Unanimous Supreme Court Decision Protects Employees

Yes, you read the headline correctly. Could this be a payback from Chief Justice John Roberts for flubbing the presidential oath? If it is, great!

The Supreme Court today unanimously held that federal anti-discrimination laws protect employees from retaliation when they cooperate with internal investigations of alleged harassment.

The court sided with Vicky S. Crawford, who said she was fired from her longtime job in charge of payroll for the Nashville school system after she answered questions about what the court termed the "louche goings-on" involving her boss.

The supervisor, Metro School District employees relations director Gene Hughes, was not disciplined for the alleged actions, but Crawford and two others who testified against him were later fired for unrelated charges.

Lower courts said Crawford was not protected under the federal anti-retaliation law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, because she had not "instigated or initiated" the complaint, but merely answered questions in a case already underway.

The Supreme Court said the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit misread the law.

"Nothing in the statute requires a freakish rule protecting an employee who reports discrimination on her own initiative but not one who reports the same discrimination in the same words when her boss asks a question," Justice David H. Souter wrote.

The case is Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.

What also must be noted is the gender difference in reporting this decision. CBS Network news airs before NBC in the DC area, so if I'm home I try to catch both. CBS anchor Katie Couric reported the story. Guess who didn't? That's right the male anchor Brian Williams on NBC.

The minute I read the report of this in the Washington Post I knew it would probably have greater impact, and meaning, for women. Looks like Couric agrees.

Ted Stevens Guilty

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person!

The Hill reports:

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of felony charges for making false statements.

The verdict could spell the end of a 40-year Senate career for a man who rose to be one of the most dominant figures in the upper chamber and who helped transform Alaska in its 50 years of statehood. The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated since Wednesday and found the 84-year-old senator guilty of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from Bill Allen, the former head of Veco Corp., and other friends.

The jury did not seem to buy the explanation from Stevens that Allen showered him with gifts he didn't want and was unaware of, and that he believed the $160,000 he gave to another contractor covered all costs for the home renovations.

Lock him up and throw away the key!

Justice FINALLY for Genarlow Wilson

After spending more than two years behind bars, Genarlow Wilson is tonight a free man.

The New York Times reports:

The Georgia Supreme Court today ended the 10-year prison sentence of a man who was convicted in 2003 of having consensual oral sex with another teenager. The court said the harsh sentence violated the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 4-to-3 ruling, the court’s majority said the sentence was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime, which the justices said “did not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children.”

The inmate, Genarlow Wilson, who is now 21, was 17 when he was caught on videotape having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a drug- and alcohol-fueled New Year’s Eve party in 2003. He was released this afternoon.

This law was deemed so harsh that Georgia legislators changed it a year after Wilson was sentenced. Unfortunately for Genarlow they did not make it retroactive to include him. So this honors student and star athlete has had years stolen from him, that he will never get back.

Writing for the majority in Friday’s 48-page opinion, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears noted that changes to the law made after Mr. Wilson’s conviction “represent a seismic shift in the legislature’s view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing teenage participants.

“The severe felony punishment and sex offender registration imposed on Wilson make no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment,” she wrote. [...]

Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker, in a written statement, indicated that he would not challenge the high court’s decision.

“I respectfully acknowledge the court’s authority to grant the relief that they have crafted in this case,” Mr. Baker said. “I hope the court’s decision will also put an end to this issue as a matter of contention in the hearts and minds of concerned Georgians and others across the county who have taken such a strong interest in this case.”

John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, called the case “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Georgia in modern times.”

Earlier in the year it looked as though Wilson might be allowed to leave prison, but the AG appealed a lower court decision.

Tonight, Genarlow Wilson's nightmare is finally over. With the full recognition that this is much easier for me to say than it might be for Genarlow to do ... Let's hope this young man can move on with his life, and not allow what was once a promising future to be lost to him forever.

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PREVIOUS POSTS:

Genarlow Wilson: perverted justice

Genarlow Wilson caught in a web of injustice

Genarlow Wilson interview on Today Show

DC Judge Loses $54 Million Pants Lawsuit

NBC News just announced the decision in the case of DC Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson (right) against Jin and Soo Chung, and their sons, owners of Custom Cleaners.

