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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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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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Campaigns lawyered up for election overtime chance
Court Watch |
2012/11/05 09:41
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Legions of lawyers are ready to enter the fray in case Election Day turns on a legal challenge. One nightmare scenario would be for the results in a battleground state like Florida or Ohio to be too close to call, with thousands of absentee or provisional ballots yet to be counted.
The key, experts say, is whether the difference in votes between the two candidates is within what's known as the "margin of litigation" — that is, the number of outstanding votes must be much greater than the margin separating Obama and Romney when the smoke clears. And, it must be in a state that's decisive.
"You'd have to have a state whose Electoral College votes are absolutely pivotal or there would have to be a massive problem involving voters," said Richard Hasen, law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and founding editor of the Election Law Journal. "There not only have to be problems in an election. They have to be widespread enough or the margin close enough that litigating would actually make a difference."
Legal and campaign officials on both sides say lawyers are poised at both the national level and in the key states to respond immediately if a court challenge is needed. The political parties have gained a lot of experience in legal fights over U.S. Senate and House seats. The last major legal battle over the presidency was the 2000 race, settled by the U.S. Supreme Court favoring George W. Bush over Al Gore. |
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Lawyer for NY man suing Facebook wants out of case
Court Watch |
2012/11/01 09:41
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The latest lawyer to represent a New York man in what authorities now say is a fraudulent lawsuit against Facebook is seeking to withdraw from the case.
Dean Boland, in a motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, did not publicly say why he wants off Paul Ceglia's case, instead providing the reason in a private document to the judge.
The Lakewood, Ohio, lawyer did say, however, it has nothing to do with any belief that Ceglia engaged in fraud.
Given media coverage of the case, Boland wrote, "it is important to emphasize in the strongest terms possible, that the reasons underlying this request, provided to the court for its review, have nothing to do with any belief by the undersigned that plaintiff is engaged in now or has been engaged in during the past, fraud regarding this case."
Boland is among more than a half dozen lawyers and law firms to have signed on and then withdrawn from Ceglia's 2010 lawsuit. Ceglia claims in the suit that he's entitled to half-ownership of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook based on a 2003 contract with founder Mark Zuckerberg when he was still at Harvard.
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Minn. Supreme Court to hear suicides case appeal
Court Watch |
2012/10/20 16:46
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The Minnesota Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a former
nurse convicted of searching out suicidal people in online chat rooms
and encouraging them to commit suicide.
William Melchert-Dinkel of Faribault was convicted in 2011 on two
counts of aiding suicide. The Minnesota Court of Appeals in July
rejected his argument that he was merely practicing free speech.
In an order Tuesday, the state Supreme Court agreed to review the
case. A date for oral arguments has not been set.
Melchert-Dinkel was convicted in the deaths of 32-year-old Mark
Drybrough, of Coventry, England, and 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji, of
Brampton, Ontario, in 2008.
Melchert-Dinkel faces about a year in jail unless his conviction is
overturned. He remains free pending appeal. |
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Justices step back from Pa. court funding dispute
Court Watch |
2012/09/28 16:44
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is declining a request by county governments that the justices force the General Assembly to provide more money for state courts and bring more uniformity to the court system.
The court ruled unanimously on Wednesday against the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania and 10 counties. The decision could end litigation over funding levels and uneven standards across the state that goes back a quarter century.
Chief Justice Ronald Castille's written opinion says there's been progress in recent years and the justices believe that "further enhancements" of the state courts should be a product of cooperation among the three branches of government.
An association spokesman says he's disappointed, while spokesmen for state House and Senate leaders didn't immediately respond to messages.
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