|
|
|
Court rules against militant formerly known as H. Rap Brown
Criminal Law |
2019/08/01 11:45
|
A prosecutor violated the constitutional rights of the 1960s black militant formerly known as H. Rap Brown during his trial for the killing of a sheriff's deputy, but it's unlikely that substantially affected the verdict, a federal appeals court found.
The finding came Wednesday in the case of the man now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who gained prominence more than 50 years ago as a Black Panthers leader who famously said, "Violence is as American as cherry pie." He later converted to Islam, changed his name and was living in Atlanta as an imam in March 2000 when authorities say he shot two sheriff's deputies, killing one.
Al-Amin alleges that a prosecutor at his trial violated his constitutional rights and the court failed to take adequate steps to fix that violation. A federal judge rejected his challenge and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling.
In 2002, Al-Amin, 75, was convicted of murdering Fulton County sheriff's Deputy Ricky Kinchen and wounding Kinchen's partner, Deputy Aldranon English. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Al-Amin's lawyers argued a prosecutor violated his right not to testify by directly questioning him during closing arguments in a sort of mock cross-examination. They also said the trial judge should have let his lawyers question an FBI agent who was present at his arrest about another incident involving the agent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Arizona asks for US Supreme Court involvement in opioid case
Court Watch |
2019/08/01 11:45
|
Arizona’s attorney general on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to force the Sackler family, which owns OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma, to return billions of dollars they took out of the company.
The court filing marks the first time the high court has been asked to weigh in directly on the nation’s opioid crisis.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said the filing is meant to ensure that Purdue has enough money to pay any future judgments or settlements. Nearly all other opioid-related cases brought by states, including a separate one filed last year by Arizona, are in state courts.
“We need to do everything we can to stop the opioid manufacturers from profiting from this crisis,” Brnovich said in an interview. “They have siphoned off billions of dollars from the company, and I want to make sure that any money will end up with states and victims of the crisis — not in an account in the Cayman Islands or a Swiss bank.”
A spokesman for the Sackler family said they deny the allegations in the claim. Brandon Messina said Arizona’s claims are “inconsistent with the factual record.”
The filing is the latest maneuver from a state seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for a crisis that costs more American lives each year than vehicle crashes.
“It’s a power play,” Abbe Gluck, a law professor at Yale Law School, said of Arizona’s filing with the Supreme Court.
She said a ruling by the high court on the opioid issue, although a longshot, would have national impact.
Attorney Travis Lenkner, managing partner at a Chicago law firm representing Arizona in the Supreme Court case, said there were concerns that Sackler family members were sending some of the money abroad. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Democratic governor getting to shape Kansas' top court
Biotech |
2019/07/28 20:54
|
The Kansas Supreme Court's chief justice plans to retire before the end of the year, allowing first-year Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to leave a bigger mark on the state's highest court than her conservative Republican predecessors.
Chief Justice Lawton Nuss announced Friday that he would step down Dec. 17 after serving on the court since 2002 and as chief justice since 2010. During Nuss' tenure as chief justice, GOP conservatives increasingly criticized the court as too liberal and too activist for the state over rulings on abortion, capital punishment and public school funding.
His announcement came a little more than two weeks after Justice Lee Johnson, another target of criticism on the right, announced plans to retire in September. That means Kelly will have two appointments to the seven-member court since she took office in January when conservative GOP Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer had only one appointee between them during the previous eight years.
Both justices voted repeatedly to direct legislators to increase education funding in recent years and were part of the 6-1 majority that declared in April that the state constitution protects access to abortion as a "fundamental" right. They also voted to overturn death sentences in capital murder cases, though Nuss concluded that the death penalty law itself is constitutional. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cyprus police frees 5 Israelis, 7 held in hotel rape probe
Bankruptcy |
2019/07/26 20:56
|
A Cyprus court on Friday extended the detention of seven of the 12 Israeli teenagers initially arrested as suspects in the rape of a 19-year-old British woman.