A D.C. Superior Court judge has sided with the defendants over a $54 million lawsuit over a pair of pants.

According to the judge's decision, the plaintiff, Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson Jr. will take nothing from Soo Chung and Jim Nam Chung, the owners of Custom Cleaners.

The judge also awarded the Chungs' court costs

The long nightmare for the Chung's is finally over.

Tearful Judge in $54 Million Pants Lawsuit

A DC judge, who says a dry cleaners lost his pants, broke down in tears and had to take a break from his testimony because he became too emotional while questioning himself about his experience with a missing pair of pants.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so tough on himself when he took the stand.

The case has gained nationwide attention, mostly as an example of what some people think is wrong with our legal system.

“I don’t know of any other cases that have been quite this ridiculous,” said Paul Rothstein, a professor of law at Georgetown University.

"It's outrageous and it's shameful,'' Bill Schulz, spokesman for the American Association for Justice, the largest trial lawyer group in the nation, told ABC News. The A.A.J. filed a complaint about Pearson recently with the District of Columbia bar association.

Schulz said the case is an embarrassing anomoly that "should not be used as an indictment against the civil justice system in this country because, it works quite well, thank you, for people -- ordinary people -- who are seeking real justice for real cases of negligence and wrongdoing."

Judge Pearson ran into some trouble with Judge Judith Bartnoff, for repeatedly referring to himself as "we," and for trying to represent himself as the leader of a class of tens of thousands, if not a half million local residents.

“You are not a we, you are an I,” Judge Bartnoff said in one of several testy exchanges with Judge Pearson. “You are seeking damages on your own behalf, and that is all.”

Pearson tried to cast himself as a victim of a fraud perpetrated by business owners who had no intention of delivering on their promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed." But the defendants' lawyer Christopher Manning fought back.

“The plaintiff has decided to use his intimate knowledge of the District of Columbia laws and legal systems to exploit non-English-speaking immigrants who work in excess of 70 hours per week to live the American dream,” Mr. Manning says in court papers.

It seems that Pearson has a long history with Jin and Soo Chung and their sons, owners of Custom Cleaners.

In 2002, after a disagreement over another pair of Pearson's pants which Custom Cleaners allegedly lost - and compensated him for with $150 - Pearson was banned from the store, defense attorney Christopher Manning claimed in court.

Manning said that Pearson pleaded with the Chungs to let him back into the store, because he didn't have a car, he said, and they were the only dry cleaners in the neighborhood.

The New York Times reports:

Judge Pearson’s future as an administrative law judge is in limbo. His two-year term expired on May 2, and a judicial panel has yet to decide on his reappointment.

In the meantime, Judge Pearson remains on the city payroll as an attorney adviser to the Office of Administrative Hearings, at a salary of $100,512.

Genarlow Wilson: perverted justice

Emil Steiner’s Washington Post OFF/beat updates “the Genarlow Wilson tragedy” noting that the Georgia Legislature Snoozes and a Promising Teen Loses:

The travesty continues. Despite a national outcry to help Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia teen sentenced to ten years in prison for engaging in consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, the state legislature recessed last week without addressing the issue. Even though that body has already changed the law to make his “crime” a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of one year, and even though Wilson has already served more than double that time, the Senate failed to push through a measure allowing judges to retroactively adjust earlier sentences. And so, Wilson will continue languishing in the Burruss Correctional Training Center for as many as eight more years. [...]

[N]o one involved—from the supposed victim to the Georgia Supreme Court—actually thinks he belongs in prison, and yet no one seems to be able to do anything about it. The legislature had a real opportunity to right one of the most heinous legal aberrations in recent American history and instead let it slip through the procedural cracks. And while lawmakers may be charged with serving their constituents, it is difficult to imagine in what way their actions (or lack thereof) could have done anything but a disservice to the citizens of the Peach State.

Petition and contact info for Wilson’s attorney. Thanks to A Typical Joe for the update.

GUILTY: Scooter Libby heading for prison

The verdict in the Scooter Libby trial is in:



The individual charges and their corresponding verdicts in the trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are outlined in the chart below.

For more on the case.