| US Supreme Court to Decide High-Speed Police Chase Case | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 10:46:08 AM by Blog57 Team | | WASHINGTON (AP) -- The US Supreme Court is taking on a case involving a high-speed police chase -- to decide how far police can go in stopping a fleeing suspect. At issue is an appeal filed by the sheriff's department in Coweta County, Georgia. It was successfully sued by a motorist who was permanently crippled when a deputy intentionally bumped his car to stop him during a high-speed chase. The car ran off the road and wrecked, leaving the driver a quadriplegic. The alleged crime that prompted the chase was speeding. The deputy says the motorist was going nearly 20 miles-an-hour over the limit and says he bumped his car to keep him from hitting pedestrians. A lower court judge ruled in favor of the motorist, saying the force used by the deputy was out of proportion to the underlying infraction of speeding.... | |
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| | | Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruling undermines basis for peace talks | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 12:45:57 PM by Blog57 Team | | In a major ruling on October 16, a five-judge bench of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva declared invalid the merger of the North and East provinces. The decision is a blow to the internationally-sponsored peace process because the merger of the provinces, which Tamil nationalists claim as their "traditional homeland," has long been considered the basis for a political settlement of the country's civil war. The Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which brought the case before the Supreme Court, has been hostile to the "peace process" from the outset. It opposed the ceasefire signed in 2002 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and campaigned against peace talks in 2003. During those negotiations, the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate statelet of Tamil Eelam, in return for a significant political role in an administration of the merged North and East with enhanced powers.... | |
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| | | UPDATE: Duke Energy Defends Power Plant Upgrades Before Supreme Court | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 10:46:05 PM by Blog57 Team | | WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- Duke Energy Corp. on Wednesday defended its decision to modify generators at several of its' power plants more than 20 years ago without obtaining environmental permits before the Supreme Court despite the federal government and environmental groups' claims that these actions were illegal and violated clean air rules. In a case that is expected to have major ramifications for utility companies with fleets of coal-fired power plants, the Supreme Court is wading into a decades-long dispute between the utility industry and the Environmental Protection Agency over controls on emissions spewed from power plants that burn dirty coal. About 50% of the nation's electricity comes from coal-burning units. The case -- Environmental Defense Et Al., v.... | |
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| | | Supreme Court chief speaks at Middlebury College | | Posted Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:46:10 AM by Blog57 Team | | MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts faced the prospect of a chilly reception at an appearance Tuesday night at Middlebury College. Student demonstrators planned to chant, wear signs and dress as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisoners before the high court's conservative chief justice delivered an 8:15 p.m. speech in a campus chapel. "We're not protesting the fact that he's speaking here," said senior Mike Ives, 22, of Larchmont, N.Y. "We're using his presence here as a national icon to raise issues that are important to us and he has monster sway over in the next three decades." Roberts, who became the court's chief justice last year, was to deliver the 2006 John Hamilton Fulton Lecture before about 750 people at Mead Chapel, while about 800 more were expected at a pair of satellite locations where his address was to be carried via closed-circuit television.... | |
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| | | Supreme Court Won't Review City's Move Against Boy Scouts Group | | Posted Monday, October 16, 2006 10:45:43 PM by Blog57 Team | | A Boy Scouts sailing group that lost free use of a public boat slip because of the Scouts' discriminatory policies failed to persuade the Supreme Court to take its case. The justices on Monday let stand a unanimous California Supreme Court ruling that the city of Berkeley may treat the Berkeley Sea Scouts differently from other nonprofits because the Scouts bar atheists and gays. The leader of the Sea Scouts argued that forcing the group to pay for a berth at the marina violated the group's free speech and freedom of association rights. The U.S. high court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts have the right to ban openly homosexual scout leaders, a decision that rested on the Scouts' First Amendment rights. Even so, the California Supreme Court said in March, local governments are under no obligation to extend benefits to organizations that discriminate.... | |
