Bail Bond Sanford – Gorsuch On Sidelines As Supreme Court Decides Insurance, Legal Sanctions Cases

Source     : Forbes News
By            : Daniel Fisher
Category :  Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Gorsuch On Sidelines As Supreme Court Decides Insurance, Legal Sanctions Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions today affecting legal sanctions and the power of states to control insurance contracts, noting in each one the non-participation of the court’s newest Justice, Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch heard his first oral arguments yesterday and will likely contribute to a few decisions before the end of the session, restoring the court’s 9-0 roster after more than a year of operating with a deadlock-prone eight justices following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. In Coventry Health Care v. Nevils, the nation’s highest court reversed its equivalent in Missouri, ruling that federal law trumps a Missouri statute prohibiting insurance companies from collecting medical expenses from the lawsuit winnings of policyholders.

The 8-0 decision rejected the Missouri Supreme Court’s reasoning that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to overrule state laws, doesn’t extend to contractual provisions of health insurance policies provided to federal employees. Coventry had demanded that plaintiff Jodie Nevils repay $6,592 in medical expenses from a car accident that he later recovered in a lawsuit against the driver of the other vehicle. Missouri, like several other states, has laws prohibiting insurers from collecting from policyholders in such conditions, a process known as subrogation. But Congress clearly intended federal law governing health policies for government employees to preempt any law regarding the payment of benefits, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the unanimous opinion.

The court sent the case back to Missouri for reconsideration after the Office of Personnel Management issued an opinion asserting preemption. But the Missouri Supreme Court held its ground, saying the Supremacy Clause only affects “laws,” not contractual terms between the government and private insurers. Ginsburg dismissed the distinction as “semantics” and ordered the case reversed and remanded. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurrence agreeing in the judgment but voicing concern that the federal law could give the President unconstitutionally broad powers to dictate the terms of contracts. But since nobody brought up that argument, he said, it should be left to the lower courts to consider on remand. The court also decided unanimously, in Goodyear Tire v. Haeger, that the oft-overturned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals got it wrong again when it upheld $2.7 million in sanctions against the tire maker for failing to turn over potentially incriminating evidence in a lawsuit over a tire blowout. The lower court approved of the sanctions because Goodyear’s behavior was “truly egregious,” but it should have restricted sanctions to legal fees the plaintiffs incurred directly because of the missing evidence. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion.

Read more here: forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2017/04/18/gorsuch-on-sidelines-as-supreme-court-decides-insurance-legal-sanctions-cases/#408326a73fb2

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/

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

Bail Bond Sanford – Supreme Court Orders New Look at New York Credit-Card Surcharge Ban

Source     : Bloomberg News
By             : Greg Stohr
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Supreme Court Orders New Look at New York Credit-Card Surcharge Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered closer scrutiny of a New York law that bars merchants from imposing surcharges on credit-card purchases, giving a group of retailers a partial victory by saying the measure might violate their free-speech rights. Chief Justice John Roberts said the federal appeals court that upheld the law was wrong to analyze it as a form of price regulation. Writing for the high court, he said the measure regulates speech, requiring it to meet a tougher legal test. The decision to return the case to the lower court was unanimous. The case is part of a broader fight by retailers to reduce the $50 billion in “swipe fees” they pay card companies each year. Merchants say they could discourage card use — and reduce those fees — if they were allowed to explicitly impose surcharges on credit purchases.

New York is one of 10 states that limit how merchants can describe the lower prices they charge for cash transactions. The high court has been deferring action on similar appeals from Florida and Texas while considering the New York case. The credit-card industry pushed states to enact the disputed laws after a federal surcharge ban expired in 1984. The industry isn’t directly involved in the court fights over the surcharge laws, instead leaving it to the states to defend their measures. Federal appeals courts had been divided on the issue, upholding surcharge bans in New York and Texas while striking down Florida’s.

