Background: Beachcomber, LLC owns about 42 acres in Anchor Point, in the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s rural district. In 2018 it applied for a conditional land use permit to operate a gravel pit on roughly 27 acres. The borough code required a material-extraction project to minimize noise and visual effects on neighboring property. It also identified the…
Held: The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. Reading the borough code as a whole, the court held that the planning commission had discretion to deny a permit when no combination of authorized conditions could adequately minimize the project’s impacts. The code limited what conditions the commission could require, but it did not force approval when those conditions would be ineffective. Other provisions…
Background: Philip Montanino was convicted of first-degree felony murder based on the larceny of Elizabeth Watson's Suzuki SUV and was sentenced to life without parole. The trial evidence showed Watson suffered fatal blunt-force injuries; her blood was on Montanino's shorts, her cards were in his wallet, and he pawned her phone. Police found the six-year-old, operable…
Held: The Supreme Court upheld the conviction. It agreed that the instructions and verdict form, read together, did not probably change the verdict under North Carolina's exacting plain-error standard. On value, the Court rejected a rigid direct-evidence rule: jurors may use common knowledge when property is so ubiquitous that an average juror can determine with high certainty that its value clears…
Background: Twenty-four claimants sued the head of what is now the Alabama Department of Workforce during a severe backlog in unemployment-benefit administration. Their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleged that delays in processing applications and deficiencies in agency notices violated federal statutory and constitutional requirements. They sought injunctions compelling prompt processing, decisions on their applications, and…
Held: The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal as moot. The delay claims no longer presented a justiciable dispute because the requested processing had occurred. As for the notice claim, the Court said the claimants had not connected their alleged due-process injury to an established remedy that remained available. Their principal authorities involved judicial review under the federal Social Security Act, a…
Background: Peter Bastable, Kenneth Holloway and James Phillips operated the Softdate mainframe software business through their companies—DDV Technologies Pty Ltd, IQ Data Solutions Pty Ltd and Meglee Pty Ltd—under a 2003 partnership agreement. The agreement provided for equal ownership of the software product and equal sharing of revenue, with DDV handling invoicing. For nearly 20 years,…
Held: Hmelnitsky J dismissed the summons. The Court rejected the premise that Bastable, as a one-third DDV shareholder, was entitled to one-third of DDV’s gross revenue. DDV’s entitlement in the former partnership was to net income after expenses, and its shareholders were not entitled to receive company revenue without accounting for the costs of operating the business. The payments for Holloway’s…
Background: Michael Martin Clark was convicted in 2012 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. Former Colorado Bureau of Investigation DNA analyst Yvonne “Missy” Woods had analyzed evidence in his case and reported that Clark’s DNA was the major component of a mixed profile obtained from a Carmex container. After allegations of misconduct by…
Held: The Colorado Supreme Court made its order to show cause absolute and remanded. It held that the district court abused its discretion by finding the requested materials relevant under Colorado Criminal Procedure Rule 17 and denying CBI’s motion to quash on the existing record. When the district court ruled, Clark had not yet filed his motion alleging outrageous governmental conduct,…
Background: Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Cabinet decided on 12 March 2025 to close Pontllanfraith Leisure Centre permanently and to close its 3G pitch once a replacement pitch at the adjacent Centre for Vulnerable Learners became available. The leisure centre had closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and had not reopened, although its pitch had returned to use.…
Held: Mr Justice Kimblin granted permission on all four grounds but dismissed the judicial-review claim. Demolition costs were not an obviously material consideration because the 2025 decision concerned permanent closure, not demolition, disposal, or the site’s future use. Any demolition expense would be only one component of a later financial appraisal whose other variables were not yet known.
Background: The defendant, a minor approximately 14 and a half years old, was charged with acting alongside three others, including an adult brother, to smuggle dangerous drugs from Israel into Jordan. The indictment alleged exportation of a dangerous drug and impairment of state sovereignty at the border. The State sought detention pending trial, asserting prima facie…
Held: Justice Daphne Barak-Erez allowed the appeal to the extent of returning the matter to the District Court for supplemental argument and a fuller examination of a strengthened electronically monitored detention arrangement. The District Court was directed to assess proposed supervisors and guarantors firsthand. The Supreme Court did not order the minor’s immediate release or itself approve a particular placement.
Background: A jury convicted Elder Saavedra of first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony after Lester Mateo was struck and killed by a motor vehicle outside a nightclub in Bear, Delaware. The Superior Court sentenced Saavedra to life imprisonment and an additional term of years, and the Delaware Supreme…
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed. It described the Superior Court’s Rule 61 conclusion as technically correct because Saavedra sought to amend after a response had been filed and therefore needed leave of court. The Supreme Court nevertheless said that, given the court’s prior assurances, the continuing production of discovery, and Saavedra’s life sentence, the better practice would have been to…
Background: ABB France has a central social and economic committee and five establishment-level social and economic committees. A collective agreement signed on July 19, 2019 provided that ABB France would contribute annually an amount equal to 1.22% of the company’s gross payroll to finance social and cultural activities. The company separately managed its employee food-service operations…
Held: The Court of Cassation reversed. It held that when a company agreement fixes the employer’s contribution for committee-managed social and cultural activities, while the employer directly operates employee catering under a delegation from the committee, savings on that catering need not be transferred to the committee if the agreement does not provide that the employer’s direct social expenditures are charged…
Background: Asime W. Prince fired a handgun at his neighbor’s occupied mobile home after an ongoing dispute and a rude gesture from the neighbor. Under a plea agreement, Prince pleaded guilty to attempted unlawful or intentional discharge of a firearm, a Class II felony, with no agreement as to sentencing. The State recommended 5 to 10…
Held: The Nebraska Supreme Court held that probation imposed under Nebraska’s deferred-judgment statute is a “sentence” for purposes of the statute allowing the State to appeal an allegedly excessively lenient sentence. The court therefore had jurisdiction to consider the State’s excessive-leniency challenge, even though entry of the judgment of conviction had been deferred.
Background: The Florida Bar petitioned the Supreme Court of Florida to amend several Rules Regulating The Florida Bar and a Bar bylaw. The Board of Governors approved the proposals, and the Bar published them for comment. Five comments addressed the proposed amendment to rule 4-7.20, governing exemptions from advertising filing and review requirements, and the Bar…
Held: The court adopted the Bar’s proposed amendments with minor revisions, except that it declined to adopt the proposed amendment to rule 1-12.1. Among the adopted changes, Bylaw 2-3.11 permits the Bar and specified constituent bodies to vote by email or other electronic polling in defined exigent circumstances, subject to a meeting requirement if 10% of those entitled to vote request…
Background: Andrew Perry was a Dordt University nursing student whose clinical-rotation partners required COVID-19 vaccination. Perry sought a religious exemption, asserting that his Christian belief in treating his body as a temple prevented him from accepting a vaccine he considered dangerous. Dordt denied the request after he did not provide requested supporting documentation, and Perry could…
Held: The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. To establish a prima facie ICRA religious-discrimination claim, Perry had to prove a bona fide religious belief conflicting with the requirement, notice to the school, and a penalty for noncompliance. The parties did not dispute the latter two elements, but Perry failed to prove a sincerely held religious objection.