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Court: Violence law unfair to gay South Carolina couples
Legal World News |
2017/07/27 16:53
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People in same-sex relationships in South Carolina should get the same legal protections against domestic violence as heterosexual couples, the state's highest court ruled Wednesday, deeming a portion of the state's domestic violence law unconstitutional.
The court was asked to weigh in after a woman tried to get a protective order against her former fiancée, also a woman, and was denied.
Current law defines "household members" as a spouse, former spouse, people with a child in common, or men and women who are or have lived together. It does not include unmarried same-sex couples.
Acting Justice Costa Pleicones, who wrote the majority opinion, said during oral arguments in March 2016 that he felt the law was "pretty clearly unconstitutional in its discriminatory impact upon same-sex couples."
In his opinion, Pleicones pointed out lawmakers have over the years addressed the definition of "household members" as covered under domestic violence protections in 1994, amending the language from "persons" living together to "male and female." In 2015, during a massive overhaul of South Carolina's criminal domestic violence law, legislators made changes including increasing penalties for offenders but left the gender-based definition intact.
The U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, the court wrote, states, "No state shall ... deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," such as a benefit offered to one class of person but not others.
"In this case, we cannot find a reasonable basis for providing protection to one set of domestic violence victims - unmarried, cohabiting or formerly cohabiting, opposite-sex couples - while denying it to others," the court wrote.
Other states have addressed this issue since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide. The Ohio Supreme Court in 2016 adopted the use of gender-neutral references in family court cases. California and Massachusetts proactively changed language in their laws.
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Pakistan's opposition calls on court to oust prime minister
Legal World News |
2017/07/15 23:25
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Opposition parties in Pakistan on Monday called on the Supreme Court to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office after an investigation found that he and his family possess wealth exceeding their known sources of income.
The investigation is linked to the mass leak of documents from a Panama-based law firm in 2016, which revealed that Sharif and his family have offshore accounts.
Naeem Bukhari, a lawyer for opposition leader Imran Khan, submitted the request to the court. The court has the constitutional power to disqualify someone from serving as prime minister, and is expected to rule in the coming weeks.
The Sharifs have denied any wrongdoing. Their attorney, Khawaja Haris, argued Monday that the probe was flawed. The court will resume hearing the case Tuesday.
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High court rejects new trial request in Boston murder case
Legal World News |
2017/06/23 08:37
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The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against a Boston man seeking to overturn his murder conviction because his lawyer failed to object when the trial judge closed the courtroom during jury selection.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the 7-2 ruling that the error Kentel Weaver's lawyer committed did not appear to affect the outcome of the case. Weaver was found guilty in the 2003 murder of a 15-year-old boy.
The lawyer's failure to object prevented Weaver's mother and others from watching what should have been a public jury selection process. The judge had closed the courtroom because it was overcrowded.
Weaver's lawyer later testified that he mistakenly believed closing the court for jury selection was permitted. In fact, it violates the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.
But Kennedy said Weaver did not show a "reasonable probability of a different outcome but for counsel's failure to object." He said the lawyer's shortcomings did not lead to a "fundamentally unfair trial."
Weaver was only 16 years old at the time of murder. Prosecutors said the victim, Germaine Rucker, was attacked by a group of men and boys after selling some jewelry to a woman, and was shot twice.
Witnesses saw a boy wearing a baseball cap pull a pistol from his pants leg. The cap fell off and was recovered by police, who discovered Weaver's DNA on it. Weaver confessed to his mother, and later, to police when his mother brought him to the police station.
Before trial, the judge ordered the courtroom closed because it was overcrowded with 90 prospective jurors, forcing some to stand in the hallway. Weaver's mother and a friend tried to get in but were refused entry.
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EU Court: Vaccines Can Be Blamed for Illnesses Without Proof
Legal World News |
2017/06/22 08:38
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The highest court of the European Union ruled Wednesday that courts can consider whether a vaccination led to someone developing an illness even when there is no scientific proof.
The decision was issued on Wednesday in relation to the case of a Frenchman known as Mr. J.W., who was immunized against hepatitis B in late 1998-99. About a year later, Mr. J.W. was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In 2006, he and his family sued vaccine-maker Sanofi Pasteur in an attempt to be compensated for the damage they claim he suffered due to the vaccine. Mr. J.W. died in 2011.
France's Court of Appeal ruled there was no causal link between the hepatitis B vaccine and multiple sclerosis, and dismissed the case. Numerous studies have found no relationship between the hepatitis B shot and multiple sclerosis.
After the case went to France's Court of Cassation, it was brought to the European Union. On Wednesday, the EU's top court said that despite the lack of scientific consensus on the issue, a vaccine could be considered defective if there is "specific and consistent evidence," including the time between a vaccine's administration and the occurrence of a disease, the individual's previous state of health, the lack of any family history of the disease and a significant number of reported cases of the disease occurring following vaccination.
In a statement, the court said that such factors could lead a national court to conclude that "the administering of the vaccine is the most plausible explanation" for the disease and that "the vaccine therefore does not offer the safety that one is entitled to expect." It did not rule on the specific French case.
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