|
|
|
Religious clerks in Kentucky follow law, but see conflict
Court News |
2015/09/15 10:34
|
Clerk Mike Johnston prays twice a day, once each morning and once each night, and asks the Lord to understand the decision he made to license same-sex marriage.
“It’s still on my heart,” said Johnston, whose rural Carter County sits just to the east of Rowan County, where clerk Kim Davis sparked a national furor by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, a decision that landed her in jail.
Johnston is one of Kentucky’s 119 other clerks, many of them deeply religious, who watched the Kim Davis saga unfold on national television while trying to reconcile their own faith and their oath of office. Sixteen of them sent pleading letters to the governor noting their own religious objections. But when forced to make a decision, only two have taken a stand as dramatic as Davis and refused to issue licenses.
And others say they find the controversy now swirling around their job title humiliating.
“I wish would just quit, because she’s embarrassing everybody,” said Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins, whose office serves the state’s second-largest city, Lexington.
After the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear ordered clerks across the state to issue licenses, launching them along markedly different paths. The clerk in Louisville, Bobbie Holsclaw, issued licenses that very day and the mayor greeted happy couples with bottles of champagne.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Idaho high court upholds law banning horse racing terminals
Legal Line News |
2015/09/14 10:34
|
Idaho's highest court says the state must enforce legislation banning lucrative instant horse racing terminals after ruling that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's veto of the bill was invalid.
The decision is a blow to Idaho's horse racing industry, where officials have pleaded that the machines are vital to keeping their businesses afloat.
In a unanimous decision issued Thursday, the court ruled that the ban must go into effect because Otter did not complete the veto within the required five-day time span. In Idaho, a bill automatically becomes law — even if the governor doesn't sign it — unless it is vetoed within the legal timeframe.
"This pivotal decision reaffirms that even Idaho's highest elected officials must follow the Constitution," said Coeur d'Alene Tribe Chief James Allan, chairman of the tribe that filed the lawsuit against the state, prompting the court's ruling. The tribe, which profits from its own video gaming on the reservation and faced competition from the new horse racing versions, said it was "extremely happy" with the ruling.
Secretary of State Lawerence Denney must now certify the law, which will make the machines illegal. He did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press on when he will certify it. There are currently about 250 machines installed in three locations across Idaho.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court upholds convictions in Ohio slavery case
Legal News Feed |
2015/09/13 10:34
|
A federal appeals panel has upheld the convictions and sentences of a couple charged with enslaving a mentally disabled woman in their northeast Ohio home for nearly two years through intimidation, threats and abuse.
The three-judge 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati agreed unanimously Tuesday that the federal charges were appropriate and that the prison sentences of at least three decades each were warranted.
A federal jury in Youngstown convicted Jessica Hunt and boyfriend Jordie Callahan last year on counts of forced labor, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to illegally obtain prescription drugs.
Among other challenges in their appeal, the couple contended that the case should have been a state matter since federal forced labor prosecutions typically involve people brought to the U.S. for domestic servitude or sex trade.
The woman "was compelled to perform domestic labor and run errands for defendants by force, the threat of force, and the threat of abuse of legal process," Judge Eric Clay wrote.
"Because this is a distinct harm that is a matter of federal concern pursuant to the Thirteen Amendment, it matters little that defendants' conduct may have also violated various state laws," Clay wrote, citing the U.S. constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Transgender asylum seekers can't be equated with gays
Court News |
2015/09/05 15:15
|
Transgender people can be especially vulnerable to harassment and attacks and shouldn't be equated with gays and lesbians by U.S. immigration officials determining whether to grant asylum, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling in the case of a transgender Mexican woman who sought shelter in the U.S. on the grounds that she would likely be tortured if returned to Mexico.
Edin Avendano-Hernandez said she had been sexually assaulted by uniformed Mexican police and a military official for being transgender.
The Board of Immigration Appeals wrongly relied on Mexican laws protecting gays and lesbians to reject Avendano-Hernandez's asylum request, the ruling states.
The 9th Circuit said transgender people face a unique level of danger and are specifically targeted in Mexico by police for extortion and sexual favors.
"While the relationship between gender identity and sexual orientation is complex, and sometimes overlapping, the two identities are distinct," Circuit Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote. "Significant evidence suggests that transgender persons are often especially visible, and vulnerable, to harassment and persecution due to their often public nonconformance with normative gender roles."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal Marketing News RSS
