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Supreme Court says tribes must be fully reimbursed
Court Watch |
2012/06/18 19:26
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The Supreme Court says the government must fully reimburse Native American tribes for money they spent on federal programs.
The federal government had agreed to fully reimburse money tribes spent on programs like law enforcement, environmental protection and agricultural assistance, but Congress capped the amount of money earmarked for that reimbursement. The tribes sued, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver said the money must be fully reimbursed.
The high court on Monday said the Ramah Navajo Chapter and other Native American tribes must get their money back.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion for Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito dissented. |
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2 men sentenced in Palin lawyer harassment case
Court Watch |
2012/06/10 18:03
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Two Pennsylvania men convicted of harassing Sarah Palin's Alaska lawyers were sentenced Friday to time served and five years' probation, with the proceedings briefly halted after a short outburst in court by one of the defendants.
During his sentencing in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, 20-year-old Shawn Christy said the judge's order that he live up to six months in a Pennsylvania community re-entry program was "ridiculous."
His father, Craig Christy, 48, was ordered to perform community service.
The Christys, of McAdoo, Pa., pleaded guilty in January to making harassing phone calls to Palin's attorneys. Attorney John Tiemessen testified that the men's calls threatened Palin and attorneys. Both Christys apologized Friday for their actions.
Shawn Christy was released and sent back to Pennsylvania last month after an evaluation report said he wasn't a danger to the public. |
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2 plead not guilty in Mass. extortion attempt case
Court Watch |
2012/06/09 18:03
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Howie Winter, the 83-year-old former head of a Boston-area gang that was later run by James "Whitey" Bulger, pleaded not guilty Friday to attempted extortion and conspiracy charges.
Winter and co-defendant James Melvin, 70, were arrested Thursday after authorities said they tried over several months to extort $35,000 from each of two men who had arranged a $100,000 loan for a third man.
Winter, who headed the Winter Hill Gang in the 1960s and '70s, wore large black sunglasses during his arraignment in Somerville District Court. He and Melvin stood silently as a prosecutor described a series of meetings and phone calls in which the two men allegedly threatened the men and repeatedly referred to the North End neighborhood of Boston in an apparent attempt to intimidate the men through a thinly veiled reference to organized crime.
Assistant District Attorney Stephen Gilpatric said some of the meetings were secretly recorded. In the recordings, Winter and Melvin can be heard threatening the men if they don't pay the money, Gilpatric said. |
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Court rules NY town's prayer violated Constitution
Court Watch |
2012/05/19 05:37
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An upstate New York town violated the constitutional ban against favoring one religion over another by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity, a federal court of appeals ruled Thursday.
In what it said was its first case testing the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the town of Greece, a suburb of Rochester, should have made a greater effort to invite people from other faiths to open monthly meetings. The town's lawyer says it will appeal.
From 1999 through 2007, and again from January 2009 through June 2010, every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation. In 2008, after residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens complained, four of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians, including a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha'i congregation.
Galloway and Stephens sued and, in 2010, a lower court ruled there was no evidence the town had intentionally excluded other faiths.
A town employee each month selected clerics or lay people by using a local published guide of churches. The guide did not include non-Christian denominations, however. The court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there. |
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