Supreme Court opens October 2010 term with arguments on bankruptcy, sentencing News
Supreme Court opens October 2010 term with arguments on bankruptcy, sentencing
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[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] opened its October 2010 term Monday by hearing oral arguments [day call, PDF; merit briefs] in Ransom v. MBNA [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report]. In this case, the court is considering whether, in calculating a debtor’s “projected disposable income” during the plan period, a bankruptcy court may allow an ownership cost deduction for vehicles only if the debtor is actually making payments on the vehicles. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] that the bankruptcy court may not allow such deductions. Counsel for the debtor, Jason Ransom, argued that, “[i]n 2005 when Congress passed the Bankruptcy Act, it made a policy decision to limit judicial discretion on a case-by-case basis in the area of reasonable and necessary expenses.” Counsel for the respondent, MBNA, argued that, “[t]he Bankruptcy Code precludes an above-median income debtor like Petitioner from shielding from his creditors $471 a month for a car payment that he does not have.” Counsel for the US government argued as amicus curiae on behalf of the respondent.

In the consolidated cases of Abbott v. United States [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report] and Gould v. United States, the court heard arguments on whether the minimum sentencing guidelines for armed offenses in 18 USC § 924(c) [text] include the drug offense giving rise to the sentence, or another weapons offense for the same transaction. Counsel for the petitioner Carlos Gould argued, “[t]he Government … advocates a narrow construction that is not supported by the text and defends it primarily on the basis that section 924(c) supposedly should always produce the most severe minimum sentence for every defendant. Respectfully, the Government’s interpretation is incorrect.” Counsel for the US government argued that “the ‘except clause’ is triggered by an offense which has a greater mandatory minimum and which has the same elements as and is the same offense as a section 924(c) offense.”

THIS DAY @ LAW

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.

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