The court ordered the suspects to remain in police custody for another six days to give investigators time to finish looking into the woman’s reported rape at a hotel in the resort town of Ayia Napa.
Defense lawyer Nir Yaslovitzh says five other suspects were released from custody on Thursday and have returned to Israel.
Lawyer Yiannis Habaris told The Associated Press that police investigators confirmed that the five released Israelis had no connection with the case. Habaris represents four suspects, two of whom were among those who were released.
Habaris said investigators connected the seven remaining suspects to the case through witness statements as well as DNA evidence which link three of the seven to the alleged victim.
The Cypriot lawyer said the suspects offered investigators certain “explanations” into their whereabouts at the time of the alleged crime.
The court heard that the alleged victim was involved in a relationship with one of the seven suspects and had sexual contact with several of the remaining six over the course of a few days, Habaris said.
Habaris said investigators may decide to take the case to trial before a criminal court if any of the seven suspects aren’t released in the coming days.
Yaslovitzh, an Israeli lawyer who represents three of the 12 Israelis, alleged the release of the five damaged the accuser’s credibility because she told police a dozen individuals sexually assaulted her.
Yaslovitzh also urged Cypriot investigators to look into the woman’s actions at the hotel where the alleged crime occurred and where she was also working.
The seven suspects again covered their faces with their shirts as they entered and exited the courthouse. They face charges of rape and conspiracy to commit rape.
Yaslovitzh had said after the initial custody hearing that all 12 Israelis had come on holidays to Cyprus in three separate groups and didn’t know each other. Some had gone on vacation prior to being inducted into the Israeli army.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court: Trump can use Pentagon funds for border wall
Law Center |
2019/07/24 20:57
|
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.
The court’s five conservative justices gave the administration the green light on Friday to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit over the money proceeded. The court’s four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start.
The justices’ decision to lift the freeze on the money allows President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”
The Supreme Court’s action reverses the decision of a trial court, which initially froze the funds in May, and an appeals court, which kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing.
The case the Supreme Court ruled in began after the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December of last year. Trump ended the shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding. But the amount was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking, and Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.
The money Trump identified includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion in Defense Department money and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Records detail frenetic effort to bury stories about Trump
Current Cases |
2019/07/21 14:32
|
Court records released Thursday show that President Donald Trump took part in a flurry of phone calls in the weeks before the 2016 election as his close aides and allies scrambled to pay porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair.
The investigation involved payments Michael Cohen helped orchestrate to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal after they claimed they had affairs with Trump. (Source: MSNBC / YouTube via MGN)
The documents detailing calls and text messages were made public as federal prosecutors closed their investigation into the payoff ? and a similar payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal ? with no plans to charge anyone in the scandal beyond Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.
Federal prosecutors in New York said in a court filing that they investigated whether other people gave false statements or otherwise obstructed justice. In the end, the decision was made not to bring additional charges, according to two people briefed on the matter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Trump asks Supreme Court to unfreeze border wall money
Breaking Legal News |
2019/07/20 14:32
|
The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to lift a freeze on Pentagon money it wants to use to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.
Two lower courts have ruled against the administration in a lawsuit over the funding. Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco kept in place a lower court ruling preventing the government from tapping Defense Department counterdrug money to build high-priority sections of wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico.
At stake in the case is billions of dollars that would allow Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump ended a 35-day government shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding, far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking. Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.
The money includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counterdrug activities and $600 million from the Treasury Department's asset forfeiture fund. The Treasury Department funds have so far survived legal challenges, and the transfer of the military construction funds has not yet been approved.
At issue in the case before the Supreme Court is just the $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds, which the administration says will be used to construct more than 100 miles of fencing. The lawsuit challenging the use of those funds was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition. Late Friday, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan gave the groups until the afternoon of July 19 to respond in writing to the Trump administration's filing. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
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. |
Law Firm Directory
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
