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Ex-Mass. chemist pleads not guilty to obstruction
Court Watch |
2013/01/30 09:02
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A former Massachusetts chemist accused of faking test results at a state drug lab has pleaded not guilty to four counts of obstruction of justice in a scandal that could jeopardize thousands of drug convictions.
Annie Dookhan was indicted on a total of 27 charges accusing her of fabricating test results and tampering with drug evidence while testing substances in criminal cases.
The 35-year-old Dookhan was arraigned Wednesday on four obstruction counts in Brockton Superior Court. She was scheduled to be arraigned later Wednesday on additional charges in Fall River Superior Court.
An estimated 200 convicted defendants have been released from jail and had their cases put on hold while their legal challenges are pending.
Authorities shut down the lab in August.
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Court says Obama appointments violate constitution
Court Watch |
2013/01/29 22:50
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President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate last year to appoint three members of the National Labor Relations Board, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a far-reaching decision that could severely limit a chief executive's powers to make recess appointments.
The decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit marked a victory for Republicans and business groups critical of the labor board. If it stands, it could invalidate hundreds of board decisions over the past year, including some that make it easier for unions to organize.
When Obama filled the vacancies on Jan. 4, 2012, Congress was on an extended holiday break. But GOP lawmakers gaveled in for a few minutes every three days just to prevent Obama from making recess appointments. The White House argued that the pro forma sessions — some lasting less than a minute — were a sham.
The court rejected that argument, but went even further, finding that under the Constitution, a recess occurs only during the breaks between formal year-long sessions of Congress, not just any informal break when lawmakers leave town. It also held that presidents can bypass the Senate only when administration vacancies occur during a recess.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration strongly disagrees with the decision and that the labor board would continue to conduct business as usual, despite calls by some Republicans for the board members to resign. |
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Economist convicted of tax fraud in NY court
Legal Business |
2013/01/24 09:58
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A California economist has been convicted of federal tax fraud charges in a New York court after he failed to pay more than $1.5 million in taxes, interest and penalties over two decades.
David Gilmartin was convicted Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Federal prosecutors said the charges stemmed from his failure to file income tax returns on more than $1.7 million in income from 1989 through 2010.
The government said Gilmartin earned money over a 22-year period by working as an economist, doing computer analysis for a variety of companies, including some in New York. The 69-year-old Phelan, Calif., resident faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 30.
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Court upholds removing man from death row
Court Watch |
2013/01/24 09:58
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that a Pittsburgh-area man who stabbed his wife then dismembered her body should not be on death row because his low IQ makes him mentally disabled.
Allegheny County Judge Lawrence O'Toole ruled in 2010 that 61-year-old Connie Williams should, instead, serve life in prison. The justices agreed in a decision Tuesday.
Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 for the 1999 killing of Frances Williams, whose head, hands and feet he cut off.
Attorneys for the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia filed a motion in 2008 seeking to vacate the death sentence.
Williams had previously served seven years in prison for the 1974 stabbing murder of his girlfriend's landlord.
It was not immediately clear if county prosecutors will appeal to federal court. |
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New York Adoption, Foster Care Litigation and Family Law
Legal Business |
2013/01/22 23:43
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Rosin Steinhagen Mendel is an adoption and foster care law firm committed to serving our clients in New York City, the counties surrounding the areas in southern New York State and in New Jersey.
Our New York and New Jersey foster care lawyers represent our clients in all areas of proceedings that include termination of parental rights, permanency hearings, custody hearings, guardianship, administrative proceedings, and adoption. Our foster care and adoption lawyers have the range of skills and experience necessary to provide our clients with the best possible representation for each individual case. We care about our clients and they can see it when we work closely on their individual cases, prepping properly and paying attention to all the details.
For over thirty years, our law firm has had the great opportunity of representing New York City Foster Care Agencies in all aspects of their Family Court and New York Administrative proceedings. We have appeared in Family Court, Supreme Court, Surrogate’s Court, Town Courts, the Appellate Divisions in New York, and the New York State Court of Appeals on their behalf. In addition, Rosin Steinhagen Mendal offers on-going legal counsel to their Adoption and Foster Care Agency clients on cases, legislative changes that affect their work, procedural
changes in Family Court practice, or simply providing regular legal training to the Agency staff.
Our New Jersey and New York foster care law firm represents foster parents during all phases of Family Court proceedings. With our firms experience and resources we are able to represent persons looking to adopt (privately and through foster care), custody, guardianship, foster care visitation, and relatives of children in foster care.
In addition to our adoption and foster care representations, other family law matters we represent include parents in abuse and neglect proceedings, expungement proceedings, and other administrative hearings. Our law firm has represented several Native American Tribes in Family Court proceedings. Our adoption practice also includes domestic private-placement/independent adoptions, private agency adoptions, foster care adoptions, interstate adoptions, stepparent and second parent adoptions, adult adoptions, re-adoptions and
registration of foreign adoption decrees. Our ultimate goal is to aggressively work to meet your present legal news.
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Lawyer questions memory of Philadelphia accuser
Court Watch |
2013/01/19 10:49
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A longtime heroin addict whose complaint helped imprison a Philadelphia archdiocese official came under attack Wednesday, as jurors in a priest-abuse trial learned that he had given three different locations for one alleged rape. Defense lawyers questioning the gaunt, 24-year-old policeman's son poked several holes in his accounts, some of which he attributed to years of heavy drug use. The man said he as "semi-comatose ... but standing" when he first spoke with a church investigator in 2009. The witness, with prompting from a counselor, had called the archdiocese from a drug clinic, ultimately reporting that two Roman Catholic priests and ex-teacher Bernard Shero had sexually assaulted him in about 1999. Shero, 49, of Levittown, and the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, of Wyndmoor, are on trial, fighting the charges. Now-defrocked priest Edward Avery is in prison after pleading guilty. During cross-examination Wednesday, Shero's lawyer said the accuser has said over the years that the teacher raped him in his sixth-grade classroom, near a trash bin outside an apartment complex and in the parking lot of a city park. The accuser explained that he was high when he spoke to the church investigator in a car outside his parents' house, and doesn't remember much of the conversation. His drug habit at times reached 15 to 20 bags of heroin a day, the young man acknowledged. |
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Appeals court in NYC hears nuclear plant arguments
Court Watch |
2013/01/17 10:49
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A dispute between the state of Vermont and a Louisiana-based power company moved to a federal appeals court Monday, when a panel of judges questioned lawyers but did not signal who they'll side with in the tussle over the future of Vermont's only nuclear plant. David C. Frederick, a lawyer for Vermont officials, urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court judge who said last year that the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant can continue to operate after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave it a 20-year extension to operate. The judge, J. Garvan Murtha in Brattleboro, Vt., had ruled that the federal government controlled the plant's fate as it relates to safety issues. Vermont so far has refused to license the plant after a state permit expired last March. Frederick insisted that the state had important non-safety reasons for seeking a fresh evaluation of the plant, including the "substantial costs" that would be incurred by taxpayers if the plant was decommissioned. Murtha had cited comments about safety that were made by legislators to show the state was primarily concerned with plant safety issues, which he found are solely the responsibility of federal regulators. |
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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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