Tag Archives: court ruling

Sanders wins: Ohio judge rules 17-year-olds can vote on election day

Bernie-Sanders-Campaign

Sen. Bernie Sanders notched a potentially significant win on Friday evening when an Ohio judge issued an order, allowing 17-year-old voters to participate in the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday. Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Frye ruled that 17-year-old voters who turn 18 by the day of the November election can vote in the primary, though not on ballot issues or for any contests that would actually elect someone to office.

The ruling trumps a recent move by Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, to block 17-year-old voters in the state from participating on election day, on the grounds that the teens would be voting for delegates, not nominating candidates directly. In December, Husted revised the state’s election manual, which previously allowed the practice. Frye’s ruling came in response to a suit by nine 17-year-old registered Ohio voters, who disputed Husted’s interpretation of the law.

The ruling is a victory for Sanders’ campaign, which separately filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against Husted’s order. The Sanders campaign accused Husted in the suit — which was put on hold Friday by a federal judge — of trying to stop younger voters from exercising their democratic rights.

“It is an outrage that the secretary of state in Ohio is going out of his way to keep young people — significantly African-American young people, Latino young people — from participating,” Bernie Sanders said.

Sanders campaign attorney Brad Deutsch said the ruling was a major victory.

“This is a huge victory for 17-year-olds across Ohio. Their votes for presidential nominees will now count when they vote on either Tuesday or over the weekend in early voting,” Deutch said in a statement.

Husted blasted the ruling and said he would appeal.

“This last-minute legislating from the bench on election law has to stop,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “Our system cannot give one county court the power to change 30 years of election law for the entire state of Ohio, 23 days into early voting and only four days before an election.”

Younger voters have rallied to Sanders’ idealistic message, helping deliver victories over his rival Hillary Clinton in a number of close primaries.

Original Article Published by  via POLITICO

 

Chicago cops’ account of Laquan McDonald killing differed wildly from video footage

Protesters in Chicago prepared for a new round of action on Sundayafter the city released documents showing that at least five Chicago police officers told a story about the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald that is wholly unsupported by the notorious video footage of the incident.

McDonald was shot 16 times in 15 seconds while he was walking away from officers. Jason Van Dyke, the officer who shot him, has been charged with murder.

But, as the New York Times noted, that version of events differs markedly from the story that multiple officers told—something we know thanks to newly released police records:

[A]t least five other officers on the scene that night corroborated a version of events similar to the one Officer Van Dyke, now charged with murder in the shooting, gave his supervisors: that Mr. McDonald was aggressively swinging his knife and was moving toward the police, giving Officer Van Dyke no choice but to start shooting.

The revelation will only heighten the scandal swirling around the Chicago Police Department. Protests have rocked the city since the McDonald video was released. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has fired the department’s superintendent in response to the scandal. There is also the possibility of an investigation by the Justice Department into the department’s wider problems.

A Chicago Tribune report on Saturday detailed some of the ways in which the department has managed to evade the kind of public scrutiny it is currently facing:

Of 409 shootings since the [Independent Police Review Authority’s] formation in September 2007 — an average of roughly one a week — only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, according to IPRA. Both involved off-duty officers.

[…]

Overall, police misconduct, including shootings and other wrongdoing, has cost taxpayers more than $500 million since 2004, according to officials.

The Chicago officers are far from the first to tell stories about police killings that wound up differing drastically from recorded footage of the events. Officers in the shootings of both Tamir Rice and Walter Scott, for instance, presented completely contradictory accounts of the incident.

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Sunday’s protests in Chicago are set to begin at 1:30 PM.

 

 

 

Originally Written & Published by Jack Mirkinson of Fusion

A Court Ordered Sherri Shepherd to Pay Child Support for a Baby Not Biologically Her Own

A Pennsylvania court ruled Monday that Sherri Shepherd must pay child support for a baby she and her then-husband Lamar Sally had via surrogacy — even though the couple split three months before the child in question was born.

The baby boy is the biological product of Sally’s sperm and a donor egg, meaning Shepherd is not his biological mother. In April, despite her protests, Shepherd was legally declared the child’s mother on the birth certificate (initially, the surrogate mother was listed).

Shepherd maintained the surrogacy and subsequent lawsuits were all part of Sally’s elaborate and protracted plan to defraud her. The court was unconvinced, ruling the TV personality must continue paying $4,100 per month in child support, which will increase to $4,600 when the child reaches adolescence.

shepherd2Source: Mic/Getty Images

Shepherd “does not dispute that she freely entered into the gestational carrier contract,” the Superior Court ruling stated Monday, according to the Associated Press. “Baby S. would not have been born but for [her] actions and express agreement to be the child’s legal mother.”

Sally has since been vocal about the victory, speaking to a number of media outlets about the ordeal. “I’m glad it’s finally over,” Sally told People. “I’m glad the judges saw through all the lies that she put out there, and the negative media attention. If she won’t be there for L.J. [the baby] emotionally, I’ll be parent enough for the both of us.” He israising the child in Los Angeles.

Melissa B. Brisman, owner of the New Jersey-based surrogacy firm, Reproductive Possibilities LLC, which Sally and Shepherd used, celebrated the decision too.

“Surrogates don’t want to feel that someone could want a baby and then just back out,” Brisman said, according to the Associated Press. “The surrogate is not the mother.”

Don’t be a baby about it: The battle is one of a number in recent years that navigates the legally murky waters of conception and pregnancy assisted by technology and who, exactly, is liable for the resulting life. Many noted the parallels in Shepherd’s ordeal to that of actress Sofia Vergara’s, who in May was sued by her ex-fiancé, Nick Loeb, to preserve and use their biologically shared frozen embryos.

In an op-ed letter published in April in the New York Times, Loeb wrote, “keeping [the embryos] frozen forever is tantamount to killing them.”

Shepherd’s case involves a number of complicated elements. Beyond the hairy legalities that come into play with technologically assisted conception is this less-common instance of a mother being ordered to pay child support.

While Shepherd, with a reported net worth of $10 million, does not likely run the risk of finding herself in a financially inequitable dynamic, a 2011 study conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found, on average, mothers liable for child support earn substantially less than their male counterparts.

childsupportORIGINALLY WRITTEN & PUBLISHED BY: Natasha Norman from Mic [11/25/15]