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Calif. high court upholds affirmative action ban
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2010/08/03 01:57
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pCalifornia's high court on Monday upheld the state's 14-year-old law barring preferential treatment of women and minorities in public school admissions, government hiring and contracting./ppIn a 6-1 ruling, the state Supreme Court rejected arguments from the city of San Francisco and Attorney General Jerry Brown that the law, known as Proposition 209, violates federal equality protections./ppOpponents of the ban say it creates barriers for minorities and women that don't exist for other groups, such as veterans seeking preference./ppThe ruling written by Justice Kathryn Werdegar came in response to lawsuits filed by white contractors challenging San Francisco's affirmative action program, which was suspended in 2003./ppAs the court recognized, Proposition 209 is a civil rights measure that protects everyone, regardless of background, said Sharon Browne, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the contractors. Under Proposition 209, no one can be victimized by unfair government policies that discriminate or grant preferences based on sex or skin color./ppIf San Francisco wants to resurrect the program, the Supreme Court said it must show compelling evidence the city purposefully or intentionally discriminated against minority and women contractors and that such a law was the only way to fix the problem.
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BP spill cases head to court as Shell counts cost
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2010/07/29 08:57
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| pThe tide of lawsuits unleashed by BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico breaks into an Idaho courtroom on Thursday, just as the company's rivals are counting the cost of a ban on offshore drilling./ppAttorneys hoping to lead the legal fight against BP are set to descend on Boise, Idaho, to address a special judicial panel considering how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits spawned by the spill after a rig explosion on April 20./ppThere will be more lawyers in that courtroom than exist in the entire city of Boise put together, Mark Lanier, a Houston-based lawyer who plans to attend the hearing, joked this week. It's going to be a circus./ppSeven U.S. federal judges will convene more than 2,000 miles from the Gulf's oil-smudged shores to consider which U.S. court, or courts, should oversee hundreds of spill-related suits by injured rig workers, fishermen, investors and property owners./ppPotentially adding its name to the line of claimants, Royal Dutch Shell Plc idled seven rigs and took a $56 million charge related to the drilling ban on Thursday. Saying the ban would reduce its production by almost 3 million barrels this year, the company did not rule out reclaiming the cash from BP./ppShell, one of the biggest oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico, said it had idled rigs rather than move them elsewhere because the ban's six-month duration meant it was not profitable to redeploy them to other areas. /p |
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N.J. gay-marriage case must begin in lower court
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2010/07/27 09:03
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pThe push for gay marriage in New Jersey suffered a setback Monday when the state Supreme Court said six gay couples who claim New Jersey has denied them the rights granted to married heterosexual couples must argue their case through the lower courts.
The court was split, 3-3, in the decision; four affirmative votes are needed for a motion to be granted. /ppChief Justice Stuart Rabner and Justices Roberto Rivera-Soto and Helen Hoens said in an order that the issue cannot be decided without the development of an appropriate trial-like record, and denied the plaintiffs' motion without prejudice. /ppThey added that they reached no conclusion on the merits of the plaintiffs' allegations that the Civil Union Act violates their constitutional rights./p |
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Mass. judge who wrote gay marriage ruling retiring
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2010/07/22 09:49
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| pMassachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said Wednesday that while she understands her tenure on the state's high court will always be linked to the legalization of gay marriage, that case holds no greater importance in her mind than the hundreds of other rulings she authored./ppI'm proud of every decision, said Marshall, who surprised even her closest colleagues with the announcement that she planned to retire from the bench by the end of October to spend more time with her husband, former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease./ppThe court's 4-3 ruling in the 2003 case called Goodrich v. Department of Public Health paved the way for Massachusetts to become the first U.S. state to allow same-sex couples to wed, igniting a fierce national debate over gay marriage that continues to this day./ppWhether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family — these are among the most basic of every individual's liberty and due process rights, Marshall wrote./ppThe chief justice recalled how a courtroom packed with hundreds of people quickly cleared out after the court heard arguments in the gay marriage case, leaving only a handful of people who were there for other matters./p |
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