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Romney calls Obama's health care requirement a tax
Legal News Digest |
2012/07/05 02:16
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Mitt Romney on Wednesday said requiring all Americans to buy health insurance amounts to a tax, contradicting a senior campaign adviser who days ago said the Republican presidential candidate viewed President Barack Obama's mandate as anything but a tax.
"The majority of the court said it's a tax and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There's no way around that," Romney told CBS News. "You can try and say you wish they had decided a different way but they didn't. They concluded it was a tax."
Romney's comments amounted to a shift in position. Earlier in the week, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney viewed the mandate as a penalty, a fee or a fine - not a tax.
The Supreme Court last week ruled that the federal requirement to buy health insurance or pay a penalty is constitutional because it can be considered a tax. The requirement is part of the broad health care overhaul that Obama signed into law in March 2010.
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Report: Okla. court shooting suspect delusional
Law News |
2012/07/04 02:16
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Prosecutors will review a psychological evaluation that concludes a man accused in a shooting outside the Tulsa County Courthouse doesn't have the capacity to rationally aid in his defense.
Andrew Joseph Dennehy "is exhibiting psychotic symptoms that are marked by delusions of persecution, paranoid ideation and auditory hallucinations," according to Curtis Grundy, a psychologist retained by the defense to evaluate Dennehy.
Grundy's report, filed in court Monday, recommends that Dennehy "be adjudicated as incompetent to stand trial and referred for inpatient psychiatric treatment" for competency restoration at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, the Tulsa World reported.
Dennehy has explained that "the Freemasons and illuminati were conspiring to harm or kill himself and his parents" and that, in response, "he attempted to have himself killed by the police so that the illuminati and Freemasons would leave his parents alone," according to Grundy's report. |
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Man pleads not guilty to smuggling fake Marlboros
Legal Career News |
2012/07/03 09:03
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A Chinese national pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he smuggled more than $1 million worth of fake Marlboro cigarettes into the United States.
Lin Xiao Wei, 32, who is charged with selling, dispensing and fraudulently importing a counterfeit tobacco product, entered his plea in U.S. District Court in Providence and was ordered held.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond noted that Wei had entered the United States on a visitor's visa and has no ties to the country, so he deemed him a flight risk. Wei did not request bail, but Almond said his public defender could request it later.
Federal prosecutors say a confidential source arranged for Wei, who uses the name "Marvin," to ship a 20-foot container of counterfeit Marlboros from China to Miami. The shipment was labeled as leather products headed for Rhode Island.
Prosecutors also say Wei discussed a deal to sell to the source tens of thousands of fake Viagra tablets for more than $1.3 million and said he would be able to make a counterfeit version of a new Nike sneaker before it was released in stores in the United States.
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Court to hear appeal of Marine in Iraqi killing
Court Press News |
2012/07/03 08:56
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The military's highest court agreed Monday to hear the appeal of a U.S. Marine convicted of murder in one of the most significant criminal cases against U.S. troops from the Iraq war.
The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ordered a review requested by Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, who claimed in a petition that his constitutional rights were violated when he was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for seven days during his interrogation, and that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unlawfully influenced his case after his conviction.
Hutchins, 26, of Plymouth, Mass., led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping retired Iraqi policeman Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his home in April 2006, marching him to a ditch and shooting him to death. The killing took place in Hamdania, a small village in Al Anbar province.
The six other Marines and a Navy corpsman in his squad served less than 18 months.
Hutchins has sought clemency and early release, saying he was deeply sorry for what happened and has suffered nightmares and anxiety because of the killing.
Those requests have been denied, Hutchins claimed in the appeal, because Mabus illegally interfered in the case and influenced officers under him to rule against release.
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Wis. Supreme Court upholds damages in drug lawsuit
Legal & Political |
2012/06/22 11:06
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday upheld damages that were awarded in a lawsuit the state brought against a prescription drug company accused of inflating prices.
The lawsuit dates back to 2004 when then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager sued 36 drug companies alleging they inflated wholesale prices to get larger payments from Medicaid, private insurers and consumers.
The case against Pharmacia Inc. was the first to go to trial, and in 2009 a jury found that the drug maker violated the state's Medicaid fraud law 1.44 million times over a decade. After reviewing the evidence, the judge found the actual tally was 4,578 and ordered the company to pay $4.5 million in forfeitures and other costs. The jury also awarded $9 million in damages.
Pharmacia appealed, arguing that the jury incorrectly calculated the damages, that the number of violations should be reduced to zero, and that a jury trial was improper. |
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