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| | | Rezoning row may reach Supreme Court | | Posted Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:45:42 PM by Blog57 Team | | Tasmanian Central Coast Mayor Mike Downie says his council will take a fight to rezone land near Cuprona to the Supreme Court if a government department does not back down. The Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) has overturned the council's decision to rezone half a property from rural to rural-residential, to match the title on the rest of the site and approve a subdivision on the land. Councillor Downie says the RPDC made the ruling based on council's own draft planning guidelines, which are yet to be finalised. He says under the council's current rules, the rezoning application is fine and the council will fight to have it reinstated. "It went through the due process, of course, and the RPDC have now knocked it back, basically based on our draft planning scheme, which we believe is a wrong decision for them to have made because our draft scheme hasn't got any legal basis at this point in time," he said.... | |
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| | | Supreme Court: Des Moines violated rules in 2002 sewer deaths | | Posted Saturday, September 30, 2006 6:45:46 AM by Blog57 Team | | DES MOINES, Iowa The Iowa Supreme Court has overturned an earlier ruling in a deadly sewer accident in Des Moines in 2002. In today's decision, the court says the city committed two serious violations of safety regulations during a sewer repair project in which two men died. The workers were overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas. They collapsed face down and drowned in sewage. The state filed a complaint against the city for violating safety and health standards. The Employment Appeal Board found the city committed two serious violations and fined the city nine-thousand dollars. A district court judge reversed the decision and the Iowa Court of Appeals upheld the district judge's ruling. Today, the Supreme Court concluded the state properly used federal interpretations of safety standards as a guide and that there was enough evidence to support the conclusion that the city committed the violations.... | |
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| | | Illinois Supreme Court Issues Key Parental Notification Rules | | Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006 6:45:35 PM by Blog57 Team | | CHICAGO _ Sparking sharp debate on a divisive political issue, the Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday issued key rules designed to revive a 1995 law that prohibits minors from obtaining abortions without notifying a parent. The state Supreme Court's refusal to issue the rules had left the law dormant for 11 years, much to the consternation of advocacy groups seeking stricter limits on abortion. Supporters of parental notification cheered the court on Wednesday, saying it had cleared the way for state Attorney General Lisa Madigan to seek to overturn a federal court order that bars the state from enforcing the law. Parental notification "is the law of the state of Illinois. The court has made it clear," said DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett, who wrote a letter to the Supreme Court in June urging them to take up the issue.... | |
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| | | Supreme Court allows BCA, JSCA to vote in BCCI polls | | Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:45:33 PM by Blog57 Team | | New Delhi, Sept. 21 (PTI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday adopted a middle path by allowing the warring cricket associations of Bihar and Jharkhand to vote in the upcoming BCCI elections. However, the interim order was a morale booster for the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) headed by RJD chief and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad which had suffered a jolt earlier this month when the Jharkhand High Court had ruled that it would not have the voting right in the BCCI election. Staying the High Court order, a Bench comprising Justice B N Agrawal, Justice P P Naolekar and Justice L S Panta, allowed BCA to vote along with the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) after the BCCI categorically stated that out of the many cricket associations in Bihar it only recognises the one headed by Prasad.... | |
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| | | 'Sigaw ng Bayan' takes case to Supreme Court | | Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 6:46:01 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Sigaw ng Bayan Movement on Monday sought a reversal from the Supreme Court after the Commission on Elections rejected the group's petition to amend the Constitution through a "people's initiative," DZMM reported. Lawyer Raul Lambino, the group's spokesman, said COMELEC committed a "grave abuse od discretion" when it denied their petition. Lambino said the COMELEC en banc did not fully discuss the arguments stated in the petition, the report said. COMELEC rejected the petition Thursday. It cited the high court's ruling in the Santiago v. COMELEC case that permanently enjoins the poll body entertaining any petition for initiative amendments to the Constitution until a law is passed for implementing the system. Lambino, however, said the high tribunal's ruling in the Santiago case is outdated.... | |
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