[JURIST] Judges for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday that federal courts have jurisdiction over cases in which 100 or more plaintiffs bring related claims. The case involves 144 plaintiffs claiming injuries from chemicals released by the manufacturing practices of four companies. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that state courts should hear the matter because the Class Action Fairness Act [text; JURIST report] only gave federal courts jurisdiction over mass actions in which the plaintiffs proposed a joint trial, and that in this case the plaintiffs wanted a settlement or summary judgment, not a trial. The court Friday noted that no circuit had yet addressed this issue, stating:

The question is not whether 100 or more plaintiffs answer a roll call in court, but whether the “claims” advanced by 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly. A trial of 10 exemplary plaintiffs, followed by application of issue or claim preclusion to 134 more plaintiffs without another trial, is one in which the claims of 100 or more persons are being tried jointly, and §1332(d) thus brings the suit within federal jurisdiction.

[JURIST] Bosnian Serb leader and former fugitive Radovan Karadzic [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] submitted a letter [text, PDF] Thursday to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official site] claiming that irregularities surrounding his trial there on war crimes charges [amended indictment; case materials] will prevent a fair trial. Karadzic was originally indicted [text] by the court's prosecutor in 1995, but had been in hiding under an assumed identity until his arrest [JURIST report] in July. Karadzic is accused of numerous acts of genocide and crimes against humanity for overseeing the Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] massacre and other killings of Bosnian Muslims and Croats during ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In his letter, Karadzic wrote:

The first irregularity I would mention is the media witch-hunt which began in the Muslim media even before the beginning of the armed conflict and which proclaimed me a war criminal at a time when the only victims were Serbs. The international media continued that media witch-hunt and I was not in a position to reply adequately so that it is now unimaginable to many people that this court could acquit me. I believe that this fact seriously jeopardizes the trial itself and excludes any possibility of regularity. However, many more serious irregularities have arisen from this, and no compensatory measures can neutralize them or bring the trial into the realm of regularity.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment [opinion, PDF] against Cheryl Steele, a former economist at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) [official website] who had filed a lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment and unlawful retaliation against her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [text]. The lawsuit follows many other claims that the USDA discriminates against African Americans not only in employment situations, but also in administering aid programs. In March, several US lawmakers accused the USDA of obstructing an investigation [AP report] into patterns of discrimination after USDA officials expelled government auditors sent to evaluate the Department's practices. The DC Circuit commented on its lack of confidence in the evidence available due to "the tangled record on appeal," but was able to find genuine issues of material fact:

We do note...that at least four alleged incidents that Steele describes as retaliatory -- the denial of the Y2K award, the issuance of the lowest performance rating of her career combined with the lowest performance bonus in her branch, the denial of the special act award, and the false report to the D.C. Office of Unemployment Compensation contesting her unemployment benefits -- involve conduct that this court or the Supreme Court has already indicated can support a retaliation claim.

[JURIST] Judges for California's Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled [opinion, PDF; case materials] Thursday that challenged provisions of California's Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) [materials] are constitutional and do not violate the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) [text]. The counties of San Diego and San Bernardino had argued that certain provisions of the MMP were unconstitutional as violations of the Supremacy Clause [text] because the MMP was a barrier to the enforcement of the CSA. San Bernardino county also argued that the requirement that the counties issue cards to those eligible for medical marijuana who request the cards was unconstitutional. The trial court rejected the counties' claims [opinion, PDF], holding that the state laws did not require conduct that violated federal laws. The appeals court upheld the trial court's ruling, holding:

We are unpersuaded by Counties' arguments that the identifications laws, standing alone, present significant obstacles to the purposes of the CSA. For example, Counties assert that identification cards make it "easier for individuals to use, possess, and cultivate marijuana" in violation of federal laws, without articulating why the absence of such a card--which is entirely voluntary and not a prerequisite to the exemptions available for such underlying conduct--renders the underlying conduct significantly more difficult.

Counties also appear to assert the identification card laws present a significant obstacle to the CSA because the bearer of an identification card will not be arrested by California's law enforcement officers despite being in violation of the CSA. However, the unstated predicate of this argument is that the federal government is entitled to conscript a state's law enforcement officers into enforcing federal enactments, over the objection of that state, and this entitlement will be obstructed to the extent the identification card precludes California's law enforcement officers from arresting medical marijuana users. The argument falters on its own predicate because Congress does not have the authority to compel the states to direct their law enforcement personnel to enforce federal laws.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced Friday that it will pay former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill [WP profile] $2.8 million to settle his claim that the DOJ violated the US Privacy Act [text] by providing information about him to journalists during its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks [GWU backgrounder], in which he was at one point named a "person of interest." The DOJ initially agreed to seek a settlement [text, PDF; JURIST report] in late June after Hatfill filed his lawsuit [complaint, PDF; JURIST report]. The settlement may moot a contempt case against former USA Today reporter and past JURIST student staff member Toni Locy [JURIST news archive], who is now awaiting a ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Locy had refused to disclose her related sources in discovery, arguing that the information Hatfill was seeking was not central to his lawsuit. In a June letter [text, PDF] to the Court of Appeals informing it of the settlement, Hatfill lawyer Christopher Wright said that Locy's evidence was no longer needed by his client. Also Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported [text] that government scientist and biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins apparently committed suicide after learning that the DOJ was going to prosecute him in connection with the anthrax attacks. Reuters has more.

