Sanford Bail Bond – US Supreme Court Strengthens Fashion Copyright

Source     : Apparel News
By             : Andrew Asch
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

US Supreme Court Strengthens Fashion Copyright

The fashion business might become more litigious, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, according to a discussion about the court’s decision at law firm Freeman Freeman & Smiley LLP in Los Angeles’ Century City district. The Supreme Court made a decision March 22 on the case Star Athletica L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands Inc. At issue in the case was whether Varsity Brands could copyright an element of a cheerleading uniform such as a chevron or a stripe. The court voted 6–2 in favor of Varsity Brands, a Memphis, Tenn.–headquartered company that is the dominant manufacturer of cheerleading uniforms. It had sales of $1.2 billion in 2014, according to a statement from company owners Charlesbank Capital Partners.

On the day of the decision, Varsity Brands Chairman and Founder Jeff Webb said that the court ruling was a vindication for designers. “We were honored to serve as advocates and fighters for the basic idea that designers everywhere can create excellent work and make investments in their future without fear of having it stolen or copied,” Webb said in a statement. The Council of Fashion Designers of America wrote an amicus brief supporting Varsity Brands’ case. Todd M. Lander, an intellectual-property litigator with Freeman Freeman & Smiley, said that the decision would set the tone for fashion copyright for years. “I don’t see in the ensuing few years any real movement in the courts to restrict protection in textile designs,” he said during a March 23 discussion of the case at Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s office, which offers a panoramic view of West Los Angeles stretching to downtown. “If you are a manufacturer, you should assume that designs are protected irrespective of how generic or ubiquitous you believe designs are in the marketplace. If you lend money to manufacturers, this has become a cost of business. This will be part of the apparel industry for the foreseeable future.”

Lander said that litigation over textile copyright has dramatically increased in the past 15 years. Robert Ezra, head of Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s Fashion Law department, said that the recent decision might result in an uptick of copyright litigation. “Copyright protection has been expanded,” Ezra said. “The more rights a holder has, the more likelihood that there is a violation of those rights.”

During the case, lawyers for Star Athletica, a St. Louis–area company that also makes cheerleader uniforms, argued that design details such as chevrons, zigzags and stripes could not be separated from cheerleading uniforms. These details have no separate identities and cannot be protected by copyright. If details are taken away, the cheerleading uniform would be nothing but a dress, Star Athletica’s attorneys said. According to federal law, details from a garment must be recognizable by themselves, or must be able to stand alone from the garment, in order to be considered worthy of a copyright. While Star Athletica said that stripes, chevrons and other details on cheerleader uniforms were generic and could not be protected by copyright, Varsity Brands’ lawyers argued stripes, chevrons and other markings defined and created points of difference between cheerleading uniforms. Take the details away, a cheerleading uniform could be identified as a cheerleading uniform. Other manufacturers could make a garment with the same cheerleader’s silhouette and have it be identified as a cheerleader’s uniform. But companies such as Varsity Brands can copyright art details and protect them, Varsity Brands’ lawyers contended. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion of the court. “Just as two-dimensional fine art correlates to the shape of the canvas on which it is painted, two-dimensional applied art correlates to the contours of the article on which it is applied. The only feature of respondents’ cheerleading uniform eligible for a copyright is the two-dimensional applied art on the surface of the uniforms,” Thomas wrote. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer dissented from the opinion.

Ilse Metchek, president of the Los Angeles–based California Fashion Association, said that the ruling strengthens current law and reinforces the value of a copyright. “You cannot copyright the shape and pattern work of a garment,” she said, adding that the new ruling doesn’t deviate from existing copyright law, which protects original artwork. “It reestablishes the principle that art is protectable.” Companies looking to protect themselves from litigation might design their own prints, Freeman Freeman & Smiley’s Ezra said. A company could also confirm that fabric suppliers own the prints they sell and possess registration for them. If a company is willing to secure those working with the print against legal responsibility, the company has confidence in using the product.“There is a lot of clip art that is not copyrighted,” Ezra said. “If you need a tulip, go find a tulip in clip art. There are a lot of clip-art designs in the public domain.”

Read more here: apparelnews.net/news/2017/mar/30/us-supreme-court-strengthens-fashion-copyright/

Bondsman in Seminole County – European Court of Justice lays down the law on Kodipocalypse

Source     : The Register News
By             : Andrew Orlowski
Category :  Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

European Court of Justice lays down the law on Kodipocalypse

Europe’s highest court has made it easier for member states to halt the sale of media sticks with preloaded pirate streaming links and add-ons. The past few months have seen significant growth in pre-configured streaming boxes or USB sticks. These use the Kodi platform, an open-source player, configured by a vendor with add-ons that enable access to pirate TV services.

