|
|
|
Court: Violence law unfair to gay South Carolina couples
Court Center |
2017/07/29 14:05
|
People in same-sex relationships in South Carolina should get the same legal protections against domestic violence as heterosexual couples, the state's highest court ruled Wednesday, deeming a portion of the state's domestic violence law unconstitutional.
The court was asked to weigh in after a woman tried to get a protective order against her former fiancée, also a woman, and was denied.
Current law defines "household members" as a spouse, former spouse, people with a child in common, or men and women who are or have lived together. It does not include unmarried same-sex couples.
Acting Justice Costa Pleicones, who wrote the majority opinion, said during oral arguments in March 2016 that he felt the law was "pretty clearly unconstitutional in its discriminatory impact upon same-sex couples."
In his opinion, Pleicones pointed out lawmakers have over the years addressed the definition of "household members" as covered under domestic violence protections in 1994, amending the language from "persons" living together to "male and female." In 2015, during a massive overhaul of South Carolina's criminal domestic violence law, legislators made changes including increasing penalties for offenders but left the gender-based definition intact.
The U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, the court wrote, states, "No state shall ... deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," such as a benefit offered to one class of person but not others.
"In this case, we cannot find a reasonable basis for providing protection to one set of domestic violence victims - unmarried, cohabiting or formerly cohabiting, opposite-sex couples - while denying it to others," the court wrote.
Other states have addressed this issue since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide. The Ohio Supreme Court in 2016 adopted the use of gender-neutral references in family court cases. California and Massachusetts proactively changed language in their laws. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Texas Executes TaiChin Preyor, Who Said Lawyer Used Wikipedia
Court Center |
2017/07/27 14:06
|
The state of Texas executed TaiChin Preyor on Thursday night after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a last-minute appeal.
Preyor, 46, was put to death by lethal injection at a state corrections unit in Huntsville in the fatal stabbing of Jami Tackett during a drug-related robbery in 2004, The Associated Press reported. He claimed he acted in self-defense but was convicted of capital murder.
Preyor had argued that a previous attorney collaborated with a disbarred lawyer, relied on Wikipedia and double-billed his family and the court.
The attorney who handled Preyor's initial appeal was a real-estate specialist from Beverly Hills, Calif., who partnered with a man who had been disbarred for incompetence 15 years earlier — without informing the court, Preyor said in his latest motions.
"The federal habeas petition the duo filed in the District Court was so facially inadequate that it subsequently became its own ironic meme, circulated among habeas attorneys as an example of what not to do," Preyor's eleventh-hour appeal argued.
The California attorney had never appeared in a case in Texas state court, and a 2014 printout in her files showed that she did not do research about the death penalty in Texas until it was too late.
"It appears she relied on Wikpedia, of all things, to learn the complex ins and outs of Texas capital-punishment law," the motion reads.
"Her files included a copy of the Wikipedia page titled, 'Capital punishment in Texas,' with a post-it note stating 'Research' next to highlighted passages of 'habeas corpus appeals' and 'subsequent or successive writ applications.'"
Preyor's mother paid the duo $45,000 for their services, but the lawyer also billed the court for representing Preyor, the motion said.
"Preyor cannot be bound by the acts of two incompetent charlatans," the new lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court petition. The previous attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
In its response to Preyor's appeal, the state said the inmate failed to show that what his ex-lawyer did "amounts to fraud on the court." The state also said Preyor had waited too long to make his claim, which was filed two weeks before his execution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vietnamese activist sentenced to 9 years in prison
Court Center |
2017/07/25 16:50
|
A Vietnamese court on Tuesday sentenced an activist to nine years in prison on charges of producing videos that defamed the country’s leadership, in the latest crackdown on dissent.
Tran Thi Nga was convicted of spreading propaganda against the state in the one-day trial at the People’s Court in Ha Nam province in northern Vietnam, her lawyer said.
