Affirmative action foe wins California court fight

In a bitter fight over the effects of affirmative action, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that law school data on race, attendance and grades should be available to the public.

The unanimous decision represents a legal victory for a law professor seeking to test his notion that minority students are actually harmed by preferential admissions policies.

University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Sander created a firestorm when he published his "mismatch theory" in the Stanford Law Review in 2004.

Critics swiftly attacked his conclusions, saying Sander understated the positive effects of affirmative action and based his thinking on inadequate statistics.

To further his research, Sander sought data on ethnicity and scholastic performance compiled by the State Bar of California with a public records request in 2008. The state bar denied the request, prompting the lawsuit.

Information compiled by the bar, a branch of the state judiciary responsible with licensing and disciplining lawyers, is "unparalleled," Sander said after the ruling Thursday.

German Court Begins Hearing Afghan Airstrike Case

A court in Germany has begun hearing a civil case brought by relatives of some of the 91 Afghans killed in a NATO airstrike four years ago.

Bonn regional court spokesman Philipp Prietze said Wednesday that the court reviewed video recorded by two U.S. fighter jets involved in the airstrike in the Afghan province of Kunduz on Sept. 4, 2009.

The strike was ordered by a German colonel fearful that insurgents would use two stolen fuel tankers to attack his troops.

Germany paid $5,000 each to victims' families, but some are seeking additional compensation. Most of the dead were civilians.

Separately, Germany said it would offer refuge to 182 Afghan translators and drivers who could face persecution after Western troops leave Afghanistan because they worked for the German military.

Appeals court moves BP forward in settlement dispute

The April 2010 blowout of BP's Macondo well off the Louisiana coast triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and led to millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf. Shortly after the disaster, BP agreed to create a $20 billion compensation fund that was administered at first by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, led by attorney Kenneth Feinberg.

BP argued that Barbier and court-appointed claims administrator Patrick Juneau misinterpreted terms of the settlement. Plaintiffs' lawyers countered that BP undervalued the settlement and underestimated how many claimants would qualify for payments.

In the panel's majority opinion, Judge Edith Brown Clement said BP has consistently argued that the settlement's complex formula for compensating businesses was intended to cover "real economic losses, not artificial losses that appear only from the timing of cash flows."

"The interests of individuals who may be reaping windfall recoveries because of an inappropriate interpretation of the Settlement Agreement and those who could never have recovered in individual suits for failure to show causation are not outweighed by the potential loss to a company and its public shareholders of hundreds of millions of dollars of unrecoverable awards," Clement wrote.

Judge Leslie Southwick wrote a concurring opinion. Judge James Dennis wrote a partial dissent, largely disagreeing with the other two.

"Because BP has not satisfied its heavy burden of showing that a change in circumstances or law warranted the modifications it sought, the district court correctly affirmed the Administrator's decision rejecting BP's argument and actions to modify the agreement," Dennis wrote.

Judge says Episcopal issues belong in state court

U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck has ruled for the second time in recent months that legal issues arising from the Episcopal schism in eastern South Carolina belong in state court, not federal court.

Houck dismissed a federal lawsuit late Friday brought by Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, the bishop of parishes remaining with the national Episcopal Church.

The bishop had asked Houck to block Bishop Mark Lawrence, the spiritual head of churches that left the national church, from using the name and symbols of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

But Houck ruled the issues "are more appropriately before, and will more comprehensively be resolved, in South Carolina state court."

Lawrence and churches in the conservative diocese separated from the more liberal national church last year. Those parishes later sued in state court to protect their use of the diocesan name and symbols and title to a half billion dollars in church property.

In a consent order agreed to by both sides and signed by a state judge earlier this year, Lawrence and those parishes were given the right to use the name and symbols.

Parishes remaining with the national church later tried to move that case to federal court, but Houck ruled in June that doing so would disrupt the balance between state and federal courts.

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Appeals court allows capital retrial of Wolfe

A federal appeals court will allow a capital murder case to proceed against an accused drug kingpin from northern Virginia.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a federal judge in Norfolk who had ordered a halt to the prosecution of Justin Wolfe and his immediate release.
That judge said misconduct by prosecutors in Prince William County made it impossible for Wolfe to get a fair trial.
But a majority on the appellate court disagreed. The judges ruled that a new trial can be done fairly. A dissenting judge said the misconduct was so bad that freeing Wolfe was the only proper outcome.
Wolfe was sent to death row in 2002 for a drug-related murder, but his original conviction and sentence were overturned.

Court: Can human genes be patented?

DNA may be the building block of life, but can something taken from it also be the building block of a multimillion-dollar medical monopoly?
The Supreme Court grapples Monday with the question of whether human genes can be patented. Its ultimate answer could reshape U.S. medical research, the fight against diseases like breast and ovarian cancer and the multi-billion dollar medical and biotechnology business.
"The intellectual framework that comes out of the decision could have a significant impact on other patents - for antibiotics, vaccines, hormones, stem cells and diagnostics on infectious microbes that are found in nature," Robert Cook-Deegan, director for genome ethics, law & policy at Duke University, said in a statement.
"This could affect agricultural biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, green-tech, the use of organisms to produce alternative fuels and other applications," he said.
The nine justices' decision will also have a profound effect on American business, with billions of dollars of investment and years of research on the line. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years.

Doctor to plead guilty in CA prescription case

A Southern California doctor has agreed to plead guilty to charges of illegally prescribing drugs to his patients at nightly meetings in Starbucks stores.
Court documents show 44-year-old Alvin Mingczech Yee entered into a plea agreement earlier this week. He is expected to plead guilty to seven counts at a April 17 hearing.
Prosecutors say Yee saw up to a dozen patients nightly at Starbucks coffee stores across suburban Orange County at meetings that cost up to $600. Prosecutors say Yee barely examined them but prescribed drugs including OxyContin and Vicodin.
Yee was arrested in October 2011 at his Irvine office and has been free on bond.

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Court weighs warrantless blood tests in DUI cases

The Supreme Court is considering whether police must get a warrant before ordering a blood test on an unwilling drunken-driving suspect.

The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case involving a disputed blood test from Missouri. Police stopped a speeding, swerving car and the driver, who had two previous drunken-driving convictions, refused to submit to a breath test to measure the alcohol level in his body.

The justices appeared to struggle with whether the dissipation of alcohol in the blood over time is reason enough for police to call for a blood test without first getting a warrant.

In siding with defendant Tyler McNeely, the Missouri Supreme Court said police need a warrant to take a suspect's blood except when a delay could threaten a life or destroy potential evidence.