In March, US District Judge Reggie Walton found Locy in contempt of court [order, PDF; JURIST report] for not disclosing her sources and ordered her to pay a fine of $500 a day, increasing to $1,000 a day after one week and then up to $5,000 a day after two weeks, the costs of which could not be covered by her former employer. Locy obtained an emergency stay of that order from the Court of Appeals and oral arguments [JURIST reports] on the merits of the sanctions were heard in May. The appeals court has yet to make a formal ruling on the status of the contempt case in light of the Hatfill settlement, but Locy said that she and her lawyers were hopeful that the deal would end the matter. The US Senate recently considered a proposed federal reporter shield law [S. 2035 text, PDF; bill materials] that news agencies said [JURIST report] would be beneficial in cases such as Locy's, but the Senate tabled the bill [text, PDF] without a vote on Wednesday.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday obtained and made available a government handbook [PDF download; press release] issued to the lawyers defending the illegal immigrants arrested in May during the massive raid on an Agriprocessors Inc. [corporate website] meatpacking plant in Iowa. The document contains pre-printed forms with blanks for the defendants' names, along with instructions for waiving constitutional rights and entering guilty pleas, but gave no guidance on pleading not guilty. Nearly 300 workers were sentenced to jail time and probation [New York Times report; JURIST report] after making their pleas over the course of just four days in temporary courtrooms at a local fairground. The manual provides a word-by-word script for judges, and was created before the raid even took place [LA Times report], facts that some say prove the Department of Justice (DOJ) improperly pushed the immigrants to plead guilty.

The release of the manual comes as the latest condemnation of the legal proceedings stemming from the raid, in which. Last month, the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary [official website]heard testimony [hearing materials] from lawyers and professors who argued that the government process used to arrest and convict the illegal immigrants in Iowa was illegal and violated due process [JURIST report]. Representatives from both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and ICE [testimony transcripts, PDF] defended the government's arrest and conviction processes, saying that the immigrants' constitutional rights were strictly applied. The American Immigration Lawyers Association [advocacy website] has criticized the government for severity of the charges and alleged breaches of due process for the accused [letter, PDF], but court-appointed defense lawyers for the workers said their clients were motivated to plead guilty because they did not want to risk receiving a minimum two-year sentence if found guilty after a trial.

[JURIST] The US Senate passed a bill [HR 4040 text, PDF; Senate amendments, PDF] late on Thursday designed to increase the safety of children's products by mandating new safety rules and restricting the kinds of materials which may be used. The legislation establishes a maximum level of lead, bans certain plastics, requires independent product testing and labeling, and strengthens the authority of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) [official website]. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 89-3, after having passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 424-1 [roll calls] on Wednesday. The bill notes:

The Commission shall — (A) in consultation with representatives of consumer groups, juvenile product manufacturers, and independent child product engineers and experts, examine and assess the effectiveness of any voluntary consumer product safety standards for durable infant or toddler product; and (B) in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United States Code, promulgate consumer product safety rules that — (i) are substantially the same as such voluntary standards; or (ii) are more stringent than such voluntary standards, if the Commission determines that more stringent standards would further reduce the risk of injury associated with such products.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] on Thursday affirmed [decision; PDF] a decision to dismiss claims filed by fifteen current and former inmates alleging that various employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) [official website] violated their constitutional rights when they confiscated inmates' legal materials. After a DOC inmate filed fraudulent liens against a state court judge, a superintendent and the DOC secretary in June 2005, the DOC banned all materials related to the copyrighting of names, the filing of liens, and filings under the Uniform Commercial Code. Upon a search of the plaintiff inmates' cells, prison officials discovered these contraband documents and subsequently confiscated all of the inmates' legal materials, including items that had not been designated as contraband. The inmates filed suit, alleging that the seizures violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of Due Process as well as their right to access the courts and possess publications and legal materials under the First Amendment [LII texts]. The Court of Appeals dismissed the inmates' Due Process claims, noting that prison officials provided the inmates with three separate opportunities to reclaim their non-contraband property following the seizures, explaining that:

[A]n unauthorized intentional deprivation of property by prison officials does not violate the Due Process Clause if a meaningful postdeprivation remedy for the loss is available.

In light of the DOC’s experience with the inmate’s June 2005 filing, which demonstrated that fraudulent UCC filings are easy to file but burdensome to remove, along with the research that informed their judgment on this policy, we conclude that the defendants’ decision to engage in preemptive action in this case was reasonable