The UK has approved realtime blocks by ISPs during popular Premier League games until the end of the English season to gauge the effectiveness of blocking the streams at source. Meanwhile, trading standards officers and police have launched raids on vendors. The European Court of Justice was invited to give its opinion on a Dutch district court case involving a vendor of one player, filmspeler.nl. The court today decreed that the vendor’s actions constituted a “communication to the public”.

This is a peculiar doctrine specific to European law, not found in the Berne Convention, which some of Europe’s top legal experts believe is based on a mistranslation. URLs were deemed not to be a “communication to the public” last September. It’s a cumbersome analog to the idea of secondary liability, which takes into account intent, as it did for Grokster in the US Supreme Court in 2005. But the advantage for legal wonks and lawyers in Europe is that they can continue to evolve the concept for years to come. Only a cynic would suggest that lawyers and legal academics profit from such confusion, so we won’t.

The ECJ decided that: In the present case and having regard, in particular, to the content of the advertising of the multimedia player and to the fact that the main attraction of that player for potential purchasers is the pre-installation of the add-ons concerned, the Court finds that the purchaser of such a player accesses a free and unauthorised off.

Read more here: theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/ecj_kodi_addons/

Seminole County Bail Bonds – Feds tell Supreme Court that mug shots should stay secret

Source     : USA Today News
By             : Sean Rossman
Category : Bail Bonds Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

Feds tell Supreme Court that mug shots should stay secret

The Justice Department won’t budge from its position that federal mug shots of criminals should be kept secret, arguing in a U.S. Supreme Court brief that jailhouse photos are “embarrassing, nonpublic” moments that add to defendants’ grief. The agency clarified its stance as part of an ongoing legal battle over whether federal law enforcement, like many states, should be required to hand over booking photos.

“Mug shots reveal much more than the sterile fact of arrest and booking,” the Justice Department wrote in a Supreme Court brief filed this month. “They graphically depict individuals in the embarrassing, nonpublic moment of their processing into the criminal justice system.” The case has been appealed to the nation’s highest court following a lawsuit brought by the Detroit Free Press newspaper. The Free Press, which is owned by Gannett, the publisher of USA TODAY and dozens of other newspapers, has challenged the federal government over its decision not to release the mug shots of four Michigan police officers charged with public corruption charges in 2013.

The Free Press has won four lawsuits over the issue. The agency’s response aligns with the rulings of three federal appeals courts, which determined the photos should be kept from the public. In July, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found the promotion of mug shots on the internet and social media have made booking photos more “embarrassing and humiliating” than before.

The Justice Department, in its latest response, played to the demeaning nature of the photos. “The adage that one picture is worth a thousand words is apt in this context,” the response said. “The visual depiction of the individual’s appearance at booking in a law-enforcement facility reflects a uniquely powerful and lasting image of what can be one of the most difficult episodes in an individual’s life.” Lawyers for the Free Press have contended the government is less interested in protecting the reputations of the accused, but rather want to have a grip on the flow of information to the press.

Read more here: usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/04/22/feds-tell-supreme-court-mug-shots-should-stay-secret/100787328/

Bail Bond Seminole County – Supreme Court rules for disabled girl, service dog

Source     : USA Today News
By             : Richard Wolf
Category :  Bail Bond Seminole County , Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Supreme Court rules for disabled girl, service dog

The proverb “every dog has its day” came true at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the family of a 13-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and her goldendoodle, Wonder. In a case that was closely watched by the disability community, the high court ruled unanimously that Ehlena Fry’s family can pursue a lawsuit against her former public school district for denying access to her service dog.

Lower courts had ruled that the family first had to exhaust all administrative remedies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act before seeking damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the justices ruled that if the family did not pursue a solution under IDEA, it can sidestep that process in search of its real goal: providing Ehlena with greater physical and emotional independence. “Nothing in the nature of the Frys’ suit suggests any implicit focus on the adequacy of (Ehlena’s) education,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote. “The Frys could have filed essentially the same complaint if a public library or theater had refused admittance to Wonder.”

