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Supreme Court Watch

Court Watch

Court Rules Cities Can Steal Private Property, Seize Homes
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights. The 5-4 ruling assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas. As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Court Rules Against Farmers In Water Use Case
WASHINGTON -- Individual farmers may not sue the federal government to enforce water contracts entered into by their irrigation districts, a unanimous Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that limits landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows. Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to protect two threatened fish.

Texas Governor Commutes 28 Death Sentences in response to Supreme Court ruling
AUSTIN -- Responding to the Supreme Court's ruling that juveniles cannot be executed, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday commuted 28 death sentences to life in prison for inmates who were under 18 when they committed capital murder. The Supreme Court forced the commutations with its March ruling that executing juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Court Orders New Trial for Death Row Inmate
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a death sentence in a Pennsylvania murder case, ruling that defense attorneys should have investigated the defendant's past records for mitigating circumstances, although the defendant himself and his family told attorneys there was no mitigating evidence.

Court Sidesteps Sentencing Appeals Issue
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the doors for hundreds of federal inmates to appeal their sentences when it ruled that federal sentencing guidelines, in place since 1987, were unconstitutional. This week, the court refused to rule on whether those inmates can automatical appeal for reduced sentences.

Court Protects Legal Aid For Poor
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Michigan law that barred state-paid legal help for poor defendants who plead guilty but then want to appeal. The one-of-a-kind law had been challenged by Antonio Dwayne Halbert, who pleaded no contest in 2001 to two child molestation charges and received up to 30 years in prison.

Interest groups gear up for US Supreme Court fight
WASHINGTON -- Dozens of interest groups on the right and left are poised to spend millions of dollars and mobilize thousands of activists in an expected fight over a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy that could tip the court's balance on hot-button social issues like abortion.

Impeachment of Federal Judges

Impeaching Federal Judges: A Covenantal and
Constitutional Response to Judicial Tyranny
The bottom line is this: There is no full answer to the problem of judicial tyranny short of impeachment.

Posted by Editor at June 24, 2005 06:42 AM