China plans to gradually lessen the number of executions it carries out while still keeping the death penalty, according to a statement released Sunday by China's Supreme People's Court, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security, and China's lead prosecutor. The statement indicated that China cannot entirely abolish the death penalty, but noted that if the possibility exists that a convicted individual did not commit the crime, then that person should not be executed. The legal groups also condemned confessions through torture and said police must instead gather evidence according to the law.

China, which executes more prisoners than any other country in the world, revised its death penalty laws last year, mandating the Supreme People's Court to review any death sentences handed down. The country has been under pressure to take a closer look at its policies after China's deputy chief prosecutor revealed that almost every wrongful conviction in recent years has been the result of torture and intensive interrogation techniques.

An Egyptian appeals court on Monday upheld the four-year prison sentence given to an Egyptian blogger who criticized conservative Muslims and was convicted of insulting Islam and Egypt's president, court officials said.

Abdel Kareem Nabil's sentence last month had been widely condemned by local and international rights groups as a bid to curb free expression.

Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, had been sentenced to three years in prison for insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife, and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Nabil, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, was an unusually scathing critic of conservative Muslims. His frequent attacks on Al-Azhar led the university to expel him in March 2006 and caused prosecutors to bring him to trial.

Court officials said Monday that the Appeal Court in Alexandria upheld the earlier sentence. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The judge in the original trial found that Nabil had insulted the Prophet Muhammad with a piece he wrote in 2005 after riots in which angry Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria over a play deemed offensive to Islam.

"Muslims revealed their true ugly face and appeared to all the world that they are full of brutality, barbarism and inhumanity," Nabil wrote in his blog. He called Muhammad and his 7th century followers, the Sahaba, "spillers of blood" for their teachings on warfare — a comment cited by the judge.

In a later essay not cited by the court, Nabil clarified his comments, saying that Muhammad was "great" but his teachings on warfare and other issues should be viewed as a product of their times.

In other writings, he called Al-Azhar the "other face of the coin of al-Qaida" and he criticized Mubarak, describing him as "the symbol of tyranny."

A 60-year-old bookkeeper who embezzled more than $1 million from a small, family-owned law firm in downtown Cincinnati will spend the next six years in prison.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Kubicki Jr. ordered the sentence this morning for Candace Vail, who pleaded guilty last month to a charge of theft. Kubicki also ordered Vail to re-pay the $1,038,499 she stole from from Goodman & Goodman between Jan. 1, 2001, and Feb. 16, 2006.

Vail’s excuse in a letter to the court? She wasn’t paid enough and often did errands for the attorneys she worked for without extra compensation.

Vail used the money to bankroll her son's landscaping business, according to Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Andy Berghausen.

Court records show Vail filed for bankruptcy last October.

Vail took client checks to Goodman & Goodman from the mail, deposited them into little-used firm accounts and then wrote 1,325 checks to herself and her family. She forged attorney names on another 91 checks she wrote to herself, according to court records.

She even duped the Ohio Supreme Court, which began investigating shortly before she was caught. When the firm's trust account, which by law must be kept by law firms, was overdrawn, the bank alerted the Ohio Supreme Court.

Vail intercepted letters notifying the attorneys about the investigation, forged attorney signatures on documents and told Ohio Supreme Court officials they should deal with her. That investigation has been resolved since the theft was discovered, Goodman said.

The firm realized money was missing on March 8 when one of the firm's attorneys went to the bank himself and discovered several bounced checks. Vail was immediately fired, Goodman said.

Although the government generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level by investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing public officials and members of the security forces, a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and corruption persisted, particularly at the state and local level. The following human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings by security forces; kidnappings, including by police; torture; poor and overcrowded prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system; statements coerced through torture permitted as evidence in trials; criminal intimidation of journalists, leading to self-censorship; corruption at all levels of government; domestic violence against women often perpetrated with impunity; criminal violence, including killings against women; trafficking in persons, sometimes allegedly with official involvement; social and economic discrimination against indigenous people; and child labor.