Even so, the 8-0 ruling leaves open the possibility that a lower federal court still could require exhaustion of the IDEA administrative process, depending on further fact-finding. As often happens as court proceedings drag on, Ehlena was moved to a different Michigan elementary school that welcomed Wonder — now 10 and retired as a service dog — and even put the pooch’s mug shot in its yearbook. Over the years, the lawsuit against the Napoleon Community Schools became more about principle than keeping the girl and her goldendoodle together.

A number of justices had seemed sympathetic to the Frys’ argument during oral arguments in October. Forcing them to negotiate with school officials over Ehlena’s educational program seemed unfair, they said, when her education wasn’t the problem. Rather, the Frys wanted Wonder — not a human aide — to perform such tasks as helping Ehlena in the bathroom and through doorways. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer expressed concern that a decision in the Frys’ favor could allow families of children with disabilities to gain an advantage over school districts by threatening ADA lawsuits while negotiating their educational programs. But Roberts acknowledged that requiring the Frys to go through the IDEA process when their concerns were not about education was “a kind of charade.” The case was the first of two heard this term that could influence how schools handle children with disabilities. In January, the justices also appeared to side with the family of a Colorado student with autism seeking a more substantial education under the IDEA law. That case, likely to be decided this spring, could have a broader impact on thousands of students with disabilities.

Read more here: usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/22/supreme-court-disabled-girl-wonder-service-dog/98214948/

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – State’s high court to ‘ride the circuit,’ visit high school

Source     : MC Clatchy DC News
By             : The Associated Press
Category :  Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

State’s high court to ‘ride the circuit,’ visit high school

The Rhode Island Supreme Court will hear oral arguments at Woonsocket High School in a tradition known as “riding the circuit.” The state’s high court will hear three cases at the school Wednesday. Chief Justice Paul Suttell says it’s an opportunity to take the court’s work out of Providence to show students and the public how their justice system works.

The court will hear arguments in a lawsuit involving serious injury to a man while target shooting, an appeal of a criminal conviction for robbery and an appeal of a criminal conviction for possession of a firearm.

The court revived the centuries-old tradition of traveling throughout its jurisdiction within the last 16 years to reach out to the community.

Read more here: mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article146277844.html

Bail Bonds Sanford – Corporations and rivers now have rights. Animals are next

Source     : Philly News
By             : Stu Bykofsky
Category :  Bail Bonds Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

Corporations and rivers now have rights. Animals are next

In a stunning move, India last month granted “living person” status to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, making polluting the rivers akin to assaulting a human. A week earlier, New Zealand made the Whanganui River a “living entity” with legal rights. Sound crazy? Maybe less so when you remember that in the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled companies are like people and have certain rights.

If rivers and businesses have rights, why not animals, ask animal advocates excited by the river rulings.“Legal personhood is not determined by biology, but by public policy,” argues Steven Wise, founder of the Nonhuman Rights Project. For decades he has been a lawyer for what he calls “nonhuman clients.” Existing animal welfare statutes, he says, “don’t provide recourse against the inherent cruelty of depriving self-aware, autonomous beings of their freedom, the company of others of their kind and their natural habitats.” His goal is to pry open the law.

One success last year was the Oregon Supreme Court, contrary to the usual legal view, ruling that dogs are more than “property.” Nonjudicial successes included getting elephants out of the Ringling Bros. circus and killer whales out of Sea World, reflecting Americans’ changing attitudes toward captive animals. Achieving “rights” for animals is poised to be the next great social revolution, but no one is suggesting that animals get the right to vote or to drive. The “rights” would be limited, like those enjoyed by children. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is considered extremist by some, yet founder Ingrid Newkirk’s definition of “rights” is moderate: “The decent, commonsense idea that if a living being can suffer, whether child or Chihuahua, man or mouse, it is wrong to impose that suffering on them needlessly,” she tells me.

Some animals do enjoy limited “rights,” says Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, “including not to be tortured or harmed in a malicious way. Others have the ‘right’ not to be confined in small cages and crates.” Achieving those protections was painful and slow.

If “rights” were conferred, it would raise ethical considerations. Could we raise animals as food?
Yes, we could, says Tara Zuardo, a lawyer for the Animal Welfare Institute. “There are countries like Germany that have animals written into the constitution, but they still raise animals for food,” using humane methods. “We predict that courts will increasingly issue decisions declaring that animals are not merely property and deserve certain legal rights,” she says. A 1992 amendment to the Swiss Constitution recognized animals as “beings” instead of “things,” and in 2008 a committee of the Spanish Parliament conferred legal rights on great apes.

