Governor swears in newest Rhode Island state court judge

The newest judge to the Rhode Island Superior Court was sworn in Saturday. Democratic Gov. Dan McKee presided over the swearing in of R. David Cruise, a longtime political operative and state senator, at the Boys & Girls Club location in Cumberland. McKee, a former Cumberland mayor who has known Cruise for years, said in a statement that he’s an “honest, fair and thoughtful leader who brings decades of legal and government experience to the bench.” Cruise is a former state senator and Cumberland town councilor. In recent years, he’s served as former Gov. Gina Raimondo’s director of legislative affairs, former administrative magistrate with the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal and chief of staff to the Rhode Island Senate, among other posts, according to McKee’s office. In the 1990s, Cruise worked in the commerce department under President Bill Clinton and chief of staff to former Governor Bruce Sundlun. In the 1980s, he was a state senator and before that served on the Cumberland Town Council. Cruise, who graduated from Providence College and the Suffolk University School of Law, replaces former Superior Court Judge Bennett Gallo, who retired in February. The Rhode Island Superior Court has 22 judges and five magistrates. It handles both civil and criminal matters.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court tosses Trump election lawsuit

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state, ending Trump's legal challenges in state court about an hour before the Electoral College was to meet to cast the state's 10 votes for Biden. The ruling came after the court held arguments Saturday, the same day a federal judge dismissed another Trump lawsuit seeking to overturn his loss in the state. Trump appealed that ruling. Trump sought to have more than 221,000 ballots disqualified in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's two most heavily Democratic counties. He wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes. Liberal Justice Jill Karofsky blasted Trumps' case during Saturday's hearing, saying it “smacks of racism” and was “un-American.” Conservative justices voiced some concerns about how certain ballots were cast, while also questioning whether they could or should disqualify votes only in two counties. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes, a margin of 0.6% that withstood a Trump-requested recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the two with the most Democratic votes. Trump did not challenge any ballots cast in the counties he won. Trump and his allies have suffered dozens of defeats in Wisconsin and across the country in lawsuits that rely on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud and election abuse. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate Biden’s win by throwing out millions of votes in four battleground states, including Wisconsin.

Trump wants Supreme Court to overturn Pa. election results

Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov 3. election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court. The petition seeks to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases having to do with mail-in ballots and asks the court to reject voters’ will and allow the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pick its own slate of electors. While the prospect of the highest court in the land throwing out the results of a democratic election based on unfounded charges of voter fraud is extraordinary unlikely, it wouldn’t change the outcome. President-elect Joe Biden would still be the winner even without Pennsylvania because of his wide margin of victory in the Electoral College. “The petition seeks all appropriate remedies, including vacating the appointment of electors committed to Joseph Biden and allowing the Pennsylvania General Assembly to select their replacements,” Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement. He is asking the court to move swiftly so it can rule before Congress meets on Jan. 6 to tally the vote of the Electoral College, which decisively confirmed Biden’s win with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. But the justices are not scheduled to meet again, even privately, until Jan 8, two days after Congress counts votes. Pennsylvania last month certified Biden as the winner of the state’s 20 Electoral College votes after three weeks of vote counting and a string of failed legal challenges. Trump’s campaign and his allies have now filed roughly 50 lawsuits alleging widespread voting fraud. Almost all have been dismissed or dropped because there is no evidence to support their allegations. Trump has lost before judges of both political parties, including some he appointed. And some of his strongest rebukes have come from conservative Republicans. The Supreme Court has also refused to take up two cases — decisions that Trump has scorned. The new case is at least the fourth involving Pennsylvania that Trump’s campaign or Republican allies have taken to the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn Biden’s victory in the state or at least reverse court decisions involving mail-in balloting. Many more cases were filed in state and federal courts. Roughly 10,000 mail-in ballots that arrived after polls closed but before a state court-ordered deadline remain in limbo, awaiting the highest court’s decision on whether they should be counted. The Trump campaign’s filing Sunday appears to target three decisions of Pennsylvania’s Democratic-majority state Supreme Court. In November, the state’s highest court upheld a Philadelphia judge’s ruling that state law only required election officials to allow partisan observers to be able to see mail-in ballots being processed, not stand close enough to election workers to see the writing on individual envelopes. It also ruled that more than 8,300 mail-in ballots in Philadelphia that had been challenged by the Trump campaign because of minor technical errors — such as a voter’s failure to write their name, address or date on the outer ballot envelope — should be counted. In October, the court ruled unanimously that counties are prohibited from rejecting mail-in ballots simply because a voter’s signature does not resemble the signature on the person’s voter registration form. The Pennsylvania Republican Party has a pending petition on the state’s mail-in-ballot deadline in which the party specifically says in its appeal that it recognizes the issue will not affect the outcome of the 2020 election.

