Posted by Briana Brandao.
This article, written by MaryAnn Spoto, brings to question whether or not Rutgers University violated the New Jersey open public meetings law, during one of their meetings held back in September of 2008. Francis McGovern Jr, a lawyer as well as audience member of this meeting, objected to the way these meetings were promoted and handled. McGovern noted that audience members waited over four hours while board members discussed issues behind closed doors. Once the board of governors finally reassembled, many audience members had grown tired of waiting and already left.
McGovern also noted that the Rutgers board of governors failed to mention topics discussed behind closed doors such as talk of Rutgers new football stadium. She stated, “This case is about governmental transparency,” and believes these long and tedious closed sessions dissuade public attendance. During her case, she asked that the court make it mandatory for Rutgers to hold public meetings first. She believed that by not bringing to light all issues discussed among Board of Governors, that Rutgers violated the law.
Although many may argue that McGovern had reason behind her case, the Supreme Court still ruled that Rutgers University was in compliance with the law. The court did not believe that Rutgers conducted their meetings in a way that discouraged public attendance. The court also stated that Rutgers Board of Governors did not violate the open public meetings law.
However, the court did agree that lawmakers should in fact look into tightening the law. Discussion of tightening this law would allow citizens the opportunity to challenge public organizations trying to get around the law. All in all, Rutgers University was pleased with the court’s decision.
Briana is a business administration major with a concentration in management and fashion studies at Montclair State University, Class of 2016.
In Heien v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court held that where a police officer makes a stop based upon a reasonable mistake about a law, the stop is justified.
In this case, an officer stopped a vehicle because one of its two brake lights was out, based on a misunderstanding that the North Carolina law permitted only one working brake light. The officer stopped Heinen’s vehicle because one light was not working and then proceeded to a consensual search of the car. The search turned up a bag of cocaine located in a duffle bag in the trunk. Heinz was arrested and convicted of attempted drug trafficking. The question presented to the Court was whether a police officer’s reasonable mistake of law can give rise to the reasonable suspicion necessary to uphold a seizure of an automobile and the occupants in it under the Fourth Amendment.
The North Carolina statute reads that a car must be:
equipped with a stop lamp on the rear of the vehicle. The stop lamp shall display a red or amber light visible from a distance of not less than 100 feet to the rear in normal sunlight, and shall be actuated upon application of the service (foot) brake. The stop lamp may be incorporated into a unit with one or more other rear lamps. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §20–129(g) (2007).
The Court concluded that the statute required only one stop lamp to be working. However, the officer was under a different impression of the law at the time. A nearby statute requires that “all originally equipped rear lamps” be functional. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §20–129(d). The officer made the stop under a mistake in law. Nevertheless, the Court held that even if an officer reasonably misunderstood the law, as long as the officer conducts a search or seizure reasonably under the Fourth Amendment he is acting justifiably.
“To be reasonable is not to be perfect, and so the Fourth Amendment allows for some mistakes on the part of government officials, giving them ‘fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community’s protection.’” Reasonable mistakes of fact are permissible. For example, when someone consents to the search of a home, the search will be considered valid even if the officer mistakenly believes that the person consenting is the owner.
Reasonable mistakes of law are also permissible. “Reasonable suspicion arises from the combination of an officer’s understanding of the facts and his understanding of the relevant law. The officer may be reasonably mistaken on either ground.” Even laws that police enforce that are later declared unconstitutional by a court does not rebut an officer’s reasonable assumption that the laws were valid at the time.
Heinen argued that there is no margin of error for an officer’s mistake of law. He argued the legal maxim: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” If persons cannot get out of trouble by claiming they were mistaken about the law, then neither can the police.
But the Court concluded the law protects against only “reasonable mistakes,” and therefore, “an officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage through a sloppy study of the laws he is duty-bound to enforce.” The Court further concluded Heinen’s reliance on the legal maxim is misplaced. A person cannot escape criminal liability by claiming he did not know the law, but neither can the government impose criminal liability by a mistaken understanding of the law. The Court explained:
If the law required two working brake lights, Heien could not escape a ticket by claiming he reasonably thought he needed only one; if the law required only one, Sergeant Darisse could not issue a valid ticket by claiming he reasonably thought drivers needed two. But just because mistakes of law cannot justify either the imposition or the avoidance of criminal liability, it does not follow that they cannot justify an investigatory stop.
In this case, Heien did not appeal his brake-light ticket. Instead, he appealed a cocaine-trafficking conviction, as to which he did not claim the police made either a mistake of fact or law.
