Obama reaps victory as judges uphold health law (AP)

CINCINNATI – In the first ruling by a federal appeals court on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a panel in Cincinnati handed the administration a victory Wednesday by agreeing that the government can require a minimum amount of insurance for Americans.

A Republican-appointed judge joined with a Democratic appointee for the 2-1 majority in another milestone for Obama's hotly debated signature domestic initiative — the first time a Republican federal court appointee has affirmed the merits of the law.

The White House and Justice Department hailed the panel's affirmation of an earlier ruling by a federal court in Michigan; opponents of the law said challenges will continue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue is a conservative law center's lawsuit arguing on behalf of plaintiffs that potentially requiring them to buy insurance or face penalties could subject them to financial hardship. The suit warns that the law is too broad and could lead to more federal mandates.

The Thomas More Law Center, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., argued before the panel that the law was unconstitutional and that Congress overstepped its powers.

The government countered that the measure was needed for the overall goal of reducing health care costs and reforms such as protecting people with pre-existing conditions. It said the coverage mandate will help keep the costs of changes from being shifted to households and providers.

White House adviser Stephanie Cutter called the ruling "another victory" for millions of Americans and small businesses benefiting from the overhaul.

"At the end of the day, we are confident the constitutionality of these landmark reforms will be upheld," she said in a statement.

The law center predicted its case would have a good shot on appeal.

"Clearly our case won't resolve all the issues, because we don't raise the state rights issue, but we are the only one that is currently ripe for Supreme Court review that raises the challenge on behalf of an individual," said David Yerushalmi, an attorney for the law center.

The three-judge 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a lengthy opinion with disagreement on some issues, moving unusually quickly in delivering its decision less than a month after hearing oral arguments.

"Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care Act's larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance," Judge Boyce F. Martin, appointed by former President Jimmy Carter, wrote for the majority.

A George W. Bush appointee concurred; a Ronald Reagan appointee who is a U.S. district judge in Columbus sitting on the panel disagreed. Judges are selected for panels through random draw.

"If the exercise of power is allowed and the mandate upheld, it is difficult to see what the limits on Congress' Commerce Clause authority would be," warned dissenting Judge James Graham of Columbus. "What aspect of human activity would escape federal power?"

Judge Jeffrey Sutton, the Bush appointee, delivered the decisive vote, although his opinion raised questions and noted the unusual nature of a law directed at someone who chooses inaction, referring to those "who prize that most American of freedoms: to be left alone."

But the government argued that telling someone to buy health insurance, something that virtually everyone needs and is part of a sweeping effort, isn't the same as ordering them to buy a car or a vegetable.

"The novelty of the individual mandate may indeed suggest it is a bridge too far, but it also may offer one more example of a policy necessity giving birth to an inventive (and constitutional) congressional solution," Sutton wrote.

The opinion by Sutton, a well-respected conservative jurist, will be studied closely by other courts, said a law professor at Virginia's University of Richmond.

"His opinion is comprehensive and cautious and careful, but I think it comes out to pretty much the same conclusion as Judge Martin's," Carl Tobias said in a telephone interview.

An attorney for Thomas More said the center expects to appeal. It could ask for the full circuit court to review the case or go on to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 16-seat 6th Circuit has one vacancy.

Among those supporting the center in court documents in the case — titled Thomas More Law Center, et al, vs. Barack Hussein Obama, et al — were Republican presidential candidates Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul and several other members of Congress including Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio.

More than 30 legal challenges have been filed over the health care overhaul, some focusing on different issues such as states' rights. Earlier decisions at the U.S. district court level have found Republican-appointed judges opposing and Democrat-appointed judges affirming.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.

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Dan Sewell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell.

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Vegas judge's son pleads guilty in Bellagio heist (AP)

LAS VEGAS – The son of a Las Vegas judge pleaded guilty Tuesday to being the motorcycle helmet-wearing bandit who was videotaped waving a gun as he made off in December with $1.5 million in casino chips from the posh Bellagio resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

Anthony Michael Carleo, 29, apologized and told a Nevada judge he was "very foolish" for scooping chips from the craps table and pointing a handgun at a valet before jumping on a motorcycle and speeding away before dawn Dec. 14. No shots were fired.

Carleo pleaded guilty to felony armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon charges that prosecutor Chris Owens said could get him three to 36 years in state prison.

Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt scheduled sentencing Aug. 23.

Carleo is also due to plead guilty Thursday to similar charges in a separate case stemming from a Dec. 9 robbery at the Suncoast Hotel & Casino in northwest Las Vegas. Owens told reporters those charges could carry additional prison time.

As part of the plea deal in the two cases, prosecutors dropped several other assault, burglary and weapon charges and agreed not to seek additional drug and weapon charges that police investigated.

Carleo, the son of Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge George Assad, is being held at the Clark County jail on $1 million bail.

Assad was ousted by voters this month from the bench seat he has held since 2002. He hasn't commented about the case since issuing a public statement following Carleo's arrest Feb. 2 at the Bellagio. Police said Carleo was apprehended after trying to sell several $25,000 chips to an undercover Las Vegas police officer.

Assad described himself and his family at the time as "devastated and heartbroken," and added that as a prosecutor and a judge, "I have always felt people who break the law need to be held accountable."

Police say the Suncoast robbery, which netted almost $19,000 in cash, played out like a dress-rehearsal for the Bellagio robbery just five days later. In both cases, a motorcycle-riding bandit thwarted video surveillance by keeping his helmet on as he entered. He displayed a gun and left the gambling floor in seconds. No one was injured in either case.