Court orders Japan company to pay 4 Koreans for forced labor

In a potentially far-reaching decision, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that a major Japanese steelmaker should compensate four South Koreans for forced labor during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II. The long-awaited ruling, delivered Tuesday after more than five years of deliberation at Seoul's top court, could have larger implications for similar lawsuits that are pending in South Korea and will likely trigger a diplomatic row between the Asian U.S. allies. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo will respond "resolutely" to the ruling, which he described as "impossible in light of international law." He said the ruling violated a 1965 treaty between Seoul and Tokyo that was accompanied by Japanese payments to restore diplomatic ties. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Japan could potentially take the case to the International Court of Justice. "Today's ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court has one-sidedly and fundamentally damaged the legal foundation of Japan-South Korea relations," Kono said. South Korean President Moon Jae-in had no immediate reaction to the ruling. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said Tokyo and Seoul "should gather wisdom" to prevent the ruling from negatively affecting their relations. The court said Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. should provide compensation of 100 million won ($87,680) to each of the four plaintiffs, who were forced to work at Japanese steel mills from 1941 to 1943. Among them, only 94-year-old Lee Chun-sik has survived the legal battle, which extended nearly 14 years.

Indian court seeks pricing of Rafale jet deal with France

India's top court on Wednesday ordered the government to provide pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets it is buying from France. The court said the government must bring details of the decision-making process of the deal into the public domain, except those that are confidential and have strategic importance. The court said those can be provided in a "sealed cover" within 10 days. The deal has become a major political issue with the leader of the main opposition Indian National Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of buying the aircraft at nearly three times the price being negotiated when his party was in power before Modi became prime minister in 2014. The government has refuted the claim, but says a secrecy clause governs the deal's pricing. It hasn't even informed Parliament about the cost of the 36 planes. The court was hearing petitions by former ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha and some others who demanded a court-monitored probe by a federal investigating agency in the deal. Gandhi also accused Modi's government of favoring the company owned by industrialist Anil Ambani, Reliance Group, when choosing an Indian partner for Dassault. India's government has denied any wrongdoing. Dassault Aviation recently said that it "has freely chosen to make a partnership with India's Reliance Group." The French company said that it had committed to side deals in India worth 50 percent of the value of the jet purchases. In order to deliver those side deals, it had decided to create a joint venture with Reliance Group. The controversy has intensified following comments last month by former French President Francois Hollande — who was in charge when the deal was signed in 2016 — suggesting France had no say in selecting the Indian company.

Trump visit stirs debate; massacre defendant in court

The man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was brought into court in a wheelchair Monday, as some members of the Jewish community and others objected to President Donald Trump’s plans to visit, accusing him of contributing to a toxic political climate in the U.S. that might have led to the bloodshed. With the first funerals set for Tuesday, the White House announced that Trump and first lady Melania Trump will visit the same day to “express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community” over the 11 congregants killed Saturday in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Some Pittsburghers urged Trump to stay away. “His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed,” said Marianne Novy, 73, a retired college English professor who lives in the city’s Squirrel Hill section, the historic Jewish neighborhood where the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue took place. Meanwhile, the alleged gunman, 46-year-old truck driver Robert Gregory Bowers, was released from the hospital where he was treated for wounds suffered in a gun battle with police. Hours later he was wheeled into a downtown federal courtroom in handcuffs to face charges. A judge ordered him held without bail for a preliminary hearing on Thursday, when prosecutors will outline their case. He did not enter a plea. During the brief proceeding, Bowers talked with two court-appointed lawyers and said little more than “Yes” in a soft voice a few times in response to routine questions from the judge. Courtroom deputies freed one of his cuffed hands so he could sign paperwork.