On Friday, Calderon said he plans to replace each state's individual criminal code with a single, nationwide code. He also wants to make it easier to fire corrupt police officers and to transition to trials similar to those in the US. Trials are currently held behind closed doors.

Kent Slater, retired Illinois Appellate Judge in the Third District, has joined the Joliet law firm of Spesia, Ayers and Ardaugh, effective immediately. He will focus his areas of concentration on appellate practice, civil litigation and mediation.

Slater, a graduate of the University of Illinois with a BS degree in agricultural science, served as an officer in the Army, stationed in Vietnam. He received his law degree from John Marshall Law School, where he served on the law review and graduated first in his class in 1975. He later received his Master of Law (LL.M.) degree from the University of Virginia in 2001.

From 1975 to 1988, Slater practiced law in Macomb, with the general practice law firm of Lucie, Heiser and Slater. Elected in 1984 to the House of Representatives, Slater served two terms in the Illinois General Assembly before being elected circuit judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Illinois.

In 1990, Slater was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District, a position he held for 16 years. Prior to his retirement from this post in 2006, he served for three years as the court's presiding officer.

Slater is a member of the Will County and McDonough County Bar Associations, Illinois Judges' Association and Illinois State Bar Association.

Thousands of Italians rallied in Rome on Saturday in support of a bill that would give legal status to unmarried gay and heterosexual couples couples. The proposal, which has been harshly criticized by the Italian justice minister and the top Italian bishop, would give unmarried couples combined medical insurance, the right to visit their partner in prisons or hospitals, inheritance rights, and decision-making authority should one partner become sick. Couples would have to live together for nine years before they would be entitled to property rights, but if the legislation is passed, couples would be able to take advantage of the other legal protections immediately.

The Vatican has said that giving unmarried couples rights would threaten traditional families. A "traditional" family is held by the Vatican to be a marital union between a man and a woman.

A doctor and a nurse were separated from Bedford County Medical Center as defendants in a medical malpractice case that's sought at least $2.5 million over the death of a man who sought treatment at the hospital's emergency room.
The ruling came Thursday from Bedford County Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell in the case brought by the widow and children of Samuel Harrison Butcher III, who died on Sept. 4, 2004, three days before his 29th birthday, according to the complaint filed by the plaintiffs' attorney, Russell Thomas of Murfreesboro.

Named in the original complaint as defendants are Dr. Kent Clark, a nurse named only as L. Brashier in the complaint, the hospital, and Quorum Health Resources LLC which was the hospital's management service hired by Bedford County before the facility was sold in July 2005.

All defendants have denied wrong-doing, indicating they worked to provide good health care and their attorneys have stated that a jury trial would prove to be successful for their clients.

The latest development in the case was on a request from the hospital's attorneys who pointed out that doctors and, in this case, nurses are technically independent contractors who work at the facilities available at the hospital.

There was no opposition to the request from attorneys representing the hospital which is now owned by Community Health Services, a hospital holding and management business headquartered in Williamson County.

Russell's ruling eliminates what's called "vicarious responsibility" by the hospital, but other defendants can be added to cases as evidence is gathered during depositions and other aspects of the discovery process prior to trial.

In the original complaint, Thomas outlined the chain of events which led Butcher to the hospital and what's claimed to be the cause of his death.

Butcher was involved in a one-vehicle crash in which a truck overturned, Thomas wrote in the complaint. While medical treatment was not sought the day of the crash, a Sunday, Butcher went to the emergency room on the next Thursday. Having presented himself with a history of smoking and high blood pressure and after a motor vehicle accident, Butcher was seen subsequent to decisions made at the emergency room based on triage assessments of patients.

That was on Sept. 2, 2004 when Butcher was discharged to see his family physician. But a heart specialist was not mentioned, according to the complaint that alleges a breach of a standard of medical care that might be expected at a rural county hospital.

Butcher continued to experience pain and died two days later, according to the complaint in the case file.

Tracy Lynn Butcher is the widow of the man for whom wrongful death is alleged. Mrs. Butcher has two children; Chase Butcher, 4, and Samantha Butcher, 10.