|
|
|
Attorney: Court orders release of anti-nuclear activists
Breaking Legal News |
2015/05/16 11:45
|
A federal appeals court has ordered the immediate release of an 85-year-old nun and two fellow Catholic peace activists who vandalized a uranium storage bunker, their attorney said Friday.
The order came after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week overturned the 2013 sabotage convictions of Sister Megan Rice, 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and ordered resentencing on their remaining conviction for injuring government property. The activists have spent two years in prison, and the court said they likely already have served more time than they will receive for the lesser charge.
On Thursday, their attorneys petitioned the court for an emergency release, saying that resentencing would take weeks if normal court procedures were followed. Prosecutors on Friday afternoon responded that they would not oppose the release, if certain conditions were met.
After the close of business on Friday, attorney Bill Quigley said the court had ordered the activists' immediate release. He said he was working to get them out of prison and was hopeful they could be released overnight or on the weekend.
"We would expect the Bureau of Prisons to follow the order of the court and release them as soon as possible," he said.
Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed are part of a loose network of activists opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons. To further their cause, in July 2012, they cut through several fences to reach the most secure area of the Y-12 complex. Before they were arrested, they spent two hours outside a bunker that stores much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium, hanging banners, praying and spray-painting slogans.
In the aftermath of the breach, federal officials implemented sweeping security changes, including a new defense security chief to oversee all of the National Nuclear Security Administration's sites.
Rice was originally sentenced to nearly three years and Walli and Boertje-Obed were each sentenced to just over five years. In overturning the sabotage conviction, the Appeals Court ruled that the trio's actions did not injure national security. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Protesters inside Supreme Court face harsher charges
Breaking Legal News |
2015/04/07 12:23
|
Protesters who demonstrated inside the U.S. Supreme Court are facing the threat of a year in jail and stiff fines, a sign that prosecutors and the justices themselves are losing patience over the courtroom interruptions after the third protest in just over a year.
Five people arrested last week after voicing displeasure with court decisions that removed limits on political campaign contributions now face charges including one that carries a maximum jail term of a year and up to a $100,000 fine — a sharp escalation from the possible penalties sought after two earlier protests.
A leader of the group behind the protests would not rule out future demonstrations, despite what he called an effort to crack down on the courtroom disturbances. "We are not going to be silenced," said Kai Newkirk, whose group 99Rise opposes the influence of big money in elections.
While protests on the sidewalk outside the U.S. Supreme Court are common, until last year demonstrators had rarely broken the decorum of oral arguments inside the courtroom. In February 2014, however, Newkirk was removed from the courtroom after he stood and called on the court to overturn its 2010 Citizens United decision, which freed corporations and labor unions from some limits on campaign spending. It was the first protest to disrupt an argument session in more than seven years. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mexican Supreme Court orders release of man in 1992 murders
Breaking Legal News |
2015/03/20 12:53
|
Mexico's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of a Mexican-American jailed on a homicide conviction since 1992, ruling he had been tortured.
The court's ruling applied to the long-disputed conviction of Alfonso Martin del Campo Dodd in the murder of his sister and brother-in-law. It has been one of Mexico's longest and hardest-fought legal cases.
Lawyers for the dead couple's now-grown daughters criticized Wednesday's ruling, saying it was a blow to victims' rights.
"This is an offense to the victims," said Samuel Gonzalez, a former top anti-drug prosecutor who has helped defend victims' rights. "The victims did not get justice."
The court said police tortured Martin Del Campo Dodd into confessing to the killings, citing administrative proceedings filed against one officer two years after Campo Dodd was arrested. The court said he should be freed "in light of the proof that torture was used to obtain his confession in the two crimes, without there being any other incriminatory evidence."
The Mexican government fought for years to keep Martin Del Campo Dodd in prison despite pressure from abroad to release him. He holds U.S. and Mexican citizenship.
The couple were stabbed to death in their Mexico City home. Martin del Campo Dodd was at the home and said two masked assailants kidnapped him and stuffed him into the trunk of a car, which they later abandoned.
He signed a confession to the killings, but later claimed he did it under torture. He was sentenced to 50 years behind bars for the murder. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court upholds death sentence for Pakistan governor's killer
Breaking Legal News |
2015/03/11 14:39
|
A Pakistani court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of killing a provincial governor he had accused of blasphemy.
But the two-judge panel in Islamabad on Monday threw out the terrorism charges against him.
Mumtaz Qadri, a former police commando, was supposed to be protecting Gov. Salman Taseer in 2011 when he shot and killed him. Qadri's defense was that Taseer opposed Pakistan's so-called "blasphemy laws."
Qadri was convicted and sentenced in 2011.
It is unclear whether Qadri will be put to death as Pakistan has thousands of people on death row but also has a moratorium on carrying out executions. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif partially lifted the moratorium in December, allowing it to be used in terrorism-related cases. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bankrupt Caesars unit gets court's OK to use cash, for now
Breaking Legal News |
2015/03/05 13:33
|
A federal judge in Chicago ruled Wednesday that a bankrupt division of Caesars Entertainment Corp. can tap some of the $847 million in cash it has on hand for at least five weeks.
Judge Benjamin Goldgar said Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. could access its cash in the interim despite objections from some of the company's creditors.
A budget the company submitted to the court indicated it plans to spend $334 million through April 3. The documents showed revenue is expected to offset spending and leave the company with $834 million in cash at the end of five weeks.
Goldgar scheduled a hearing to reconsider the motion on March 26.
Several other motions, including requests for an examiner to investigate the company's pre-bankruptcy transactions, were delayed until March 25.
The company was also seeking to get out from under several contracts that would save it $675,000 a month.
Among the contracts is a suite for Kansas City Chiefs football games, a sponsorship with the New York Mets, an advertising agreement with The Forum in Los Angeles, and deals with a tour bus operator to support its Horseshoe Bossier City casino in Louisiana and a nearby Springhill Suites hotel operator where the company regularly reserved a block of rooms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court sides with Kansas in water dispute
Breaking Legal News |
2015/02/25 09:38
|
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.
The justices also gave Nebraska some of what it asked for and ordered changes to the formula for measuring water consumption. Nebraska argued that the formula was unfair.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing the majority opinion, said the court was adopting the recommendations of the independent expert the justices appointed to help resolve the states' differences.
The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river's water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado. Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.
"Both remedies safeguard the compact; both insist that states live within its law," Kagan wrote.
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's office said it was pleased with the decision. The $5.5 million award is significantly less than the $80 million that Kansas had sought.
"We hope the decision will move the basin states forward and provide continued incentives toward shared solutions to our common problems," the office said in a statement. "We are confident that payment of the court's recommended award will finally allow us to leave the past where it belongs — in the past."
While calling the decision "reasonable," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he looked forward to working with his Kansas and Colorado counterparts to move forward. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
NC Appeals Court says DOT must pay landowners
Breaking Legal News |
2015/02/25 09:36
|
The North Carolina Court of Appeals says the state transportation department must pay some landowners whose property is in the path of a proposed road in Forsyth County.
Multiple media outlets reported that a three-judge panel of the court ruled Tuesday that a lower court was wrong to refuse to hear a lawsuit by 11 landowners who said the state's designation of their land in the proposed road's path hurt their property values.
There is no indication when the road might be built.
The 11 landowners say the state's designation of their property in the path of the planned road limits what they can do with the land.
The state attorney general's office is consulting with transportation officials on the ruling. They could appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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
