法律类文章:LOCK EM UP!
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篇1:法律类文章:A QUESTION OF PRIVACY
法律类文章精选:A QUESTION OF PRIVACY
7 A QUESTION OF PRIVACY
Behind the brewing war over protecting patients' records in an age of HMOs and online medicine.
Technology is a two-edged sword. Rarely is this as clear as it is in the realm of health care. Technology allows doctors to test their patients for genetic defects--and then to turn around and spread the results throughout the world via the Internet. For someone in need of treatment, that's good news. But for someone in search of a job or an insurance policy, the tidings can be all bad.
Last week President Bill Clinton proposed a corollary to the patients' bill of rights now before Congress: a right to medical privacy. Beginning in , under rules set to become law in February, patients would be able to stipulate the conditions under which their personal medical data could be divulged. They would be able to examine their records and make corrections. They could learn who else had seen the information. Improper use of records by a caregiver or insurer could result in both civil and criminal penalties. The plan was, said Clinton, “an unprecedented step toward putting Americans back in control of their own medical records.”
While the administration billed the rules as an attempt to strike a balance between the needs of consumers and those of the health-care industry, neither doctors nor insurance companies were happy. The doctors said the rules could actually erode privacy, pointing to a provision allowing managed-care plans to use personal information without consent if the purpose was “health-care operations.” That, physicians said, was a loophole through which HMOs and other insurers could pry into the doctor-patient relationship, in the name of assessing the quality of care. Meanwhile, the insurers protested that the rules would make them vulnerable to lawsuits. They were especially disturbed by a provision holding them liable for privacy breaches by “busines
篇2:法律类文章:A BURNING IN ALABAMA
法律类文章精选:A BURNING IN ALABAMA
3 A BURNING IN ALABAMA
The savage murder of a gay man stuns a state where hate-crime laws do not protect homosexuals
“This is not the type of place where this happens,” city council president George Carlton told a reporter, after the horror became public in his hometown, Sylacauga, Ala. He echoed what was said in Jasper, Texas, a year ago. Few people then had ever heard of Jasper. A week ago, even fewer could have pointed out Sylacauga on a map. A tiny city of 13,000, halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery, Sylacauga was known for its white marble quarries, textile mills and ice-cream factory. But last week Sylacauga, like Jasper, became a chapter in the recent history of hatred.
According to police, Steven Eric Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, plotted for two weeks to murder Billy Jack Gaither, 39. On Feb. 19, they arranged to meet him at a Sylacauga bar and lured him to a secluded area. There they beat him and dumped him into the trunk of his car. They then drove about 15 miles to Peckerwood Creek in Coosa County. There, says Coosa County Sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley, “they took him out of the trunk, took an ax handle and beat him to death.” They set two old tires aflame, says Bradley, “then they put the body on the fire.” They did it all, the deputy says, because Gaither was gay.
Gaither's death has become a rallying point for gay-rights organizations' and state legislators' pushing a bill that would extend Alabama's three-year-old hate-crimes law beyond race, color, religion and national origin to cover crimes related to sexual orientation as well. “It's unfortunate that somebody had to lose his life in order for this legislation to pick up momentum here in the state of Alabama,” says state Representative Alvin Holmes, who failed to get the original law amended when it was passed in . Holmes filed for extending the law after Matthew Shepar
篇3:法律类文章:TROUSER SUIT
法律类文章精选:TROUSER SUIT
1 TROUSER SUIT
The European Court sides with Levi Strauss in its battle with Tesco
Dateline: New York
IT WAS a ruling that had consumers seething with anger and many a free trader crying foul. On November 20th the European Court of Justice decided that Tesco, a British supermarket chain, should not be allowed to import jeans made by America's Levi Strauss from outside the European Union and sell them at cut-rate prices without getting permission first from the jeans maker. Ironically, the ruling is based on an EU trademark directive that was designed to protect local, not American, manufacturers from price dumping. The idea is that any brand-owning firm should be allowed to position its goods and segment its markets as it sees fit: Levi's jeans, just like Gucci handbags, must be allowed to be expensive.