Speech or Conduct

A core question was whether no-surcharge laws regulate speech or instead target conduct. Roberts said the New York law regulates how sellers may communicate their prices, making it a speech regulation. “A merchant who wants to charge $10 for cash and $10.30 for credit may not convey that price any way he pleases,” Roberts wrote. “He is not free to say ‘$10, with a 3% credit card surcharge’ or ‘$10, plus $0.30 for credit’ because both of those displays identify a single sticker price — $10 — that is less than the amount credit card users will be charged.” “Instead, if the merchant wishes to post a single sticker price, he must display $10.30 as his sticker price,” the chief justice wrote.

Roberts characterized the dispute as a narrow one, saying the retailers weren’t seeking to invalidate the entire statute. He said they were aiming only to ensure they could post a cash price and explicitly add a surcharge for credit-card users. During arguments in January, a lawyer for the state said retailers could still offer discounts for cash or post two different prices for cash and credit-card purchases. Retailers say those approaches don’t do as much to discourage credit-card use. Three justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito — suggested in separate opinions that the federal appeals court might ask New York’s highest court to clarify what the law covers.

Read more here: bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-29/high-court-orders-new-look-at-new-york-credit-card-surcharge-ban

Sanford Bail Bond – New Victoria youth justice probe, legal fight

Source     : SBS News
By             : Associated Agecy Press
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

New Victoria youth justice probe, legal fight

Yet another probe into Victoria’s youth justice system is under way, just as human rights lawyers start a new legal challenge against the use of adult jails to house teenagers. Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass will investigate what needs to be done to ensure the state’s prisons and youth justice centres conform to an United Nations protocol.

The UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment will be ratified by the federal government in December. “I am undertaking this investigation in order to help all parties involved in OPCAT gain an understanding of where the challenges to Victorian implementation of the protocol lie,” Ms Glass said in a statement on Monday.

Ms Glass is not actively seeking submissions for the investigation, but people wanting to make contact are welcome to. The youth justice system has been under heavy scrutiny after months of riots rendered parts of the Parkville centre uninhabitable, a mass break-out from the Malmsbury centre in January, and a legal fight over whether the youths can be housed in an adult prison.

Some detainees are now being held in the Grevillea unit of the Barwon maximum security prison despite court challenges. The latest legal challenge began in the Supreme Court on Monday. The Human Rights Law Centre is fighting the state government over the prolonged solitary confinement of detainees in Grevillea, the use of capsicum spray by guards, and assaults.

“We’re asking for a court ruling that an adult maximum security jail is unlawful as a youth justice facility,” Mr Hugh de Kretser said outside the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday. A parliamentary committee and the Commission for Children and Young People are investigating the system, while a Department of Health and Human Services review is also under way. In early February, Ms Glass released a report on facilities in the Grevillea unit, Malmsbury and Parkville, raising concerns over the conditions detainees were subjected to.

Read more here: sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/04/03/new-victoria-youth-justice-probe-legal-fight

Bail Bond Sanford – U.S. Supreme Court set to hear arguments in decade-old Xbox 360 scratched-disc case

Source      : Geek Wire News
By              : Monica Nickelsburg
Category  : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

U.S. Supreme Court set to hear arguments in decade-old Xbox 360 scratched-disc case

The U.S. Supreme Court is planning to hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by Xbox 360 users against Microsoft over scratched video game discs. SCOTUS isn’t reviewing the case for nostalgia’s sake. The country’s highest court is using the lawsuit to determine whether a specific legal loophole is permissible in civil proceedings. We’ll get to that momentarily, but first a little background.

Nearly 10 years ago, a group of gamers sued Microsoft, claiming the Xbox 360 console scratched their video games because of a product defect. Those individuals filed for class action status — meaning the plaintiffs would be considered as a group, with bigger legal consequences — but a federal judge in Seattle denied them class certification. After filing another lawsuit in 2011, the plaintiffs tried, unsuccessfully, to get the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision on their class certification. The problem was, federal appeals courts typically can only review the final decisions of district courts. Although the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were denied class action status, the individual lawsuits, brought by people who said the Xbox 360 scratched their discs, lived on. That meant the appeals court couldn’t review them.

