Civil courts

The lowest English courts are the magistrates courts, which deal mainly with criminal matters and the county courts, which deal only with civil matters. The Courts and Legal Services Bill provides for an increase in County Court civil jurisdiction. 

In 2004, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment sued the U.S. EPA in U.S. Federal court [Civil Action No. 4 04-CV-00660, Eastern District, MO] to produce a new Pb criteria document and issue a revised NAAQS for lead. The new criteria document was finalized in October 2006 (U.S. EPA, 2006). 

It is not uncommon for individuals under the influence of phencyclidine to come to the attention of the criminal justice system. Increasingly, there is a need for forensic experts to advise and testify in cases involving PCP and other psychoactive drugs. With the publication of a paper on acute intoxication and fatalities from PCP use, we began to receive requests from attorneys to evaluate PCP-related cases (Burns et al. 1975). We have now consulted in over 400 civil and criminal cases and have testified in municipal, superior, and Federal courts from Hawaii to Washington, D.C. 

It is not uncommon for civil actions to be brought against law enforcement personnel who have come into contact with individuals under the influence of PCP. Helen A. Burns vs. City and County of Honolulu et al. represents an issue that is being brought before the courts with increasing frequency. 

Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue (New York Oxford, 1978) remains the best exemplar of a counter narrative. On the disposition of the courts on the road to Brown, see A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Shades of Freedom Racial Politics and the Presumptions of the American Legal Process (New York Oxford, 1996), pp. 152-168. 

Tn the area of the rights of chemists in layoffs and other serious griev-ances, there is no question that the employee is getting a chance to say more, owing to the assistance of legislation such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the courts, which are now starting to play a role. In these economic hard times the threat of a layoff is very real, both to the factory line workers and the white collar or professional employees. 

Most of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is fact orientated. Even subtle factual differences may affect application of the search and seizure doctrine in an infinite variety of circumstances. The preservation of civil Hberties and protections is largely determined by the courts. 

Lawsuits were filed by various parties including the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the President s authority to conduct domestic surveillance. The Federal Court for Eastern District of Michigan found surveillance by the National Security Agency to be unconstitutional [175]. 

The Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987 includes civil penalties for violation of the drug sample provisions of the FD C Act. The law provides that a manufacturer or distributor who violates these provisions is subject to a civil penalty of not more than 50 000 for each of the first two violations resulting in a conviction in any 10-year period, and for not more than 1 million for each violation resulting in a conviction after the second conviction in any 10-year period. These penalties may be imposed only by a Federal District Court. FDA has no administrative authority to impose any civil penalties imder these provisions. 

Levinson points out that the Second Amendment debate reveals a curious reversal of conservatives and liberals from their usual positions on civil rights. Liberals interpret tbe rest of the Bill of Rights broadly without worrying too much about tbe social cost of freeing criminals. However, they want to interpret the Second Amendment narrowly because of what they consider to be tbe social costs of gun ownership. Conservatives, on the other hand, often complain about the courts finding new rights in broad interpretations of the Bill of Rights but favor a broader interpretation where the Second Amendment is concerned. 

One characteristic of the civil justice system is that it is decentralized Different courts can and do come to different conclusions. In 2002, in the case of Cincinnati v. Beretta the Ohio State Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs had adequately demonstrated that the availability of guns to criminals caused by negligent marketing represented a substantial danger to the community—a major public nuisance. 

What is undisputed is that the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment, whatever sort of right it declared, was a restraint only on Congress, not on the states, localities, or citizens. As noted earlier, many parts of the Bill of Rights would later be incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and enforced against the states (notably, to protect the civil rights of African Americans and other minorities), but to date the Second Amendment has not been included in this process. 

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