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South African appeals court nears Pistorius ruling
Lawyer Blogs |
2015/11/30 07:03
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An official says a top South African appeals court is finalizing a decision on whether to send Oscar Pistorius back to prison by overturning a lower court's manslaughter conviction and finding the double-amputee Olympian guilty of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Paul Myburgh, registrar of the Supreme Court of Appeal, told The Associated Press on Monday that no date for the ruling has been announced.
Eyewitness News, a South African media outlet, says a ruling is expected this week. It cites unnamed court officials.
Pistorius, 29, was released from jail on Oct. 19 after serving a year in prison and is under house arrest.
Prosecutors say Pistorius shot Steenkamp during an argument on Valentine's Day 2013. The defense says Pistorius killed Steenkamp by mistake, thinking an intruder was in his house.
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Perry's indictment in hands of top Texas criminal court
Headline News |
2015/11/20 06:18
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Attorneys for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged the state's highest criminal court Wednesday to dismiss felony abuse-of-power charges that the Republican blames in part for foiling his short-lived 2016 presidential run.
After two hours of arguments, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave no timetable for ruling whether Perry should face trial in the case that has dragged on since August 2014 — about five times longer than his second unsuccessful White House bid.
Perry didn't attend the crowded hearing in a courtroom behind his old Texas Capitol office, but his high-powered lawyers told judges that enough was enough.
"The danger of allowing a prosecutor to do this is mind-boggling," Perry attorney David Botsford said.
Perry is accused of misusing his power in 2013 when he vetoed funding for local prosecutors after Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, an elected Democrat, refused calls to resign following a drunken driving arrest. He was indicted a year later by a grand jury in liberal Austin and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Perry has denounced the charges as a partisan attack. But in a lively back-and-forth with an eight-judge panel, all but one of whom is an elected Republican, Perry's legal team didn't raise claims of political retribution and instead framed the veto as a rightful constitutional power.
Special prosecutors say that's for a trial to determine — and not for the court to settle now. Judges met that with a tone of skepticism, with Republican Judge Kevin Yeary pressing at one point whether going through with a trial would be "wasting everyone's time."
Perry was originally indicted on two counts, but a lower court has already thrown out the other charge of coercion of a public servant. Prosecutors are asking the court to not only order a trial on the remaining charge but also reinstate the other one.
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State Supreme Court suspends Hawaii telescope permit
Top Legal News |
2015/11/18 16:21
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The Hawaii Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily suspended a permit that allows a giant telescope to be built on a mountain many Native Hawaiians consider sacred.
The court granted telescope opponents' request for an emergency stay of the effectiveness of the permit until Dec. 2, or until another court order.
The ruling was issued as protesters were gathering on Mauna Kea in anticipation of blocking telescope work from resuming. Work has been stalled since April amid protests.
"Mahalo ke akua," Kealoha Pisciotta, a longtime telescope opponent and one of the plaintiffs challenging the permit, repeated several times after hearing about the ruling. "Thank God."
Telescope officials announced last week a crew would return to the site this month to do vehicle maintenance work but they wouldn't specify a date.
A representative for the project said that TMT will respect the court's decision and stand down until Dec. 2.
"The Supreme Court's decision will give all parties involved in the appeal sufficient time to respond to the motion," TMT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said in a statement late Tuesday night.
Gov. David Ige said he will be conferring with the attorney general and the Department of Land and Natural Resources to determine the state's next steps.
"They cannot legally do any work on Mauna Kea," said Richard Naiwieha Wurdeman, the plaintiffs' attorney who filed the emergency request late Monday after hearing news reports that telescope crews would be going to the mountain on Wednesday.
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Rick Perry indictment goes before Texas' top criminal court
Court Center |
2015/11/18 16:20
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Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants the state's highest criminal court to dismiss felony charges against him that the Republican has partly blamed for his failed 2016 presidential bid.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will hear arguments Wednesday about whether Perry should stand trial on charges of abusing his power while still governor. He's called the case a politically motivated attack that dampened his short-lived run for the White House.
A grand jury indicted Perry last year for making good on a threat to veto local funds after the Travis County district attorney refused to resign following a drunken-driving conviction.
Perry was originally indicted on two felony counts, but a lower court has already thrown out one of the charges. The court is not expected to rule immediately.
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NC court upholds teacher's molestation convictions
Headline News |
2015/11/18 16:20
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The North Carolina Court of Appeals has upheld last year's conviction of a former school teacher for molesting students repeatedly in the 1970s and 1980s.
The three-judge panel on Tuesday found no error in the trial of John Thomas Patterson of Mooresville. Patterson, who once worked at the former Mount Mourne Elementary School in Iredell County, is now serving life in prison.
Patterson had been a fourth-grade teacher at the school and resigned in the mid-1980s after the molestation accusations surfaced. Charges weren't filed until former students came forward at least 15 years later. About a dozen former students, now adults, ultimately testified at the trial.
The unanimous opinion rejected Patterson's appeal challenging both the jury instructions and the trial judge's refusal to dismiss the charges after evidence was presented.
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Snowboarders fight ban at Utah resort in appeals court
Top Legal News |
2015/11/17 16:22
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A group of snowboarders who argue a ban on their sport at Utah's Alta Ski Area amounts to discrimination are set to present their case Tuesday to a federal appeals court in Denver.
The lawsuit, filed in early 2014, brought renewed attention to the long-festering culture clash on the slopes between skiers and snowboarders.
Alta lawyers have defended the ban, saying resort officials made a business decision to lure skiers to the private resort east of Salt Lake City with the promise of a snowboarder-free experience, and it's well within its rights to keep snowboards off the slopes.
The U.S. Forest Service, which approves a permit for Alta, has backed the ski area in the court battle.
The four snowboarders and their attorneys have countered that Alta doesn't have the right to keep snowboarders off public land designated by Congress for skiing and other sports. They point to 119 other ski resorts that operate on public land that allow snowboarding.
They take issue with Alta's claim that skiers find the slopes safer because they don't have to worry about being hit by snowboarders whose sideways stance leaves them with a blind spot. Alta's ban is irrational and based on stereotypes of snowboarders. |
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Kansas court's approval of death sentence not seen as shift
Legal Watch |
2015/11/13 16:22
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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.
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