Jury rules MSG must pay in Isiah Thomas sexual harassment suit
NEW YORK — A federal jury decided Madison Square Garden and its chairman must pay $11.6 million in damages to former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders in her sexual harassment lawsuit.
The jury, which decided MSG had committed harassment against Browne Sanders, found that the Garden owes $6 million for allowing a hostile work environment to exist and $2.6 million for retaliation. MSG chairman James Dolan owes $3 million.
The Garden said it would appeal.
A verdict earlier Tuesday found that Knicks coach Isiah Thomas subjected Browne Sanders to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but that he did not have to pay punitive damages.
After an ugly, three-week trial, that verdict gave Thomas a partial victory in the $10 million lawsuit.
“I’m innocent, I’m very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing,” Thomas said. “I’m extremely disappointed that the jury did not see the facts in this case. I will appeal this, and I remain confident in the man that I am and what I stand for and the family that I have.”
U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch called it an “eminently reasonable” verdict, and gave the jurors instructions on how to proceed.
The harassment verdict was widely expected after the jury sent a note to the judge Monday indicating that it believed Thomas, the Garden and Dolan sexually harassed Browne Sanders, a married mother of three.
Senate approves $150 billion in war funding
WASHINGTON — Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Monday’s 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.
The developments underscored the difficulty facing Democrats in the Iraq debate: They lack the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home and are divided on whether to cut money for combat, despite a mandate by supporters to end the war.
Hoping the political landscape changes in coming months, Democratic leaders say they will renew their fight when Congress considers the money Bush wants in war funding.
While the Senate policy bill authorizes the money to be spent, it does not guarantee it; Bush will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers.
“I think that’s where you’re going to see the next dogfight,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., of the upcoming war spending bill.
Democrats say their options include directing that the money be spent on bringing troops home instead of combat; setting a date when money for the war is cut off, and identifying a goal to end the war to try to pressure Bush to bring troops home.
“Many of us have reached a breaking point on this,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “I’ve done this for too many years. I’ve waited for the president to start bringing this war to an end. I’m not going to sign up for this any longer.”
In the House, Democrats are pushing for a bill that would require the administration to report to Congress in 60 days and every 90 days thereafter on the status of its redeployment plans in Iraq.
Crack sentence gets Supreme Court review
WASHINGTON — The punishment should fit the crime is an axiom of criminal justice. But what happens when lawmakers dictate that similar crimes should have differing penalties or when sentences vary from courtroom to courtroom?
The Supreme Court wrestled with these questions Tuesday in a pair of drug cases that included one dealing with a law that calls for tougher punishment for possession and distribution of crack cocaine than the powdered variety. The crack-powder disparity also has a strong racial dimension because the vast majority of crack offenders are black.
Derrick Kimbrough, a black veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, received a 15-year sentence for selling crack and powder cocaine, and possessing a firearm. U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson of Norfolk, Va., considered the prison term ample, despite federal sentencing guidelines that recommended 19 to 22 years.
Brian Gall was given probation for his role in a conspiracy to sell 10,000 pills of ecstasy after U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt of Des Moines, Iowa, determined that Gall had voluntarily quit selling drugs several years before he was implicated, stopped drinking, graduated from college and built a successful business. The guidelines said Gall should have been sent to prison for 30 to 37 months.
Appeals courts threw out both sentences.
The challenges to criminal sentences center on a judge’s discretion to impose a shorter sentence than is called for in guidelines established, at Congress’ direction, by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The guidelines were adopted in the mid-1980s to help produce uniform punishments for similar crimes.
The cases are the result of a decision three years ago in which the justices ruled that judges need not strictly follow the sentencing guidelines. Instead, appellate courts would review sentences for reasonableness, although the court has since struggled to define what it meant by that term.
Justice Stephen Breyer wondered whether there was a way for the court to find a path between forcing judges to adhere to the guidelines in all cases “and the opposite, which is to say they don’t have to do anything the commission says.”
The cases will be decided by spring 2008.