Posted by Ovais Ahmed.
An article posted by the Wall Street Journal talks about the time it takes for high courts to actually hear a case. The average time runs around 6 years, and since 2009 that time period has been extended. There has been a case involving two businesses that are battling about who gets trademarks rights to screws they use. The article states,
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider a business battle over trademark rights for screws that has been in the courts for more than 16 years, an extreme example of how cases headed for the high court can be matters of endurance. . . . The average age for a high court case is nearly six years, but 37% of cases have taken longer since 2009. In most circumstances a case can spend at least three to four years in the courts before resulting in a high-court ruling.
The process to get a case heard at the high court is a true test of endurance, and the willingness to wait the time period in order to get the issue resolved in these courts.
The cost of legal fees overtime can add up to high numbers, and is one of the reasons people involved in the case can get emotional. The article states, “ Given the time and money litigants put into cases, emotions can run high by the time the Supreme Court gets involved. That is true in the long-running trademark case before the court this week.” There isn’t a specific reason that cases take so long to be heard in the Supreme Court, but it’s just that some rulings for appeals happen to take a while. Criminal cases are considered more important, and so if a civil case arises during the same time as a criminal matter, the civil case will have to wait.
The Supreme Court only sits 9 times out of the year, and if a case lands on the right timing of when the court sits, that case is likely to be heard quicker than if it landed during off season. If one needs a case to be heard in Supreme Court, I suggest he or she has the time, money, and endurance to wait his or her turn.
Ovais is a business administration major with a concentration in management at Montclair State University, Class of 2015.
Posted by Deena Khalil.
On Wednesday, November 6, 2014, there was a court hearing about big-time banks being sued for manipulating a financial benchmark, Libor, by “U.S. municipalities and financial funds who argue they suffered financial damages by receiving lower interest rates on transactions as a result of the suspected manipulation.” Libor is short for the London Interbank Offered Rate, and it’s used to set the rates on things worth trillions of dollars such as loans, credit cards, and some complex derivatives. The benchmark is calculated each business day by averaging out interest rates in which banks estimate they could borrow from each other. But these banks have to be within the London trading operations in order to be part of the benchmark. Some of the banks that are being accused are JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America.
Plaintiffs include U.S. municipalities and financial funds who argue they suffered financial damages by receiving lower interest rates on transactions as a result of the suspected manipulation. They allege that evidence gathered by investigators in the U.S., Europe and around the globe shows bank traders involved in the rate-setting process rigged the outcomes to boost their trading profits.
The banks accused are trying to get these cases to be dismissed There are U.S banks that have been struck with billions of dollars in penalties due to Libor manipulation. For example, JPMorgan was fined $78 million by European authorities! Some banks have settled cases, but defendant banks in the present case are seeking to dismiss due to “the lack of personal jurisdiction.” Attorneys “argued the recent Supreme Court rulings established that corporations are ‘at home’ only in their respective countries and in most cases are subject only to lawsuits filed there, not in U.S. courts.” They claim that the Libor manipulation activity occurred outside the U.S.
Deena is a business finance major at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.
Members of organized crime, drug dealers, and terrorists transact their “business” in cash to hide their tracks. As part of a scheme to launder money (make it look it was earned legitimately), criminals will deposit their ill-earned cash in bank accounts. In response, Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act, requiring banks to assist the government in catching money launderers.
Under the Act, banks are required to report any cash transaction or combination of cash transactions in excess of $10,000 to the IRS. Knowing this, criminals resort to structuring. Structuring is the deliberate parcelling of a large cash deposit into a series of smaller transactions in order to avoid detection by regulators. When bank officials suspect structuring is occurring, they are required to file a suspicious activity report, or SAR, and notify regulators of what they believe is happening.
In Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135 (1994), the Supreme Court found that government had to prove that defendant acted with knowledge that structuring is unlawful. As a result, Congress removed the “willfulness” requirement making it easier for the government tor prosecute structuring cases. The IRS, however, has been seizing assets of legitimate businesses and individuals without any proof or any charges filed. Small business and individuals can be a target. In one case, the IRS seized $66,000 from an Army sergeant’s college savings account, even though the sergeant was told by the bank teller to make smaller deposits in order to avoid taxes. Removing the “willfulness” requirement makes structuring a strict liability crime.
In a written statement, Richard Weber, the chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, said, “After a thorough review of our structuring cases over the last year . . . IRS-CI will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with ‘legal source’ structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying the seizure and forfeiture and the case has been approved at the director of field operations (D.F.O.) level.”