Nga, 40, campaigned against environmental pollution, police brutality and illegal land confiscation, and called for a tougher stance toward China’s assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The court also imposed five years of house arrest following her prison term, lawyer Ha Huy Son said.
“I think this is an unjust verdict,” Son said. “She did not commit the crime for which she was convicted by the court.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Indiana's newest Supreme Court justice joins high court
Legal Watch |
2017/07/25 16:50
|
Former Wabash County Superior Court Judge Christopher Goff was sworn in Monday as Indiana's newest state Supreme Court justice, joining a high court that's been completely remade since 2010 following a series of retirements.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush administered the oath of office for Goff during the swearing-in at the court's Statehouse offices.
Goff, 45, is now the court's youngest member. He succeeds Justice Robert Rucker, who retired in May after 18 years on the court. Rucker retired five years before reaching the court's mandatory retirement age of 75. In 1999, he became only Indiana's second black justice when Democratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon named him to the high court.
All five justices are now white and all have been appointed since 2010 by Republican governors to replace justices who retired.
Goff joins Rush and justices Steven David, Mark Massa and Geoffrey Slaughter on the court.
Gov. Eric Holcomb will preside over a ceremonial oath and public robing ceremony on Sept. 1 for Goff, who is expected to hear his first oral arguments with the court on Sept. 7.
Holcomb chose Goff in June to fill the court's vacancy from among three finalists selected by Indiana's Judicial Nominating Commission.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Driver due in court after deaths of migrants in tractor-trailer
Court Center |
2017/07/24 23:51
|
The driver of a tractor-trailer turned deadly transporter for undocumented migrants is due to face criminal charges in a Texas court Monday in what police are calling a human trafficking crime.
Authorities called to the San Antonio Walmart lot Sunday morning where the trailer was parked found eight bodies and 30 undocumented immigrants severely injured from overheating inside. A ninth person later died in hospital, ICE officials said. Thirty-nine people were recovered from the trailer, including one person who was found in a nearby wooded area.
"Checking the video from the store, we found there were a number of vehicles that came in and picked up a lot of the folks that were in that trailer that survived the trip," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said.
"The driver and whoever else we find is involved in this will be facing state and federal charges," he said.
The US Attorney's Office said the driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was being held in connection with the incident. Prosecutors plan to file a criminal complaint against Bradley in federal court on Monday morning.
"These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters," said Richard L. Durbin Jr., US attorney for the Western District of Texas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
New Mexico women plead not guilty in federal fraud case
Legal Watch |
2017/07/22 19:54
|
The founders of a New Mexico guardianship firm have pleaded not guilty to federal charges that they embezzled millions of dollars from the trust accounts of their clients as part of a decade-long scheme.
Susan Harris and Sharon Moore entered their pleas Thursday in federal court in Albuquerque. They posted the equity in their homes as bond and their conditions of release include supervision pending trial.
A 28-count indictment against the women and their company — Ayudando Guardians, Inc. — includes conspiracy, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering charges.
Federal authorities have taken over the company and have set up a special website and phone number for Ayudando clients who need information about their accounts.
Prosecutors say hundreds of clients, including disabled veterans and people with special needs, relied on Ayudando to manage their finances.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ohio sheriff's deputy pleads not guilty to rape, kidnapping
Court Center |
2017/07/22 19:54
|
An Ohio sheriff's deputy has pleaded not guilty to charges for allegedly raping a 26-year-old woman inside his county-issued cruiser.
Summit County deputy Antonio Williamson entered pleas Friday during an arraignment in the county court in Akron. He was indicted Thursday on rape, kidnapping, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition charges.
His attorney declined to comment after the hearing. A judge set a $100,000 bond.
The 46-year-old Williamson supervised the sheriff's office crime scene unit. He surrendered to authorities Thursday.
Prosecutors say the sexual assault occurred outside an Akron gentlemen's club in March. A county prosecutor's spokesman has said Williamson was in uniform and was leaving an off-duty security job prior to the assault. The spokesman says Williamson didn't know the woman previously.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
