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Appeals court upholds sentence in NC bus stop case
Court Watch |
2011/05/28 13:09
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A man who a federal judge ruled had sex with his adopted sister has lost an appeal of his 2½ year prison sentence.
The judge ordered Royce Mitchell to jail because he decided his sexual relationship with 15-year-old Tiffany Wright violated terms of his 2007 probation on a federal drug charge.
Wright, who was eight months pregnant, was shot to death as she waited for the school bus in September 2009. Police named Mitchell a person of interest, but later concluded he wasn't involved with the killing.
But Wright told a detective that she had sex with Mitchell before she died.
Mitchell continues to deny the allegations, and Wright's lawyer said a DNA test that found Mitchell was not the baby's father proves they didn't have sex. But The Charlotte Observer reports that the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that just because prosecutors couldn't independently verify Wright's allegations doesn't mean they aren't true.
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Wis. DOJ asks court to lift ban on union law
Court Watch |
2011/05/28 13:08
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State attorneys asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday to immediately vacate a Madison judge's decision striking down Republican Gov. Scott Walker's contentious collective bargaining law.
Judge Maryann Sumi invalidated the law on Thursday after finding Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open records law during the run-up to passage in March. The decision came in a lawsuit Democratic Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed challenging the law.
The state Justice Department is representing the Republicans. The agency's attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to take the case and the court set oral arguments on whether it should make a move for June 6. Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John said in a letter to the justices late Friday they need to act now.
St. John said the issues have been fully briefed so the court can immediately vacate Sumi's decision without hearing any further argument.
He argued Sumi issued the decision on her own, even though no one involved in the case had asked for such a ruling. She didn't give any of the parties a chance to be heard on the final disposition.
He also reiterated the Justice Department's argument that the Republicans can't be sued because they enjoy legislative immunity and Sumi can't invalidate the law due to an open meetings violation.
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Fugitive Russian lawmaker living in Beverly Hills
Breaking Legal News |
2011/05/28 13:07
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A sensational dispute between Moscow billionaires with a storyline that rivals Hollywood has spilled across international borders: Surveillance photographs showed a fugitive Russian lawmaker living in Beverly Hills, California. Someone tried to hack into computers at his London law firm. And he filed a federal lawsuit in New York accusing his business rivals of trying to force him to return home.
Ashot Egiazaryan, who said he could be killed if he is forced to return to Russia, is fighting to remain in the United States despite a request by Interpol to have him arrested and deported. He came to the U.S. in early September and quickly filed a lawsuit in Cyprus and another in an arbitration court of appeal in London claiming that a politically connected group of Russian tycoons extorted him into surrendering his major stake in the historic Moskva Hotel. The multibillion dollar property sits a few steps from Red Square.
Since then, and after a published interview with The Associated Press in February, Egiazaryan said in court papers he has been subjected to continuing surveillance and a public relations smear campaign. Scotland Yard is currently investigating a report that someone tried to plant sophisticated spyware on a computer that belongs to one of his lawyers, according to a person briefed on the investigation.
Egiazaryan said the lucrative Moskva project was wrested from him in 2009 by prominent Russians including mining magnate Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire and a member of the Russian senate, and Arkady Rotenberg, a wealthy businessman and the longtime judo partner of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. At Egiazaryan's urging, the Cyprus court temporarily froze about $8 billion in stock owned by two of Kerimov's Cyprus-based companies, OAO Polyus Gold and fertilizer maker OAO Uralkali, one of the world's leading producers of potash. The freeze came at an awkward time for Kerimov, who was in the midst of efforts to build one of the world's largest mining empires.
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Court refuses to reconsider Spector's appeal
Court Watch |
2011/05/27 13:08
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An appeals court on Friday refused to reconsider music producer Phil Spector's appeal of his murder conviction, saying there was overwhelming evidence of his guilt.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal panel acknowledged it did not consider an issue that defense lawyers now say was critical to his conviction.
The panel blamed the lawyers for failing to sufficiently brief the point and said they had no obligation to consider it.
They quoted case law saying, "Issues do not have a life of their own: if they are not raised ... we consider the issues waived."
Spector, a legendary rock music producer, was convicted two years ago of fatally shooting actress Lana Clarkson at his Alhambra mansion in 2003. He is serving 19 years to life in prison on a second-degree murder conviction.
His first trial ended in a hung jury; the second ended in a conviction.
Defense lawyer Dennis Riordan said he will be filing an appeal with the California Supreme Court on June 13. Riordan said in an interview the court ignored a central issue of the case.
