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Texas court tosses criminal case against former Gov. Perry
Legal News |
2016/02/24 22:09
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The felony prosecution of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended Wednesday when the state's highest criminal court dismissed an abuse-of-power indictment that the Republican says hampered his short-lived 2016 presidential bid.
The 6-2 decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is dominated by elected Republican judges, frees Perry from a long-running criminal case that blemished the exit of one of the most powerful Texas governors in history and hung over his second failed run for the White House.
A grand jury in liberal Austin had indicted Perry in 2014 for vetoing funding for a public corruption unit that Republicans have long accused of wielding a partisan ax. The unit worked under Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, an elected Democrat. Perry wanted her to resign after she was convicted of drunken driving.
Perry was accused of using his veto power to threaten a public official and overstepping his authority, but the judges ruled that courts can't undermine the veto power of a governor.
"Come at the king, you best not miss," Republican Judge David Newell wrote in his concurring opinion, quoting a popular line from the HBO series "The Wire."
Perry has been campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz since becoming the first major GOP candidate to drop out of the race last year. He conceded to reporters in Austin on Wednesday that the indictments hurt his candidacy but didn't dwell on the impact, and said he would veto the same funding again if given the chance.
"I've always known the actions I took were not only lawful and legal, they were right," said Perry, who spoke at the headquarters of an influential Texas conservative think tank, which has previously christened its balcony overlooking downtown as the "Gov. Rick Perry Liberty Balcony."
The court said veto power can't be restricted by the courts and the prosecution of a veto "violates separations of powers." A lower appeals court had dismissed the other charge, coercion by a public servant, in July.
Perry had rebuked the charges as a partisan attack from the start, calling it a "political witch hunt," but the dismissal brought accusations of Republican judges doing a favor for a party stalwart. Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group that filed the original criminal complaint that led to the indictment, said Perry was handed a "gift" based on his stature.
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Court to weigh cocaine cases, could alter sentencing in Ohio
Legal News |
2016/02/10 22:55
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Prosecutors across Ohio are concerned that a ruling under review by Ohio's top court could delay and shorten sentences for suspects caught with cocaine and force costly changes upon law enforcement.
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether to uphold an appeals court decision calling into question how prosecutors have handled cocaine cases for years. It all comes eastdown to weight.
A state appeals court in Toledo ruled last year prosecutors should have determined how much pure cocaine a suspect arrested in a drug sting had with him or her instead of sentencing him based on the weight of the entire amount.
The appeals court ruled that Ohio's drug laws say that what matters is the weight of the cocaine only not filler material such as baking soda that's often added by drug dealers to stretch out their supply and increase profits.
Prosecutors along with the state Attorney General's office argue that such a narrow interpretation creates a new distinction for cocaine that isn't applied to any other illegal drugs.
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Supreme Court puts Obama's climate change plan on hold
Legal News |
2016/02/10 22:55
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A divided Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to halt enforcement of President Barack Obama's sweeping plan to address climate change until after legal challenges are resolved.
The surprising move is a blow to the administration and a victory for the coalition of 27 mostly Republican-led states and industry opponents that call the regulations "an unprecedented power grab." By temporarily freezing the rule the high court's order signals that opponents have made a strong argument against the plan. A federal appeals court last month refused to put it on hold.
The court's four liberal justices said they would have denied the request. The plan aims to stave off the worst predicted impacts of climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions at existing power plants by about one-third by 2030. Appellate arguments are set to begin June 2. The compliance period starts in 2022, but states must submit their plans to the Environmental Protection Administration by September or seek an extension.
Many states opposing the plan depend on economic activity tied to such fossil fuels as coal, oil and gas. They argued that power plants will have to spend billions of dollars to begin complying with a rule that may end up being overturned.
Implementation of the rules is considered essential to the United States meeting emissions-reduction targets in a global climate agreement signed in Paris last month. The Obama administration and environmental groups also say the plan will spur new clean-energy jobs.
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Court papers: Witness ID'd man in playground shooting
Legal News |
2015/12/02 07:02
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A witness's statement and photo identification led to the arrest of a man accused in a playground shootout that wounded 17 people, court papers show.
Joseph "Moe" Allen, 32, faces 17 counts of attempted murder in the Nov. 22 gunfight at Bunny Friend Playground after a neighborhood parade. He's being held in lieu of $1.7 million bond on those charges, and without bond on a Texas warrant accusing him of violating probation.
