|
|
|
2 charged in pastor's wife killing say little in court
Court Watch |
2015/11/28 22:18
|
Two young men charged in the shooting death of an Indianapolis pastor's pregnant wife gave brief answers to a judge's questions Tuesday during their first court appearance since their arrest.
Marion County Superior Court Judge Grant Hawkins entered not guilty pleas for 18-year-old Larry Taylor Jr. and 21-year-old Jalen Watson and appointed attorneys for the Indianapolis men during their initial hearing on murder, burglary, theft and several other charges. The judge also set a Jan. 8 pretrial conference for both men.
Taylor, who authorities allege fatally shot 28-year-old Amanda Blackburn earlier this month, appeared distracted, swiveling back and forth in his chair. Hawkins told Taylor more than once that he needed to respond clearly and audibly to each of his questions about whether he understood the charges, rather than only "yeah." Watson, however, said "yes" and "yes sir," throughout.
Prosecutors said Taylor and Watson entered through the unlocked front door of Blackburn's home shortly after her husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn, left for the gym about 6 a.m. Nov. 10. A probable cause affidavit says Taylor shot Amanda Blackburn three times, including once in the back of the head.
Watson faces a murder charge because Blackburn was killed during a home burglary and prosecutors allege that he was involved in it.
Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said Monday it was not clear whether Blackburn, who was 13 weeks pregnant, had been sexually assaulted; she was found partially nude. Prosecutors have filed a request with the court that seeks to enhance the murder charge Taylor faces, citing that she was pregnant at the time of her killing.
Under the state's request, an additional six to 20 years could be added to Taylor's sentence if he is convicted or pleads guilty to the murder charge, and the jury or judge finds that prosecutors have proven that Taylor caused the termination of her pregnancy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kansas court's approval of death sentence not seen as shift
Court Watch |
2015/11/16 15:15
|
Even though the state Supreme Court recently upheld a death sentence for the first time under the state’s 1994 capital punishment law, Kansas isn’t likely to see executions anytime soon or a shift in how the justices handle capital murder cases.
“Symbolically, there is something different,” said Robert Dunham, head of the anti-capital punishment, nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. “But I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
Several prosecutors are encouraged by this month’s decision in the case of John E. Robinson Sr. ? who was sentenced to die for killing two women in 1999 and 2000 and tied by evidence or his own admission to six other deaths, including a teenage girl, in Kansas and Missouri ? saying it showed it is possible to preserve a death sentence on appeal in Kansas.
Two Kansas law professors said the 415-page decision in John E. Robinson’s case issued earlier this month suggests the Supreme Court’s examination of future capital cases will remain as thorough as it has been.
The high court’s past decisions overturning death sentences inspired a campaign that almost succeeded in ousting two justices in last year’s elections and handed republican Gov. Sam Brownback a potent issue in the final weeks of his race for re-election. And there are more capital cases before the justices.
Only four days after the Robinson decision, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., an avowed anti-Semite, was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of three people at Jewish sites in the Kansas City suburbs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kansas Supreme Court to take up school funding case
Court Watch |
2015/11/06 14:31
|
A case that has the potential to increase funding for Kansas schools goes before the state Supreme Court today, the same day that economists, legislative researchers and officials in Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration are expected to announce new, more pessimistic revenue projections.
Four districts that are suing the state have asked justices to lift a stay on a lower court ruling and release state funds to public school districts. A three-judge Shawnee County District Court panel found in June that the state’s newly enacted strategy for financing 286 school districts and cuts to state aid for low-income school districts were unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court approved Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s request for a stay on the order while he pursued an appeal. The state argues in court filings that “doomsday predictions” about students and the state suffering because of how schools are being funded “have proven to be pure hyperbole.”
Education, from K-12 through the collegiate level, is the state’s largest expenditure, accounting for 62 percent of its budget. Any increase in education spending has the potential to create budget havoc when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
Since the current fiscal year began in July, tax collections have fallen about 4.1 percent short of expectations, at $1.8 billion. The state has struggled to balance its budget since Republican legislators slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging, in an effort to stimulate the economy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mississippi Supreme Court narrowly grants same-sex divorce
Court Watch |
2015/11/04 14:30
|
The Mississippi Supreme Court voted to allow a lesbian couple to seek a divorce, even as two justices questioned the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage and suggested that landmark ruling has no constitutional basis.
The decision Thursday came after DeSoto County Chancery Judge Mitchell Lundy Jr. ruled in 2013 that the Mississippi Constitution and state law prevented him from granting a divorce to Lauren Czekala-Chatham and Dana Ann Melancon because the state didn't recognize same-sex marriage.
