Federal appeals court declines to intervene in Flint drinking water lawsuits
LANSING, Mich. – A federal appeals court declined Tuesday to intervene in the Flint water crisis civil litigation, saying the relief sought by objectors to the settlement is only granted in extraordinary situations.
The objectors to a proposed $641.25 million settlement, concerned about "off-the-record" conferences U.S. District Judge Judith Levy had held with parties to the case, had asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a "writ of mandamus" ordering Levy to refrain from such conferences in the future and take certain other steps.
A writ of mandamus is essentially an order telling a judge or another government official to perform some aspect of their job that is nondiscretionary.
In a civil lawsuit, such an order is a "drastic and extraordinary remedy reserved for really extraordinary causes," said the three-judge panel, quoting words a federal judge used in an earlier case.
The objectors "raised serious allegations" in their June 25 filing, particularly about off-the-record conferences held about the use of portable bone scanning equipment that is the subject of safety, regulatory and equal access concerns, the judges said. Still, they have not shown that a writ of mandamus is the most appropriate remedy, as opposed to a more traditional appeal later in the proceedings, the panel said.
The objectors also have not clearly shown they should have been invited to the conferences they complain they were excluded from, the panel said.
—Detroit Free Press
Judge denies CDC request to keep COVID-19 cruise rules in place during appeal
MIAMI — A federal judge denied a request Wednesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep its COVID-19 safety regulations for Florida cruises in effect, clearing the path for them to turn into simply recommendations on July 18.
The CDC asked U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday of the Middle District of Florida to lift the deadline — part of a preliminary injunction he put in place last month after Gov. Ron DeSantis sued the CDC in April — while the case goes through the appeal process. The CDC argues that without its regulations, cruise ships could exacerbate the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.
Merryday said in his ruling Wednesday that the CDC’s argument ignores state and local oversight and the improvements cruise companies have made to their operations since COVID-19 outbreaks caused deaths on several ships last year.
“CDC fails to demonstrate that denial of the stay will injure materially CDC or the United States, any third party, or the public,” Merrday wrote. “... This action is about the use and misuse of governmental power.”
Cruise companies first shut down operations in March 2020. In October, the CDC issued a framework to get cruises restarted called the “conditional sail order,” which required them to beef up testing capabilities on their ships and secure evacuation agreements with U.S. cities they plan to visit, among other things.
—Miami Herald
Judge rejects attempt to stop parts of Georgia voting law
ATLANTA — A federal judge denied an effort to invalidate parts of Georgia’s voting law Wednesday, the first court ruling upholding new rules passed after last year’s elections.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee wrote in his order that he wouldn’t “change the law in the ninth inning” amid ongoing runoffs for the state House. Boulee reserved judgment about future elections.
The lawsuit by the Coalition for Good Governance, an election security organization, opposed new requirements that voters request absentee ballots at least 11 days before Election Day, a deadline that left voters with little time to vote by mail in the runoffs. The case also asked for court intervention to prevent restrictions on election observation.
“Election administrators have prepared to implement the challenged rules, have implemented them at least to some extent and now would have to grapple with a different set of rules in the middle of the election,” Boulee wrote in an 11-page order. “The risk of disrupting the administration of an ongoing election ... outweigh the alleged harm to plaintiffs at this time.”
The plaintiffs had sought an injunction to halt enforcement of the voting law, Senate Bill 202, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed March 25.
Though Boulee ruled against the plaintiffs’ request for immediate action, the underlying lawsuit against Georgia’s voting law remains pending in federal court.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ex-South African President Zuma taken into police custody
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Former South African President Jacob Zuma, who was convicted on contempt-of-court charges last week,was taken into police custody to begin serving his 15-month jail sentence after he failed in a last-ditch bid to delay his incarceration.
The confirmation that Zuma has been detained came shortly after the expiry of a Constitutional Court deadline that he be incarcerated by midnight on Wednesday.
“I can confirm he is in police custody,” police spokesman Vish Naidoo said by phone from Pretoria, the capital. “I cannot say which prison he will go to because the Department of Correctional Services will do that.”
Earlier Zuma’s foundation said Zuma had decided to hand himself in to the authorities. “President Zuma has decided to comply with the incarceration order,” it said on Twitter. “He is on his way to hand himself into a correctional services facility” in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province.
The Constitutional Court on June 29 found Zuma guilty of violating its order to testify before a judicial panel that’s probing graft during his rule. It agreed to consider the ex-president’s application to review that judgment, with a hearing scheduled for July 12, but that concession doesn’t suspend his sanction.
—Bloomberg News
