allegedly misleading reassurances about the air quality in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Lethal injection protocol ruling [US SC]
1:54 PM ET

Baze v. Rees, US Supreme Court, April 16, 2008 [ruling that Kentucky's lethal injection procedure does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Armed Career Criminal Act ruling [US SC]
1:50 PM ET

Begay v. United States, US Supreme Court, April 16, 2008 [ruling that convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol do not trigger enhanced sentencing for prior "violent felony" convictions under the Armed Career Criminal Act]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Drug sentence enhancement ruling [US SC]
1:46 PM ET

Burgess v. United States, US Supreme Court, April 16, 2008 [holding that a defendant's federal sentence can be enhanced under the Controlled Substances Act when the defendant has been previously convicted of a state drug offense punishable by more than one year, even if that offense is classified as a misdemeanor]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Taxpayer refund remedy ruling [US SC]
1:42 PM ET

United States v. Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Co., et al., US Supreme Court, April 15, 2008 [ruling that a taxpayer seeking to bring an action in federal court to obtain a tax refund must first exhaust the administrative refund claim procedures outlined in the Internal Revenue Code]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Illinois capital gains tax ruling [US SC]
1:38 PM ET

MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue, US Supreme Court, April 15, 2008 [overturning an Illinois state court decision allowing the state to tax a portion of the $1 billion capital gains realized by MeadWestvaco's predecessor when it sold its interest in Lexis/Nexis ]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Death sentences report 2007 [Amnesty International]
1:34 PM ET

Death Sentences and Executions in 2007, Amnesty International, April 15, 2008 [reporting that at least 1200 people were executed worldwide in 2007, 88 percent of which took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States]. Read the full text of the report [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Inmate starvation rights ruling [WA SC]
11:06 PM ET

Charles R. McNabb, v. Department of Corrections, et al., Supreme Court of the State of Washington, April 10, 2008 [ruling that Washington state's constitution does not provide a right for prison inmates to starve themselves to death]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

High school free speech suit dismissal [6th Circuit]
10:59 PM ET

Timothy Morrison, et al., v. Board of Education of Boyd County, et al., US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, April 9, 2008 [dismissing a lawsuit brought by a Kentucky high school student over a 2004 policy that bans students from expressing their opposition to homosexuality]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Katrina flood insurance ruling [SC LA]
10:35 PM ET

Joseph Sher v. Lafayette Insurance Company, et al., Supreme Court of Louisiana, April 8, 2008 [ruling that an insurance company was not required to pay for water damage caused when New Orleans levees breached after Hurricane Katrina]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Monday, April 07, 2008

Katrina insurance punitive damages ruling [5th Circuit]
10:51 PM ET

Norman J. Broussard, et al., v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, April 7, 2008 [reversing and vacating a jury award of $2.5 million in punitive damages to a Mississippi couple who lost their home in Hurricane Katrina]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Friday, April 04, 2008

Federal media shield law letter [US DOJ]
10:28 AM ET

Letter on the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, US Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence J.M. McConnell, April 2, 2008 [letter to Senate leaders opposing a proposed federal media shield law on national security grounds]. Read the full text of the letter [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

PKK EU terrorism list ruling [European Court of First Instance]
11:55 PM ET

PKK v Council, European Court of First Instance, April 3, 2008 [ruled that the Council of the European Union improperly listed the militant Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) on its list of terrorist organizations in 2002 because it failed to state its justifications for doing so]. Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Haradinaj war crimes acquittal [ICTY]
11:24 PM ET

Prosecutor v. Ramush Haradinaj et al., International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Trial Chamber, April 3, 2008 [acquitting former Kosovo prime minister and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Ramush Haradinaj of all war crimes charges]. Read the full text of the judgment file format [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Kansas funeral picketing law [KS]
11:16 PM ET

Kansas funeral privacy act, signed into law by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, April 3, 2008 [replacing a similar law struck down by the Kansas Supreme Court in March, 2008]. Read the full text of law [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

2003 Yoo military interrogation memo [US DOJ]
6:10 PM ET

Re; Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States, Memorandum for William Haynes II, US Department of Justice, March 14, 2003 [memo by deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo finding that military interrogators could employ a wide range of interrogation methods when questioning foreign detainees outside the United States without fear of criminal liability or constitutional sanction; made public by the Department of Justice, April 1, 2008]. Read the full text of the memo [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Same-sex partner pension inheritance ruling [ECJ]
9:16 PM ET

Tadao Maruko v Versorgungsanstalt der deutschen Bühnen, European Court of Justice, April 1, 2008 [ruling that a person in a same-sex partnership has the right to collect their partner's pension benefits after that partner's death]. Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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USPTO rules decision [US DC]
6:55 PM ET

Triantafyllos Tafas v. Jon W. Dudas, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, April 1, 2008 [rejecting new US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rules that would have retroactively limited the number of claims that can be included in a patent application and the number of times a continuation application can be filed for a given invention]. Read the full text of the memorandum opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

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