If a river has rights, how can they be denied to animals, which are sentient, and capable of feeling emotions such as joy, fear, loneliness?
“There is a trend toward recognizing that humans aren’t the be-all and end-all for those who deserve protection,” says Matthew Liebman, director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. He cites cases around the world, from Spain to Argentina — where great apes have been accorded special protections and some formal “rights.” For decades, the Nonhuman Rights Project has been going to court to secure rights for chimpanzees, but it hasn’t yet achieved a breakthrough. It came close when it sued to have set free Leo and Hercules, two chimpanzees being held for research at Stony Brook University. The case stalled in 2015 when Stony Brook returned the chimps to the University of Louisiana, out of the court’s jurisdiction. PETA is in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that a chimp named Naruto holds the rights to pictures he took of himself using a camera set up and left in a forest.

Sound crazy? As crazy as Ringling giving up elephants?
Humans and chimpanzees share about 98 percent of the same DNA, and some humans have been freaked out ever since Charles Darwin wrote that humans are descended from apes.

Read more here: philly.com/philly/columnists/stu_bykofsky/If-corporations-and-rivers-have-human-rights-why-not-animals-.html

Bail Bonds in Sanford – Supreme Court: Challenging Quick-Look Eligibility Denials

Source    : Patentlyo News
By            : Dennis Crouch
Category : Bail Bonds in Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

Supreme Court – Challenging Quick-Look Eligibility Denials

A newly filed petition for writ of certiorari offers a substantial challenge to the quick-look eligibility decisions that have been so popular among district courts.  The challenge here is especially focused on no-evidence eligibility decisions that serve as a substitute for an obviousness determination. In the case, the claims of BBiTV’s U.S. Patent No. 7,631,336 have been repeatedly upheld as non-obvious before a Hawaii district court ruled them ineligible on summary judgment.  In its 103 analysis, the Hawaii court also denied summary judgment of obviousness – finding questions of material fact regarding whether (1) elements of the claims were found in the prior art or (2) PHOSITA would have been motivated to combine those elements.  In its simultaneous 101 decision, however, the court determined as a matter of law that those same elements were “well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry” that lack the “inventive concept” required by Alice.  The decision was (as is now common) affirmed without opinion by the Federal Circuit.

The petition challenges the decision and the newly-popular approach of using eligibility as a shortcut to more difficult and fact-intensive obviousness analysis. The three three questions:
1. Evidence for Underlying Factual Findings: Whether the statutory presumption of validity set forth in 35 U.S.C. § 282 applies to claims challenged under 35 U.S.C. § 101, as set forth by this Court in Microsoft Corp. v. i4i L.P., 564 U.S. 91 (2011), when the ultimate legal conclusion relies upon underlying findings of fact, such as whether the additional novel and non-obvious elements of the claims are merely well-understood, routine, and conventional or whether they add an inventive concept.
2. Standard for Summary Judgment: Whether, unlike every other area of law involving motions for summary judgment, as set forth by Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 and Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986), and its progeny, a district court may resolve material underlying fact disputes against the non-movant party on a summary judgment motion for lack of patent-eligibility under § 101.
3. Not All Abstraction Are Abstract: Whether the judicially-created exception for “abstract ideas” broadly includes any abstraction of a claim (including novel business practices or methods of organizing human activities) or only “fundamental” and “long-standing” (i.e., pre-existing) practices and methods, as recognized by this Court in Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010) and Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2356- 57 (2014).

The questions begin with the implicit understanding that, although a question of law, eligibility decisions are based upon a set of factual determinations that should be treated like any other factual determination by the court.  This approach is directly contrary to the approach often taken these days that follows Judge Mayer’s concurring opinion in Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709 (Fed. Cir. 2014). An important legal question here is how close the link should be between obviousness and eligibility.  Post-KSR and Alice, there does appear to be substantial connection between the obviousness analysis associated with combining-old-elements and the eligibility analysis of elements that are “well-understood, routine, and conventional.”  The two should often correlate, the court here may have the opportunity to explain the differences both in doctrine and procedure.

Read more here: patentlyo.com/patent/2017/04/supreme-challenging-eligibility.html

Sanford Bail Bonds – How ‘ideologically uniform’ is the legal academy?

Source     : Washington Post News
By             : Jonathan H. Adler
Category :  Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bonds

How ‘ideologically uniform’ is the legal academy?