Defense attorney Kevin Boshea did not immediately return a call and email Monday. Allen's mother, Deborah Allen, told NOLA.com ' The Times-Picayune Sunday night that her son was in Texas the night of the gunfight. Calls to her home on Monday got repeated busy signals.
Police are still trying to identify other people involved in the shooting. Allen's arrest was based on a witness who gave the "name and nickname of one of the many shooters ... in this mass shooting," and then identified Allen in a "six-pack photographic lineup" at the local police station, New Orleans police Detective Chad Cockerham said in a sworn statement.
Allen "was observed walking into Bunny Friend Playground and firing a semi-automatic handgun into the crowd," Cockerham said.
Cockerham described hearing a "barrage of gunfire erupt" at Bunny Friend Playground as police headed there to break up an "unauthorized party."
"They were met with chaos and panic of citizens running in numerous directions across the park as well as throughout the surrounding streets," he wrote, adding that "tires ... were spinning and screeching."
For Allen, the Texas warrant was issued Nov. 25, based on the New Orleans allegations, since travel outside of Texas would violate Allen's parole, said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. |
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Chinese woman pleads guilty in college test-taking scheme
Legal News |
2015/11/01 17:49
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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.
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Lawyer tried to keep Somali rape victim in Australia
Legal News |
2015/10/19 22:15
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A lawyer for a pregnant Somalia refugee rape victim said Monday that he wanted to seek a court order keeping her in Australia before the government suddenly flew her to Nauru without providing the abortion she had requested.
The case of the 23-year-old woman, known by the pseudonym Abyan, has amplified criticisms of the government's tough policy of refusing to allow asylum seekers who arrive by boat to settle in Australia under any circumstances.
Asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australian shores are transferred to Australia-run immigration detention camps on the impoverished Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Abyan alleges she became pregnant at a detention camp on Nauru when she was raped in July.
She requested an abortion and the Australian government flew her to Sydney on Sunday last week on a commercial flight from the tiny atoll for the 14-week pregnancy to be terminated. But she was flown the 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) back to Nauru on Friday in a chartered private jet, in what some critics suspect was a hastily arranged bid to beat a potential court order allowing her to stay.
Government officials said she was sent back because she had decided to not proceed with the termination. Abyan said in a statement from Nauru she had not changed her mind, but had been denied an interpreter and counselling.
"I have been very sick," she wrote in a signed statement. "I have never said thate (sic) I did not want a termination."
Lawyer George Newhouse said Monday that he had started preparing an application for a temporary court injunction keeping her in Australia when he discovered Abyan was to be sent back to Nauru. She was gone before he could make the application.
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Arkansas court tosses conviction in woman's meth case
Legal News |
2015/10/10 22:01
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The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a woman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after giving birth to a baby with methamphetamine in his system.
Melissa McCann-Arms, 39, was convicted by a jury in Polk County after she and her son tested positive for meth when she gave birth at a Mena hospital in November 2012. She was convicted of a felony crime called introduction of controlled substance into body of another person.
In January, the Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, ruling that even if the statute doesn't apply to unborn children, McCann-Arms still transferred the drug to her child in the moments between his birth and when hospital staff cut the umbilical cord.
But Arkansas' highest court reversed the conviction and dismissed the case, ruling there is no evidence McCann-Arms directly introduced methamphetamine into her baby's system by causing the child to ingest or inhale it. Likewise, there is no evidence of an ongoing transfer of methamphetamine in McCann-Arms' system after the child was born, the court ruled.
"The jury would thus have been forced to speculate that Arms was 'otherwise introducing' the drug into the child at that point," the ruling states. "When a jury reaches its conclusion by resorting to speculation or conjecture, the verdict is not supported by substantial evidence."
The court also ruled state law does not criminalize the passive bodily processes that result in a mother's use of a drug entering her unborn child's system.
"Our construction of criminal statutes is strict, and we resolve any doubts in favor of the defendant," the decision states. "The courts cannot, through construction of a statute, create a criminal offense that is not in express terms created by the Legislature."
Farah Diaz-Tello, a staff attorney with the New York-based National Advocates for Pregnant Women, had urged the court to reverse McCann-Arms' conviction and said the decision sends a message to state prosecutors about expanding the law beyond what was intended by state lawmakers.
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