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"Killing Time" An 18 Year Odyssey from Death Row to Freedom
Legal Marketing |
2011/05/25 13:10
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According to Harry Connick Sr, the former New Orleans District Attorney for 30 years, Angola's death row isn't such a bad place for an innocent man to spend 14 years, according to the New Orleans DA's office. Connick stated that John Thompson did not deserve the $14 million a jury awarded him, because nobody raped him and he got to play chess and watch TV. He wasn't denied medical treatment and made several pals in prison, prosecutors argued in an appeal brief. Our question to former DA Connick....How much would it have been worth it to you if you had spent the last 14 years of your life for a crime you were "FRAMED By" The New Orleans District Attorney's Office?
Thompson was railroaded in 1983, when Harry Connick was DA. In 2007, Thompson, who was wrongfully convicted of murder by Connick's DA office due to evidence withholding, was awarded a $14 million verdict by a federal court jury.
The jury found "that Thompson's 18 years behind bars (14 of which he spent in solitary confinement on death row) were caused by Connick's deliberate failure to train his prosecutors on their obligations to turn over exculpatory evidence"
"Killing Time-an 18 Year Odyssey from Death Row to Freedom" is a sobering look at our justice system, told with journalistic precision by our Guest John Hollway and his writing partner Ronald Gauthier. Told in careful timeline fashion, it details the story of John Thompson, an African American who was, in 1984, wrongfully convicted of the brutal murder of a New Orleans Hotelier, and sent, under a death sentence to Angola Prison to await execution. Thompson adamantly and unceasingly proclaimed his innocence. After Philadelphia lawyers Michael Banks and Gordon Cooney take on his case, they struggle to find areas of misconduct in his previous trials while grappling with their questions about Thompson's innocence. John Hollway and Ronald M. Gauthier have interviewed Thompson and the lawyers, and paint a realistic and compelling portrait of life on death row and the corruption in the Louisiana police and DA's office.
John Thompson, having been exonerated and freed thanks to the work of Attorneys Banks and Cooney is now deeply involved in the organization Resurrection After Exoneration or REA. He, once again, lives in Louisiana.
The Orleans Parish DA's office appealed and the case, Connick v. Thompson, was orally argued before the U.S. Supreme Court during the October 2010 term. By a 5-4 vote split along ideological lines,[6] the Supreme Court overturned the $14 million award in a decision issued on March 29, 2011.
The majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas construed the series of admitted violations to not amount to a pattern of similar violations of Brady v. Maryland (1963), and such a pattern was necessary to hold Connick liable for the incompetence of his employees.
The dissenting opinion, read from the bench by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noted that Connick's office had in fact committed a pattern of violations, to wit:
• Failing to disclose exculpatory blood-type evidence,
• Failing to disclose audio tapes of witness testimony,
• Failing to disclose a deathbed confession of evidence destruction by the prosecuting attorney Gerry Deegan,
• And Failing to disclose eyewitness identification of the killer that didn't match Thompson.
There are other allegations of systemic misconduct by Connick and his prosecutors. "According to the Innocence Project, a national organization that represents incarcerated criminals claiming innocence, 36 men convicted in Orleans Parish during Connick's 30-year tenure as DA have made allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and 19 have had their sentences overturned or reduced as a result."
For additional information on John Hollway's "KILLING TIME', please visit www.johnhollway.com
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Head of Delaware Business Court Joining Law Firm
Breaking Legal News |
2011/05/23 09:00
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The head of Delaware's Court of Chancery, a key venue for matters of corporate law, is taking a job with a California-based law firm.
Chancellor William Chandler III will join Palo Alto-based Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati on June 18. He had announced in April that he was retiring from the bench. In a statement released by the firm Thursday, Chandler said Wilson Sonsini has an outstanding legal practice and one of the most enviable client bases in the nation.
Chandler has served on the chancery court since 1989 and was appointed to the top post of chancellor in 1997.
He has presided over many high-profile cases, involving companies such as Walt Disney Co., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., News Corp., eBay Inc., Citigroup Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dow Chemical Co.
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Lawyer: Soldier to plead guilty in detainee death
Breaking Legal News |
2011/05/23 08:58
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The lawyer for a mentally ill U.S. soldier accused of killing an Afghan detainee says the soldier will plead guilty to murder in exchange for a substantially reduced prison term.
Attorney James Culp said Sunday that Pfc. David Lawrence of Lawrenceburg, Ind., will enter his plea Wednesday.
Army doctors say Lawrence was mentally ill and didn't realize his conduct was wrong when he allegedly shot and killed a suspected Taliban member jailed by the U.S. in Afghanistan in October.
The Army decided to prosecute Lawrence anyway, saying he was capable of participating in his defense.
Lawrence could have faced execution or life in prison. Culp declined to say how long a prison term the plea agreement calls for.
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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