How much more liberal are law professors than members of the legal profession? A new paper by Adam Bonica (Stanford University), Adam S. Chilton (University of Chicago), Kyle Rozema (Northwestern University) and Maya Sen (Harvard University), “The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity,” provides some answers. Their bottom line: The legal academy is significantly more liberal than the legal profession, which is notable because the legal profession itself is more liberal than the public at large. Here is how the authors summarize some of their findings: We find that approximately 15% of law professors are conservative and that only approximately one out of every twenty law schools have more conservative law professors than liberal ones. In addition, we find that these patterns vary, with higher-ranked schools having an even smaller presence of conservative law professors. We then compare the ideological balance of the legal academy to that of the legal profession. Compared to the 15% of law professors that are conservative, 35% of lawyers overall are conservative. Law professors are more liberal than graduates of top 14 law schools, lawyers working at the largest law firms, former federal law clerks, and federal judges. Although we find that professors are more liberal than the alumni at all but a handful of law schools, there is a strong relationship between the ideologies of professors from a law school and the ideologies of alumni from that school. However, this relationship is weaker for schools with more conservative alumni.

These findings are based upon an examination of reported political donations. While this is an admittedly imperfect measure of ideology, it does allow for comparisons across population groups. Moreover, reliance on political donations is less selective than one might think, as the authors report that more than 60 percent of law professors made reported political donations between 1979 and 2014. Although the authors believe that other factors explain some of the split between the ideology of legal academics and legal practitioners, even after accounting for such factors, they find that law professors are significantly more liberal than lawyers generally. Does this matter? I’ve certainly argued that the ideological uniformity of legal academia affects teaching and scholarship (most recently here). The authors of this study suggest that it could also affect the political relevance and influence of law professors. They write: The ideological tilt of the legal academy has potentially broad implications. For instance, because law professors are overwhelmingly liberal, groups of law professors advocating for liberal positions can easily be marginalized.  This letter was criticized by some as simply representing the views of the left leaning legal academy . . . . To assess … these criticisms, we match the signatories of the letter to our sample of law professor ideology, and find that only 4% of the signatories that appear in our data are conservative. This raises the question of whether the reception to the letter would have been different had more conservative law professors signed the letter. Although we have no way to answer this question, the endeavor might have been given more credence had more conservative professors participated in the letter: observers might have been less likely to expect Republican-leaning law professors to oppose Sessions ideologically, thus making such criticisms more powerful and effective. We argue that this example illustrates that the legal academy’s ideological uniformity limits its political credibility.

One could extend this analysis to current controversies at state universities, such as proposed measures to curtail tenure or limit the activities of legal clinics and academic centers at state universities. Appeals to “academic freedom” are less convincing when the only ones in a position to benefit from such principles sit on one side of the aisle. Writing in opposition to a proposed measure in North Carolina that would prohibit the University of North Carolina School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights from engaging in litigation, Gene Nichol suggested the center’s critics are “nakedly ideological” because they would have no problem with law school programs enlisting students in efforts to protect gun rights or religious liberty. He might be right, but how would we know? It’s not as if UNC’s law school has any such programs, or even a critical mass of right-leaning faculty members. I agree with much that Nichol has to say in his piece, but I also suspect his arguments would be more persuasive to a Republican-dominated state legislature if there were more ideological diversity on UNC’s law faculty and within the law school’s academic programming. Assuming there is substantial ideological uniformity in the legal academy, and that this is a problem, there remains the problem of what to do about it. Here the authors of the above-mentioned study note that remedial measures, such as some sort of “affirmative action” for right-leaning faculty, could compromise efforts to advance other values. I agree. However well-intentioned, heavy-handed efforts to impose “balance” on law school faculties could do more harm than good. I believe law schools should seek to encourage more viewpoint diversity within their ranks, but I oppose any such efforts that involve quotas or rigid requirements. This Iowa proposal to require partisan balance in university hiring, for example, strikes me as a supremely bad idea. In my opinion, the way forward begins with efforts to cultivate an appreciation of the value of differing perspectives and viewpoints and a broader recognition that ideological uniformity undermines effective legal education. The first step toward a solution is recognizing there’s a problem.