The eye-popping denominations of the of Bellagio chips — ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 each — drew intense media interest and comparisons to Hollywood movies like "Ocean's Eleven."

But from the start, experts said the culprit might have trouble cashing the loot.

After the Bellagio holdup, Carleo spent two months partying, gambling big at the posh casino, and trying to figure out what to do with the high-denomination chips dubbed "cranberries" because of their color, police said. He eventually approached a casual poker player on a popular Web forum and sent photos signed "Biker Bandit" depicting two $25,000 Bellagio chips.

Owens has said some $375,000 in Bellagio chips is still missing.

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Gay judge's same-sex marriage ruling upheld (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge has a message for those trying to salvage California's gay marriage ban: Sure, the judge who threw out the measure last year is in a long-term relationship with a man, but he could still be fair to them.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Ware's ruling Tuesday rejected arguments that former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker would potentially benefit from declaring the ban unconstitutional.

In his 19-page decision — a response to the first attempt in the nation to disqualify a judge based on sexual orientation — Ware had a bigger message. Gay judges, he said, are just like minority and female jurists: They can be impartial, too, even in cases that might affect them.

"We all have an equal stake in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a restriction on a fundamental right," he wrote. "The single characteristic that Judge Walker shares with the plaintiffs, albeit one that might not have been shared with the majority of Californians, gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits than would exist for any other judge or citizen."

Ware upheld his retired predecessor's ruling that struck down Proposition 8.

Finding that Walker could not be presumed to have a personal stake in the case just because he has a same-sex partner, Ware wrote that the judge had no obligation to divulge whether he wanted to marry before he struck down the ban.

"The presumption that Judge Walker, by virtue of being in a same-sex relationship, had a desire to be married that rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision, is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief," he wrote.

Tuesday was a day filled with good legal news for the gay rights community.

In New York, state lawmakers are within one vote of joining Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia as places where same-sex couples can legally marry. And in Los Angeles, the country's largest consumer bankruptcy court sided with a gay couple seeking to file a joint bankruptcy petition, taking the extraordinary step of declaring that the federal law prohibiting same-sex marriages is unconstitutional.

But Ware's ruling does not settle the legal fight over Proposition 8 in California.

The sponsors of the ban are planning to appeal. Lawyer Charles Cooper, who represents the conservative religious coalition that put the ban on a 2008 ballot, said he disagrees with the ruling.

ProtectMarriage.com, which filed the challenge, said it would appeal and "continue our tireless efforts to defend the will of the people of California to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman."

Meanwhile, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering whether Walker properly concluded that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry violates their rights to due process and equal protection. The court also is eyeing whether the religious coalition is legally entitled to appeal Walker's verdict.

Ware's opinion came in response to an April motion by coalition lawyers that sought to have Walker's ruling vacated on conflict-of-interest grounds.

Walker publicly revealed after he retired in February that he is in a 10-year relationship with a man. Rumors that he was gay had circulated before and after the trial. Walker did not attend Monday's hearing on the matter and has declined to comment on the bias allegations.

Chad Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group that spearheaded the successful effort to overturn Proposition 8 in Walker's court, called Ware's decision to reject the challenge a precedent-setting victory that advances equal rights and treatment for all Americans.

"This bigoted and homophobic motion will prove to be a real low point in the struggle for equality and full civil rights for gay and lesbian people," he said.

Some supporters saw greater meaning in Ware's ruling.

"This opinion is going to be in line with those (earlier) decisions with regard to race, ethnicity, gender and religious background that people will cite for many years in saying that gay judges, lesbian judges, are entitled to the same impartiality presumptions as all other judges," said Theodore Boutrous Jr., an attorney on the legal team that sued to overturn Proposition 8 on behalf of two unmarried same-sex couples

In his ruling, Ware cited previous cases dealing with women and minority judges in concluding that his predecessor had acted appropriately.

"The sole fact that a federal judge shares the same circumstances or personal characteristics with other members of the general public, and that the judge could be affected by the outcome of a proceeding in the same way that other members of the general public would be affected, is not a basis for either recusal or disqualification," he wrote.

Ware said Walker did not have a duty to disclose his romantic life and would have hurt "the integrity of the judiciary" if he had revealed his relationship during the trial.

Lawyers for backers of the ban argued at a hearing Monday that Walker should have recused himself or disclosed his relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit if the ban were invalidated and same-sex unions were again legal in California.

Many legal scholars had not expected Ware to overturn Walker's decision. They said having a judge's impartiality questioned because he is gay is new territory, but efforts to get female judges thrown off gender discrimination cases or Hispanic judges removed from immigration cases have failed.

"Every judge that has ever ruled on analogous questions about any other personal characteristic, whether it's sexual orientation, being blind or having owned a Fiat, has said it's a non-issue. Basically what they have said is a judge's personal background is never a relevant basis for recusal," said Richard Flamm, a judicial ethics expert and author of "Judicial Disqualification: Recusal and Disqualification of Judges."

Flamm said he nevertheless doubted that Ware's speedily issued decision would dissuade lawyers in future cases from challenging a judge because he is gay.

"This disqualification motion was made for strategic reasons," he said. "So the reality is, people will continue to make strategic motions unless there is an opinion handed down from the U.S. Supreme Court directly on point that says sexual orientation is not grounds for judicial disqualification."

California already is the only state with a law specifically including sexual orientation among the personal characteristics that may not be used to seek a judge's disqualification, although Ware did not cite it in Tuesday's ruling.

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