The plaintiffs argued the case only made sense with class action status because the damages to individuals’ games were negligible when compared with the cost of legal proceedings. The district court’s decision not to certify the plaintiffs as a class would have meant the end of the road, as happens with most cases filed as class actions. Still with us? Good, because this is where it gets interesting. In an unusual (but not unprecedented) move, the individual plaintiffs asked the courts to voluntarily “dismiss” their cases which, in legal terms, is a final decision. Of course, legal terms aren’t always common-sense terms. In this case, the plaintiffs dismissed their claims under the condition that they could be revived if the appeals court granted class-action status.

The legal rigmarole resulted in a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that largely sided with the plaintiffs. Microsoft then asked the Supreme Court to review the case and determine whether the loophole is legally permissible. That brings us to Tuesday’s proceedings, during which SCOTUS will hear arguments in the Microsoft Corp v. Baker case. The precise question they’ll consider is, “Whether a federal court of appeals has jurisdiction under both Article III and 28 U. S. C. §1291 to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss their individual claims with prejudice.”

Read more here: geekwire.com/2017/u-s-supreme-court-set-hear-arguments-decade-old-xbox-360-scratched-disc-case/

Sanford Bail Bond – Mississippi Governor approves new daily fantasy sports law

Source      : Calvinayre News
By              : Leonard Postrado
Category  : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Mississippi Governor approves new daily fantasy sports law

The new fantasy sports law in Mississippi has finally been signed, sealed and delivered. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant officially signed House Bill 967 on Monday, making the state the first to pass such a law in 2017.

According to Legal Sports Report, Bryant signed the bill, which empowers the Mississippi Gaming Commission to regulate fantasy sports contests online or in a casino, after it was forwarded to his desk by lawmakers on March 2. With the law in effect, state regulators may now issue licenses to daily fantasy sports (DFS) operators. Many expect DFS giants DraftKings, FanDuel, FantasyDraft, and Yahoo to immediately line-up for a license in Mississippi, which will cost an operator $5,000 over three years.

The new law also allows the state regulator to conduct a background checks and annual audits on daily fantasy sports operators. Revenues of DFS firms operating in Mississippi will also now be slapped with an eight percent tax. A ban on employee play at operators and players under 18-years-old will also take effect. Mississippi, which is considered to be one of the many battlegrounds for DFS, now joins other states that have regulated the industry in recent years. The legislation was deemed important after Attorney General Jim Hood determined fantasy sports was a game of chance.

The cash-strapped state is hoping to reap $5 million annually in tax from DFS, although most believe that’s an overly optimistic estimate. But even $5 million, while welcome, would be a modest amount in a budget of more than $6 billion. With the industry now officially legal in Mississippi, DFS proponents are now watching keenly the developments in a much bigger DFS battleground, Texas. Analysts expect the legislative battle over DFS legalization in the Lone Star State will happen this year.

Read more here: calvinayre.com/2017/03/14/business/mississippi-governor-approves-new-daily-fantasy-sports-law/

Bail Bond Sanford – Supreme Court turns down abortion plea: Strict, pedantic reading of law is threat to women’s rights

Source     : First Post News
By             : Deya Bhattacharya
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Supreme Court turns down abortion plea: Strict, pedantic reading of law is threat to women’s rights

In what could have been deemed a landmark case on abortion laws, the Supreme Court, on Tuesday, rejected the plea of a 37-year-old woman to abort a 26-week-old foetus that showed signs of Down’s Syndrome. When the plea came to the Bench, the foetus was 23 weeks old; the Supreme Court ruled in the case that since there was no danger or threat to the life of the woman, the pregnancy was to continue. A court-appointed medical board had advised against the abortion.

According to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1971 (MTPA), the permissible limit to terminate a pregnancy is 20 weeks. In cases, where the life of mother or child is in danger, this limit can be extended after considering the report of a medical board. In the present case, the Bench consisting of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, took into consideration the report of a panel of doctors and ruled against the women’s plea: “As per a report of the medical board constituted to examine the 37-year-old woman, there was no physical risk to the mother in continuation of pregnancy. Everybody knows that children with Down’s Syndrome are undoubtedly less intelligent, but they are fine people.”

