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New DC drunken driving law to take effect
Court Line |
2012/08/03 18:20
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A new law that toughens penalties for drunken driving in the nation's capital takes effect Wednesday, but the city's police department still is not using breath tests on suspected drunken drivers more than a year after the tests were suspended.
The new law, which was approved by the D.C. Council and signed by Mayor Vincent Gray earlier this summer. It doubles mandatory minimum jail terms for people with blood-alcohol concentrations of .20 percent or higher and establishes a blood-alcohol limit of .04 percent for commercial drivers, including taxi drivers.
The law also establishes new oversight for the district's breath-testing program. But there's still no timetable to the resumption of breath tests, which D.C. police stopped using in February 2011 in the wake of revelations that their breath-testing devices had produced inaccurate results. Police have been using urine and blood tests instead.
A year earlier, District of Columbia officials had notified defense lawyers about nearly 400 drunken-driving convictions that relied, at least party, on inaccurately calibrated blood-alcohol tests.
More than two dozen people sued the district over convictions based on those flawed tests, and the district Attorney General's office said Tuesday that all the outstanding lawsuits had been settled. The district paid a total of $136,000 to 17 plaintiffs, with individuals receiving between $2,000 and $42,000, said Jeffrey Rhodes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. |
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Court orders Chevron to stop drilling for oil
Legal News |
2012/08/01 18:19
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A federal court has given Chevron Corp. and driller Transocean Ltd. 30 days to suspend all petroleum drilling and transportation operations in Brazil until the conclusion of investigations into two oil spills off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
The court says in a statement posted Wednesday on its web site each company will be fined 500 million reals ($244 million) for each day they fail to comply with the suspension.
About 155, 000 gallons of oil crude began seeping from cracks in the ocean floor at the site of a Chevron appraisal well in November. Two weeks later, the National Petroleum Agency said the seepage was under control. But in March, oil again started leaking and Chevron voluntarily suspended production in the field. |
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Court sides with NJ judges in pension dispute
Attorney News |
2012/07/27 18:00
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New Jersey's Supreme Court dealt a partial defeat to one of Gov. Chris Christie's signature legislative accomplishments Tuesday when it ruled that the state's judges don't have to contribute more to their pensions and health benefits. A leading state lawmaker immediately said the battle over the matter would continue.
The narrow 3-2 decision sided with a legal challenge filed last year by a state Superior Court judge in Hudson County who argued that the law imposing the pension and health care benefits changes violated a part of the state constitution that set judges' salaries and said they cannot be reduced.
The justices noted in their ruling that without a corresponding salary increase, the increased contributions would eventually cost judges at least $17,000 annually in take-home pay, amounting to a pay cut of more than 10 percent.
Christie, a Republican, had worked with the Democratic-controlled Legislature to pass the law last year. It affects hundreds of thousands of government workers around the state in addition to between 400 and 500 sitting judges and justices. |
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Pa.'s tough, new voter ID law heads to court
Court Watch |
2012/07/25 21:00
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The first legal test for Pennsylvania's tough new voter identification law is arriving.
A state Commonwealth Court judge will begin a hearing Wednesday on whether to block the law from taking effect in this year's election while the court considers a challenge to its constitutionality.
The hearing could last a week.
The law is the subject of a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest in the Nov. 6 election.
Republicans say it's necessary to prevent fraud. But Democrats say it's an election-year scheme to steal the White House and contend that there's no track record of fraud that it would prevent.
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed the law in March without a single Democratic lawmaker supporting it. |
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Wash. Senate hopeful sought to seal court files
Legal News |
2012/07/20 22:46
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A couple months before Brad Toft emerged as the only Republican in a crucial state Senate race, he pressed officials to seal records from a past court case.
In a signed letter, Toft seemed to suggest that he wasn't the same person cited in the court files, saying that he shared a name with one of the parties but arguing that "the specific identity of the defendant is unclear." He wanted the records blocked from public inspection, declaring that the files might do damage to his reputation.
Toft, however, acknowledged to The Associated Press that he was the defendant in the case, saying he was simply exploring whether an old judgment could be vacated. |
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