Czekala-Chatham appealed, and it was initially opposed by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat. However, Hood asked the court to allow the divorce after the June 26 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Friday, same-sex couples will be in federal court seeking to overturn Mississippi's last-in-the-nation ban on adoption by gay couples.
In the Mississippi court's divorce ruling, five of nine justices said in a two-page order that because Hood had reversed his position, "we find no contested issues remain" and sent the case back to DeSoto County for further action.
Justices Leslie King and James Kitchens agreed with the outcome, but dissented, calling for the court to issue a full opinion. King and Kitchens called for Mississippi to overturn its ban on same-sex marriage and grant the divorce in February.
Czekala-Chatham and Melancon were married in San Francisco in 2008 and bought a house in Mississippi before separating in 2010. Czekala-Chatham said she hopes to soon be divorced from her wife, who now lives in Arkansas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
High court rejects ex-stockbroker's appeal in fraud case
Court Watch |
2015/11/01 21:59
|
The Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a former Toronto stockbroker convicted in a multimillion-dollar securities fraud who says federal prosecutors should have turned over documents that might have helped his defense.
The justices Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said prosecutors didn't have to share information about the drug use of a key witness against George Georgiou. The lower court sided with prosecutors who said defense lawyers could have discovered the publicly available records on their own.
Georgiou's lawyers said prosecutors had a duty to disclose the information if they were aware of it. Several former Justice Department officials backed his claim and urged the court to take the case.
Georgiou was convicted on charges of manipulating markets of four stocks, causing $55 million in losses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chinese woman pleads guilty in college test-taking scheme
Court Watch |
2015/10/30 21:59
|
A Chinese woman pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to have two other women take college admissions examinations in her place to help her get accepted to Virginia Tech.
Yue Zou acknowledged having her boyfriend contact a China-based test-taking service.
After that happened, Zou, of Blacksburg, Virginia, supplied her passport information through an online network known as QQ Chat, which enabled people in China to create in her name phony passports that were shipped to her in the United States.
On the passports were the photos of two other Chinese women, who took tests in the Pittsburgh area while pretending to be her.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy Kitchen told the judge that Zou forwarded results from the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, to Virginia Tech in November 2013 and results of a Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, taken by another Chinese impostor in March 2014.
Zou, from Hegang, a city in the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, paid an unspecified sum for the TOEFL and $2,000 for the SAT, Kitchen told a judge in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.
Zou, 21, faces up to five years in prison when she's sentenced in February. She could also be deported, though that will be handled by federal immigration officials in a separate proceeding.
Federal authorities haven't explained how they learned of the scheme.
Zou's attorney, Lyle Dresbold, told the judge that Zou will remain confined to her Blacksburg apartment with an electronic monitoring bracelet until she's sentenced. He told the judge she's still enrolled at Virginia Tech.
University spokesman Mark Owczarski said he could not comment on her status. But he said students found to have submitted work that is not their own to gain admission would face a range of possible sanctions, including expulsion, under the university's honor code.
Zou's TOEFL test was taken by Yunlin Sun, 24, of Berlin, Somerset County. She pleaded guilty in August and faces sentencing in December. Prosecutors say Ning Wei, from Taiyuan, in the Chinese province of Shanxi, took Zou's SAT. She hasn't been arrested, and prosecutors say they believe she returned to China.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Therapy dog didn't sway jury against sex offender
Court Watch |
2015/10/28 21:58
|
A therapy dog used to calm a testifying young victim did not influence the jury during the trial of an Ohio man who was convicted of having sex with a minor and providing drugs to another, an appeals court ruled.
The Akron Beacon Journal reports the ruling on Michael Jacobs' complaint to the 9th District Court of Appeals is considered important in Ohio because it was the first time a state appellate court heard a case challenging the use of therapy dogs during trial.
Jacobs was convicted in 2014 of having sex with a minor and providing drugs to another. He's serving a four-year prison sentence.
He argued that the Labrador-golden retriever mix brought in by county prosecutors, named Avery II, was a distraction in the Summit County courtroom.
Prosecutors contended that the dog was out of the view of jurors as it sat by the child's feet.
The court ruled that judges are permitted to allow "a variety of special allowances" for young victims of sexual abuse who testify during a trial, including therapy dogs.
"One of my main objectives as Summit County prosecutor is to fight for the rights of victims, especially children. Avery plays a vital role in how my office focuses on the needs of crime victims," prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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