Read more here: washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/17/how-ideologically-uniform-is-the-legal-academy/

Bail Bond Sanford – Colorado Supreme Court upholds state’s DUI laws

Source     : Denver Post
By             : Kirk Mitchell
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Colorado Supreme Court upholds state’s DUI laws

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld the state’s drunken driving statutes in three cases that had warrantless blood draw evidence thrown out by lower courts, including a case in which a suspect had five times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream. “If this had been allowed to stand, it could have invalidated every breath or blood test that a driver in Colorado provides as part of a DUI investigation, which would obviously have huge ramifications,” said Arapahoe County deputy district attorney Jennifer Gilbert, who handled all three appeals. The three cases involved different elements of Colorado’s expressed consent law, according to a news release from Arapahoe County district attorney George Brauchler. The law says that by driving in Colorado, drivers consent to a blood or breath test to determine their blood alcohol content if the police have probable cause to believe that the driver has committed an alcohol-related driving offense.

In Fitzgerald v. People, the court held that the Fourth Amendment does not preclude prosecutors from using evidence at trial that a suspect refused to take a blood alcohol test, the news release says. In People v. Hyde, the Supreme Court held that an officer with probable cause to believe that an unconscious driver committed an alcohol-related driving crime can order the driver’s blood to be tested. In People v. Simpson, a judge ruled that the very act of reading a driver an expressed consent advisement made the subsequent test inadmissible. But the Colorado Supreme Court held that reading a suspect the expressed consent advisement does not render the test involuntary, the news release says. In the Simpson case, an officer saw William Paul Simpson drive a pickup truck into a curb four times before steering into oncoming traffic, the Supreme Court ruling says. The officer smelled alcohol on Simpson’s breath, the driver readily admitted he was drunk and was unable to climb out of the truck at the officer’s order.

At a hospital, Simpson signed a consent form for a blood test. In doing so, however, he signed his name on the officer’s signature line and initialed it on the line labeled “blood.” Simpson’s blood alcohol was measured at 0.448, or more than five times the legal limit of 0.08, the ruling says. At an Arapahoe County District Court motions hearing, Simpson’s attorneys argued their client had been too drunk to consent to a test. Judge F. Stephen Collins ruled that the officer was coercive because he told Simpson that he had already consented to the blood-alcohol test. Collins then suppressed the blood test. The Supreme Court ruled that by choosing to drive in Colorado, Simpson consented to the terms of the expressed consent statute, including its requirement that he submit to a blood draw. “Because Simpson never revoked that consent, the blood draw was constitutional,” the Supreme Court ruled. Suspected drunk drivers were using some recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to challenge Colorado’s drunken driving laws in order to throw out evidence, according to Brauchler’s news release. Had they succeeded, drunken driving laws across the country would have been in jeopardy, he said.

Read more here: denverpost.com/2017/04/17/colorado-supreme-court-state-dui-laws-upheld/

Sanford Bail Bond – State Supreme Court to review law eliminating pension benefit

Source     : SF Gate News
By             : Bob Egelko
Category :  Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

State Supreme Court to review law eliminating pension benefit

The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to review the legality of 2013 legislation, challenged by labor unions, that eliminated a pension benefit for hundreds of thousands of state and local government employees in California. The justices voted unanimously to grant a hearing to the unions and decide whether the law violated the rights of employees to the pension benefits that were available when they were hired.

This benefit, which lawmakers had approved in 2003, allowed employees with at least five years of service to purchase up to five years of additional credits before retiring. A worker who retired after 20 years, for example, could pay for the right to receive a pension based on 25 years of contributions. The 2003 law did not increase costs to government employers, but it added to pensions at a time that statewide public-retirement systems faced increasing deficits, estimated at $500 billion or more in recent studies. Legislators cited those deficits in 2013 when they barred employees from buying future retirement credits.

A union of 6,000 state firefighters, supported by other state and local labor organizations, challenged the 2013 law. The unions argued that their members had a legal right to the pension benefits that were in effect when they were hired and that the state broke its contractual promise to them by eliminating those benefits. The state’s high court had ruled in 1978 that California could legally reduce current employees’ future pensions, but only if the employees remained eligible for benefits that were “substantial” and reasonable” when the state acted. Any cutbacks in benefits, the court said, “should be accompanied by comparable new advantages.”

The state’s First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled Dec. 30 that the 2013 law satisfied that standard. The employees “are entitled only to a reasonable pension, not one providing fixed or definite benefits immune from modification or elimination,” Justice Martin Jenkins said in the appellate panel’s 3-0 written opinion.

Read more here: sfgate.com/news/article/State-Supreme-Court-to-review-law-eliminating-11069304.php