Court turns away appeal over CIA torture report
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away an appeal seeking to force the CIA to release the full 2014 Senate report about the agency’s use of harsh interrogation tactics.
The justices on Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said the 6,900-page report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee was not subject to Freedom of Information laws.
The committee previously released a lengthy summary of the report to the public, but the American Civil Liberties Union sued to obtain the full version. The ACLU argued that the report became subject to disclosure laws after the committee sent it around to several federal agencies for review.
The appeals court said Congress clearly intended to retain control of the report.
Justices won’t hear challenge to Alabama campaign law
WASHINGTON (AP) — The US Supreme Court on Monday said it won’t hear a challenge to Alabama’s ban on the transfer of campaign contributions between political action committees.
The justices left in place a lower court ruling that said the 2010 law does not unconstitutionally restrict political speech.
The Alabama Democratic Conference, one of the state’s oldest predominantly African-American political organizations sued state officials over a portion of the law that prohibited ADC’s PAC from getting money from other PACs to use for voter communication programs and to get voters to the polls. The ADC previously received about half its money from PACs operated by the Alabama Education Association, the Alabama Trial Lawyers Association, the state Democratic Party and others.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the 2010 law is not an unconstitutional prohibition on free political speech. The court said Alabama had a sufficient interest in trying to prevent corruption to justify
the restriction on political activity.
The Alabama Legislature passed the PAC-to-PAC ban in 2010 in order to restrict donors’ ability to hide contributions by shuffling the money through multiple political action committees.
GM appeal of ignition switch ruling rejected by high court
By Tom Krisher and Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal from General Motors Co. seeking to block dozens of lawsuits over faulty ignition switches that one plaintiffs’ attorney said could expose the company to billions of dollars in additional claims.
The justices without comment left in place a lower court ruling that said the automaker’s 2009 bankruptcy did not shield it from liability in the cases.
An attorney representing hundreds of plaintiffs who are suing the company said it exposes GM to around 1,000 additional lawsuits and $5 billion to $10 billion in liabilities. GM said the cases will have to be tried on individual merits.
A federal appeals court ruled last year that GM remains responsible for ignition-switch injuries and deaths that occurred pre-bankruptcy because the company knew about the problem for more than a decade but kept it secret from the bankruptcy court and owners of cars with the faulty switches. The decision also opens GM to claims that any of those cars sold by the company prior to bankruptcy lost value because of the ignition-switch scandal.
The company had argued that well-established bankruptcy law allowed the newly reorganized GM to obtain the old company’s assets “free and clear” of liabilities.
GM recalled 2.6 million small cars worldwide in 2014 to replace defective switches that played a role in at least 124 deaths and 275 injuries, according to a victims’ fund set up by GM and administered by attorney Kenneth Feinberg. The switches could unexpectedly switch from the “run” position to “off” or “accessory,” shutting off the engine and knocking out air bags and the power-assisted steering and power brakes.
The automaker has paid nearly $875 million to settle death and injury claims related to the switches. That includes $600 million from Feinberg’s fund and $275 million to settle 1,385 separate claims. It also has paid $300 million to settle shareholder lawsuits.
After it emerged from the government-funded bankruptcy, the company referred to as New GM was indemnified against most claims made against the pre-bankruptcy company, known as Old GM. A bankruptcy court sided with the company in 2015, ruling that most claims against Old GM could not be pursued against the new company.
But the appeals court in Manhattan overturned most of that decision and said hundreds of pre-bankruptcy claims could go forward.
Robert Hilliard, a Corpus Christi, Texas, lawyer who has about 300 pre-bankruptcy cases pending against GM, said the decision wrecks GM’s strategy to settle the strongest post-bankruptcy cases and refuse to negotiate with pre-bankruptcy plaintiffs.
“This takes GM back to the starting line after four years,” Hilliard said. “They are now back to being responsible for terrible deaths.”
Hilliard said pretrial discovery and depositions on broader factual issues have been completed, so he would expect cases to go to trial shortly.
But GM said in a statement the decision does not change the legal landscape much for the company. The high court did not make a decision on the merits of GM’s legal arguments. Instead, those decisions will be made by lower courts, the company said. GM has a motion pending in federal court seeking to dismiss many of the pre-bankruptcy claims based on state liability laws governing liabilities against successor companies, spokesman Jim Cain said.
“The plaintiffs must still establish their right to assert successor liability claims,” GM said. “From there, they still have to prove those claims have merit.”
The company said the appeals court “departed substantially from well-settled bankruptcy law.”
Plaintiffs have yet to win any so-called bellwether cases that have gone to trial, Cain said.
The Supreme Court decision not to hear the appeal exposes GM to additional liability from the pre-bankruptcy cases, said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.
He expects many of those cases to be settled soon under pressure from a federal judge overseeing pretrial discovery in the cases.
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Krisher reported from Detroit.
Court dismisses appeal from Houston man shot by police
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Houston man shot in the back by police during a traffic stop, prompting Justice Sonia Sotomayor to complain of a “disturbing trend” in how the high court deals with cases alleging police misconduct.
In a dissent, Sotomayor said the justices “have not hesitated” to reverse lower courts that rule against police officers in cases that involve claims of excessive force. But she said the court “rarely” intervenes when lower courts “wrongly” find that police are immune from charges of misconduct.
Her dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, drew a response from Justice Samuel Alito, who insisted the court applies “uniform standards” when deciding to review all such cases.
Sotomayor has criticized the court before for siding with police in excessive force cases. In a 2015 dissent, she said the court was sanctioning a “’shoot first, think later’ approach to policing” when it sided with a Texas state trooper who fatally shot a man fleeing from police.
Her latest comments come as law enforcement agencies face increasing scrutiny over officer-involved shootings or use of deadly force incidents. The high court heard arguments last month in a Los Angeles case where sheriff’s deputies mistakenly shot a couple during their search for a wanted man.
The case on Monday began in 2010 when police said Ricardo Salazar-Limon resisted arrest during a stop for suspected drunken driving. Salazar-Limon walked away after a brief struggle and was ordered to stop. The officer said he saw Salazar-Limon turn and reach toward his waistband, and then shot him in the lower back. The injury left him partially paralyzed.
Salazar-Limon alleged the officer fired either immediately or just seconds before he turned around. He filed a claim of excessive force against the officer and the city of Houston.
A federal judge sided with the officer without sending the case to a jury. The judge said Salazar-Limon did not deny reaching for his waistband.
Sotomayor said the case should have been tried before a jury because there were still too many facts in dispute.
“Only Thompson and Salazar-Limon know what happened on that overpass on October 29, 2010,” Sotomayor said. “It is possible that Salazar-Limon did something that Thompson reasonably found threatening; it is also possible that Thompson shot an unarmed man in the back without justification. What is clear is that our legal system does not entrust the resolution of this dispute to a judge faced with competing affidavits.”
Sotomayor noted five similar cases in the past few years in which the justices reversed lower courts that refused to find police immune from charges of misconduct. She also pointed to newspaper stories noting “the increasing frequency of incidents in which unarmed men allegedly reach for empty waistbands when facing armed officers.”
“That these cases are increasingly common makes it even more important for lower courts — confronted with such inconsistencies — to let the jury exercise its role as the arbiter of credibility disputes,” she said.
Alito said the lower courts acted “responsibly and attempted faithfully to apply the correct legal rule to what is at best a marginal set of facts.”
“The dissent has not identified a single case in which we failed to grant a similar petition filed by an alleged victim of unconstitutional police misconduct,” he said in comments joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