Levi Strauss persuaded the court that, by selling its jeans cheaply alongside soap powder and bananas, Tesco was destroying the image and so the value of its brands--which could only lead to less innovation and, in the long run, would reduce consumer choice. Consumer groups and Tesco say that Levi's case is specious. The supermarket argues that it was just arbitraging the price differential between Levi's jeans sold in America and Europe--a service performed a million times a day in financial markets, and one that has led to real benefits for consumers. Tesco has been selling some 15,000 pairs of Levi's jeans a week, for about half the price they command in specialist stores approved by Levi Strauss. Christine Cross, Tesco's head of global non-food sourcing, says the ruling risks “creating a Fortress Europe with a vengeance”.
The debate will rage on, and has implications well beyond casual clothes (Levi Strauss was joined in its lawsuit by Zino Davidoff, a perfume maker). The question at its heart is not whether brands need to control how
篇4:法律类文章:ENDING THE ROUNDUPS
法律类文章精选:ENDING THE ROUNDUPS
4 ENDING THE ROUNDUPS
With Chicago's antiloitering law struck down, California is a model for how to fight street gangs
The image was riveting, as justice John Paul Stevens, a Chicago native, presented it. A gang member and his father are hanging out near Wrigley Field. Are they there “to rob an unsuspecting fan or just to get a glimpse of Sammy Sosa leaving the ball park?” A police officer has no idea, but under Chicago's anti-gang law, the cop must order them to disperse. With Stevens writing for a 6-to-3 majority, the Supreme Court last week struck down Chicago's sweeping statute, which had sparked 42,000 arrests in its three years of enforcement.
The decision was a blow to advocates of get-tough crime policies. But in a widely noted concurring opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested that a less draconian approach--distinguishing gang members from innocent bystanders--might pass constitutional muster. New language could target loiterers “with no apparent purpose other than to establish control over identifiable areas, to intimidate others from entering those areas or to conceal illegal activities,” she wrote. Chicago officials vowed to draft a new measure. “We will go back and correct it and then move forward,” said Mayor Richard Daley.
Chicago officials, along with the League of Cities and 31 states that sided with them in court, might do well to look at one state where anti-gang loitering prosecutions have withstood constitutional challenges: California. The state has two antiloitering statutes on the books, aimed at people intending to commit specific crimes--prostitution and drug dealing. In addition, a number of local prosecutors are waging war against gangs by an innovative use of the public-nuisance laws.
In cities such as Los Angeles and San Jose, prosecutors have sought injunctions against groups of people suspected of gang activity. “The
篇5:法律类文章:LOCK EM UP!
法律类文章精选:LOCK EM UP!
2 LOCK 'EM UP!
Minority youths are more likely to face trial as adults
A WHITE KID SELLS A BAG OF COCAINE at his suburban high school. A Latino kid does the same in his inner-city neighborhood. Both get caught. Both are first-time offenders. The white kid walks into juvenile court with his parents, his priest, a good lawyer-and medical coverage. The Latino kid walks into court with his mom, no legal resources and no insurance. The judge lets the white kid go with his family; he's placed in a private treatment program. The minority kid has no such option. He's detained.
There, in a nutshell, is what happens more and more often in the juvenile-court system. Minority youths arrested on violent felony charges in California are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be transferred out of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults, according to a study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute, a research center in San Francisco. Once they are in adult courts, young black offenders are 18 times more likely to be jailed-and Hispanics seven times more likely-than are young white offenders. ”Discrimination against kids of color accumulates at every stage of the justice system and skyrockets when juveniles are, tried as adults,“ says Dan Macallair, a co-author of the new study. ”California has a double standard: throw kids of color behind bars, but .rehabilitate white kids who commit comparable crimes.“
Even as juvenile crime has declined from its peak in the early 1990s, headline grabbing violence by minors has intensified a get-tough attitude. Over the past six years, 43 states have passed laws that make it easier to try juveniles as adults. In Texas and Connecticut in , the latest year for which figures are available, all the juveniles in jails were minorities. Vincent Schiraldi, the Justice Policy Institute's director, concedes that ”some kids need t
篇6:法律类文章:POOR GRADE FOR VOUCHERS
法律类文章精选:POOR GRADE FOR VOUCHERS
6 POOR GRADE FOR VOUCHERS
A judge flunks Cleveland's use of vouchers for parochial schools. But will that stall the movement?
Walter Milancuk's public-school horror story began early, when his son Derrick spent kindergarten in an overcrowded roomful of students who regularly fought in class and cursed the teacher. Milancuk wanted to transfer Derrick, but his salary as a forklift driver couldn't cover private-school tuition. Yet Milancuk found a way out, thanks to Cleveland's pioneering school-voucher program, which granted him close to $1,500 in state funds to help enroll Derrick at St. Stanislaus, a nearby Catholic school. Now Derrick wears a crisp uniform. His reading has improved. And the weekly Mass and Bible study have moved Derrick to say his daily prayers without prompting. Says his dad, “The school is really building his faith.”