The Bench has deemed that Down’s Syndrome is not a life-threatening condition, and that there is no physical risk to the mother from the pregnancy. They empathised with the fact that the child may suffer from mental and physical challenges, but stated that their hands are tied: “It is sad that the child may suffer from physical and mental challenges and it’s unfortunate for the mother but we can’t allow an abortion. We have a life in our hands and we are also tied down by a law.”

Abortion is a contentious subject in the country, in spite of India’s progress in issues revolving around sexual and reproductive rights. Section 312 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 talks about unlawful termination of pregnancy, but does not use the word ‘abortion’; it talks about “causing miscarriage”. It utilises the words ‘miscarriage’ and ‘unborn child’ without legally defining the meaning and scope of these words. According to the provision, there must be good faith and the purpose of protecting the life of the mother when terminating the foetus. The MTPA lays down that the termination of pregnancy cannot be after the foetus is 20 weeks old, unless the life of the pregnant mother is threatened — where she is at physical risk, or grave mental anguish may be caused to her as a result of the pregnancy. It may be noted that the MTPA infringes on the right to privacy, the right to health and the right to dignity of a pregnant woman, all of which has been guaranteed by Article 21 (the right to life) by the Constitution. In 2016, the Supreme Court allowed a rape survivor to terminate her pregnancy beyond the prescribed limit of 20 weeks — at 24 weeks — citing grave physical and mental challenges if she carried the foetus to term. A Bench of Justices JS Khehar and Arun Mishra granted the benefit of Section 5 of the MTPA to the petitioner and stated, “We grant liberty to the petitioner and if she desires to terminate the pregnancy, she is permitted.” In 2015, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict of the Gujarat High Court that had refused to permit a 14-year-old rape survivor to abort her 25-week-old foetus.

The high court, in its judgment, did acknowledge the adverse physical, emotional and psychological effects of the decision on the life of the petitioner, but decided to go ahead with a positive and pedantic reading of the MTPA. On appeal judgment, the Supreme Court considered the recommendations of the medical panel and then decided on her best interests. In 2008, the Bombay High Court disallowed a woman from aborting her 26-week-old foetus — her foetus had been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. The petitioners challenged the constitutionality of section 5 of the MTPA, but the high court stated that it could not read down section 5 as it would mean that the judiciary was usurping the power of the legislature. Again, a pedantic and strict reading of the MTPA was pursued, and the court ruled that abortion on grounds of gross abnormalities of the foetus was permissible within 20 weeks only; the court, therefore, denied the petitioner her right to abort the foetus. In another case, R versus Haryana, the Punjab and Haryana High Court refused to grant the petitioner, a rape survivor, permission to terminate her pregnancy as the medical panel’s recommendations did not agree to an abortion. The court requested, by way of caution, doctors from Aiims to reassess the possibility of abortion. However, in the course of the proceedings, the petitioner gave birth to a baby she probably did not want to keep.

In the legal debate of the right to life of the pregnant woman versus the right to life of an unborn child, the real, substantial concept of agency of the woman is lost. To contextualise this further, the MTPA, in reality, enshrines no right of the woman to abortion. It merely puts down lengthy, procedural obstacles in the exercise of such a right. Moreover, the fact that the judiciary, more often than not, refuses to apply judicial activism in matters where the existing law is unjust or can longer provide for just remedies or solutions. In my opinion, to depend on an appointed medical panel that may be arbitrary and capricious is setting a dangerous precedent for sexual and reproductive rights of women in India. The present Supreme Court case is witness to how the pedantic and strict reading of the law, without interpreting it in context, can be immensely threatening to the functioning of the rights system for women.

Read More :  firstpost.com/india/supreme-court-turns-down-abortion-plea-strict-pedantic-reading-of-law-is-threat-to-womens-rights-3310212.html

Sanford Bail Bond – Did the Supreme Court Base a Ruling on a Myth ?

