Word: circuiter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...blunt and remarkably plain language, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the University of Texas law school could not use different admission standards for minority students than it does for white applicants. The court's decision was a frontal assault on the current law of the land--embodied in the Supreme Court's 1978 Bakke decision--which prohibits quotas but allows schools to consider race as a factor in college applications...
...court's decision included a sharp warning that "if the law school continues to operate a disguised or overt racial classification system in the future, its actors could be subject to actual and punitive damages." Says Berdahl: "That gets your attention real fast." Other state schools in the circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, are bound by the decision. Private schools may also be affected because many receive federal funds, and campuses nationwide are studying the ruling as a possible harbinger of things to come...
Those suspicions increased late last month when someone fired two shotgun blasts into the home of black circuit-court judge Eddie Hardaway. Although several witnesses say the gunman was black, Hardaway believes white people put him up to it. He sees no connection between the shootings and the rash of church arsons--but other blacks do. In January, Hardaway sentenced two young white men to five years in prison for vandalizing black churches in Sumter County. The day the sentences were reported in the local newspaper, fire destroyed two churches in neighboring Greene County. "Those fires," says Barrown Lankster...
Last week a federal appeals court moved to provide that aid. In a groundbreaking decision, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Washington State's prohibition of doctor-assisted suicide. Writing for the majority in the 8-to-3 decision, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said, "There is a constitutionally protected liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one's own death" that can outweigh the state's interest in preserving life. Washington's law, ruled the court, violates the right of mentally competent, terminally ill adults to choose "a dignified and humane death...
Last week's ruling is expected to have an impact beyond the Ninth Circuit's nine-state jurisdiction. At least 33 states have laws forbidding assisted suicide, and many of them are under challenge. Clearly the decision is in tune with public opinion. Two days after it was issued, a Michigan jury in the second assisted-suicide trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian reached the same verdict as the jury in his first trial: not guilty...