That may prove to be more of a curse than a blessing. Last week a federal judge struck down Cleveland's voucher program, ruling that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Citing Jefferson and Madison, Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. wrote that because four-fifths of the private schools participating in the voucher program are religious, the program robs parents of “genuine choice” between sectarian and secular schools, thus “advancing religion through government-supported religious indoctrination.” The decision is the fourth in recent months to bar the use of vouchers in parochial schools, and voucher opponents--mainly teachers' unions and liberal interest groups--see it as a major victory.
Voucher backers--an unusual coalition of inner-city parents and conservative groups--retort that the judge misread both the Cleveland program and the First Amendment. They point out that Cleveland parents who don't like parochial schools can send their kids to the city's regular public schools, or to public charter schools and magnet scho
篇7:法律类文章:WE HAVE TO SACRIFICE
法律类文章精选:WE HAVE TO SACRIFICE
8 'WE HAVE TO SACRIFICE'
States offer to pick up the tab for unpaid leave
When Gina Garro and Brian Duplisea adopted 4-month-old Andres from Colombia last month, they were determined to take time off from work to care for him. Six years ago, after their daughter, Melina, was born, the family scraped by on Duplisea's $36,000 salary as a construction worker so Garro, a special-education teacher, could stay home. Now, since Garro's job furnishes the family health insurance, she'll head back to work this fall while Duplisea juggles diapers and baby bottles. His boss agreed to the time off--but he will have to forgo his $18-an-hour pay. It won't be easy. Though Garro's $40,000 salary will cover their mortgage, the couple will have to freeze their retirement accounts, scale back on Melina's after-school activities--and pray that nothing goes wrong with the car. “It takes away from your cushion and your security,” says Garro. “Things will be tight.”
The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act was supposed to help families like Garro's, offering a safety net to employees who want to take time off to nurture newborns, tend to their own major illnesses or care for sick relatives. But while the law guarantees that workers won't lose their jobs, it doesn't cover their paychecks. One survey last year showed that while 24 million Americans had taken leaves since , 2.7 million more wanted to, but couldn't afford it. That may change soon. In response to increasing demands from voters, at least 25 states are now exploring new ways to offer paid leave. One possibility: tapping state disability funds. A handful of states--New York, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island and Hawaii--already dip into disability money to offer partial pay for women on maternity leave. But that doesn't help dads or people caring for elderly parents. New Jersey and New York may soon expand disability programs to cover leave for fathers and o
篇8:法律类文章:AN UNPAID TAB IN FLORIDA
Bush spent $8 million, but hasn't settled with his lawyers
Few lawyers did more to help George W. Bush become president than Barry Richard. As Bush's quarterback in the Florida courts during last fall's bruising recount, the white-maned Tallahassee, Fla., litigator became a familiar figure to TV audiences. He got the GOP equivalent of rock-star treatment when he came to Washington last January for Bush's Inauguration. At one ball, recalls law partner Fred Baggett, a heavyset Texas woman lifted Richard off the floor and planted a big kiss on his cheek, exclaiming, “I love you for giving us our president!”
But Richard has discovered that the Bushies' gratitude has its limits. More than four months after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the 2000 election, he and his firm, Greenberg Traurig, are still owed more than $800,000 in legal fees. The firm, which sent 39 lawyers and 13 paralegals into court battles all over the state, is one of a dozen that have so far been stiffed. The estimated total tab: more than $2 million. The situation, NEWSWEEK has learned, has gotten increasingly sticky. While lawyers complain privately about foot dragging (Richard says he's not among them), Bush advisers are griping about “astronomical” bills--including one from a litigator who charged for more than 24 hours of work in a single day. “What you've got here is a bunch of rich lawyers bellyaching,” says one former Bush campaign official. “Yet these guys got huge in-kind contributions to their reputations out of this.”
The lawyers were supposed to get their money from the Bush Recount Committee, a fund-raising vehicle set up when the Florida fight began. A nebulous entity not legally required to disclose how it spent its money, the committee and its chief fund-raiser, Texas oilman (and now Commerce secretary) Don Evans, swiftly collected $8.3 million--more than twic
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