Source     : NewYork Times News
By             : ADAM LIPTAK
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

Did the Supreme Court Base a Ruling on a Myth

Last week at the Supreme Court, a lawyer made what seemed like an unremarkable point about registered sex offenders. “This court has recognized that they have a high rate of recidivism and are very likely to do this again,” said the lawyer, Robert C. Montgomery, who was defending a North Carolina statute that bars sex offenders from using Facebook, Twitter and other social media services. The Supreme Court has indeed said the risk that sex offenders will commit new crimes is “frightening and high.” That phrase, in a 2003 decision upholding Alaska’s sex offender registration law, has been exceptionally influential. It has appeared in more than 100 lower-court opinions, and it has helped justify laws that effectively banish registered sex offenders from many aspects of everyday life. But there is vanishingly little evidence for the Supreme Court’s assertion that convicted sex offenders commit new offenses at very high rates. The story behind the notion, it turns out, starts with a throwaway line in a glossy magazine.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion in the 2003 case, Smith v. Doe, cited one of his own earlier opinions for support, and that opinion did include a startling statistic. “The rate of recidivism of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80 percent,” Justice Kennedy wrote in the earlier case, McKune v. Lile. He cited what seemed to be a good source for the statistic: “A Practitioner’s Guide to Treating the Incarcerated Male Sex Offender,” published in 1988 by the Justice Department. The guide, a compendium of papers from outside experts, is 231 pages long, and it contains lots of statistics on sex offender recidivism rates. Many of them were in the single digits, some a little higher. Only one source claimed an 80 percent rate, and the guide itself said that number might be exaggerated. The source of the 80 percent figure was a 1986 article in Psychology Today, a magazine written for a general audience. The article was about a counseling program run by the authors, and they made a statement that could be good for business. “Most untreated sex offenders released from prison go on to commit more offenses — indeed, as many as 80 percent do,” the article said, without evidence or elaboration.

That’s it. The basis for much of American jurisprudence and legislation about sex offenders was rooted in an offhand and unsupported statement in a mass-market magazine, not a peer-reviewed journal. “Unfortunately,” Melissa Hamilton wrote in a new article in The Boston College Law Review, “the Supreme Court’s scientifically dubious guidance on the actual risk of recidivism that sex offenders pose has been unquestionably repeated by almost all other lower courts that have upheld the public safety need for targeted sex offender restrictions.”The most detailed examination of how all of this came to pass was in a 2015 article in Constitutional Commentary by Ira Mark Ellman and Tara Ellman, who were harshly critical of the Supreme Court. “Its endorsement has transformed random opinions by self-interested nonexperts into definitive studies offered to justify law and policy, while real studies by real scientists go unnoticed,” the authors wrote. “The court’s casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves.” There are many ways to calculate recidivism rates, and they vary depending on a host of distinctions. A 2014 Justice Department report found, for instance, that sex offenders generally have low overall recidivism rates for crimes. But they are more likely to commit additional sex offenses than other criminals.

In the three years after release from prison, 1.3 percent of people convicted of other kinds of crimes were arrested for sex offenses, compared to 5.3 percent of sex offenders. Those findings are broadly consistent with seven reports in various states, which found that people convicted of sex crimes committed new sex offenses at rates of 1.7 percent to 5.7 percent in time periods ranging from three to 10 years.  The Justice Department report said the risk of new sex offenses by convicted sex offenders rises over time, reaching 27 percent over 20 years. That number is significant, but it is nothing like 80 percent. Perhaps it is sufficient to warrant harsh sex offender registry laws, but judges and lawmakers would have been better served by basing their judgments on the best available data.

Lower courts generally accept what the Supreme Court says. That is true not only about the law but also about facts subject to independent verification. Last year, though, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati gently suggested that the Supreme Court had taken a wrong turn in its 2003 decision in Smith v. Doe. Judge Alice M. Batchelder, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, described “the significant doubt cast by recent empirical studies on the pronouncement in Smith that ‘the risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders is “frightening and high.’” The appeals court struck down a particularly strict Michigan sex-offender law as a violation of the Constitution’s ex post facto clause, saying it retroactively imposed punishment on people who had committed offenses before the law was enacted. The state has asked the Supreme Court to consider the case, Does v. Snyder, No. 16-768. The first paragraph of its petition says that the risk of recidivism “remains ‘frightening and high.’” The constitutional question in the case is interesting and substantial. And hearing the case would allow the court to consider more fully its casual assertion that sex offenders are especially dangerous.

Read More : nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/supreme-court-repeat-sex-offenders.html