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High court sides with state in DNA case
Top Legal News |
2012/06/18 20:09
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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The court's 5-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions that bolstered the right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.
Justice Clarence Thomas provided the margin of difference in the case to uphold the conviction of Sandy Williams, even though Thomas has more often sided with defendants on the issue of cross-examination of witnesses.
The case grew out of a DNA expert's testimony that helped convict Williams of rape. The expert testified that Williams' DNA matched a sample taken from the victim, but the expert played no role in the tests that extracted genetic evidence from the victim's sample.
And no one from the company that performed the analysis showed up at the trial to defend it.
The court has previously ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports used at trial. |
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Massive LA County court layoffs to begin Friday
Court Center |
2012/06/15 18:28
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Squeezed by state budgets cutbacks, the Los Angeles County court system is launching massive job layoffs, pay cuts and transfers, court officials said Thursday.
Cutbacks that will be implemented Friday will affect 431 court employees and 56 courtrooms throughout the nation's largest superior court system.
Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon bemoaned the loss of longtime employees as well as the impact on public services.
"We are laying off people who are committed to serving the public," she said. "It is a terrible loss both to these dedicated employees and to the public."
The union representing state and municipal employees called Friday's action a "freeze on justice in Los Angeles" and warned that the county would experience "an end to timely justice" with cases being delayed for years, particularly in civil courts.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — AFSCME — planned to have representatives on hand to assist employees who will not know they are losing their jobs until they are informed individually Friday.
A spokeswoman for the California Judicial Council said other courts in the state will also be impacted by the budget cuts but will handle them individually. Los Angeles' court system, as the largest, will be the most heavily affected.
Edmon said the drastic actions are the result of a state mandate to reduce annual spending by $30 million. She noted that earlier reductions already saved $70 million, but more cuts in state support for trial courts are scheduled for the next fiscal year. |
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Del. court hears pedophile ex-pediatrician appeal
Legal Watch |
2012/06/14 17:32
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A lawyer for a former pediatrician serving a life sentence for sexually abusing scores of young patients appealed Wednesday to the Delaware Supreme Court, arguing that a search warrant didn't allow police to seize a flash drive containing videotaped sex crimes against children.
Earl Bradley, 59, was sentenced last year to 14 life sentences without parole for 14 counts of first-degree rape. He also was sentenced to more than 160 years in prison for multiple counts of assault and sexual exploitation of a child in a case that shook this small state.
Bradley was convicted by a judge who viewed more than 13 hours of videos showing sex crimes against more than 80 victims, most of them toddlers. The videos were seized by police who executed a search warrant in 2009 at his Lewes office complex, which was decorated with Disney themes and miniature amusement park rides.
Bradley had waived his right to a jury trial after the trial judge denied a defense motion to suppress the video evidence because it had been illegally seized.
Defense attorneys argued Wednesday that Bradley's convictions should be reversed because the warrant did not allow police to search an outbuilding in which a computer flash drive containing the videos was found. They also said the warrant didn't allow authorities to seize the flash drive. |
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Ariz. gov. orders training ahead of court decision
Legal Watch |
2012/06/13 22:51
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Arizona's governor on Tuesday ordered a state board to redistribute a training video on the state's controversial immigration law to all law enforcement agencies.
The move comes ahead of an expected ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court this month on the law, which was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010.
Brewer said in a statement Tuesday that she wants to make sure officers are prepared if the court upholds the law.
Parts of the law blocked from taking effect include a provision requiring police to question people's immigration status while enforcing other laws if there's a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board's video outlines factors that constitute reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally, including language, demeanor and foreign-vehicle registration. |
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NY court limits disclosure in old communist probe
Headline News |
2012/06/09 07:17
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New York's top court on Tuesday ordered the release of more names and records to a writer whose parents were targeted by anti-communist investigators in the New York City school system 57 years ago.
The Court of Appeals, however, is still excluding informants who were promised confidentiality. The seven judges unanimously said history may at some point overtake those promises and more completely peel back the veil of secrecy from that chapter in America's Red Scare.
"The story of the Anti-Communist Investigations, like any other that is a significant part of our past, should be told as fully and as accurately as possible, and historians are better equipped to do so when they can work from uncensored records," Judge Robert Smith wrote. "Perhaps there will be a time when the promise made ... is so ancient that its enforcement would be pointless, but that time is not yet."
Lisa Harbatkin's parents were among more than 1,100 teachers investigated from the 1930s to the 1960s. She has seen interview transcripts with names and personal information blacked out and is seeking complete documents under New York's Freedom of Information Law.
City officials opposed complete disclosure for privacy reasons, offering redacted documents unless those in question or their legal heirs agreed to disclosure. As an alternative, they offered Harbatkin complete accounts if she agreed not to publish the names, a condition she rejected. |
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Court denies Loughner's request for rehearing
Attorneys News |
2012/06/09 07:16
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An appeals court rejected a request by lawyers for the man accused of shooting former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to rehear their arguments over their mentally ill client's forced medication with psychotropic drugs.
Attorneys for Jared Lee Loughner had asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing after the court in March denied their request to halt their client's forced medication.
The court on Tuesday denied the request to hear the appeal again.
Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges stemming from the January 2011 shooting in Tucson that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others.
The trial court judge on the case has set a June 27 hearing in Tucson to consider whether Loughner is mentally fit to stand trial. |
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Powerbroker tied to Nevada Sen. Reid goes to court
Top Legal News |
2012/06/09 07:16
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A former developer and lobbyist with long ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Nevada's political elite turned himself in to federal authorities Thursday after being indicted on criminal charges involving federal campaign contributions.
Harvey Whittemore planned to plead not guilty later in the day before a federal magistrate in Reno, his lawyer, John Arrascada, told The Associated Press.
Whittemore, 55, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on four counts related to campaign contributions made in 2007 to an unnamed elected federal official.
Once a kingpin in state political circles, Whittemore made campaign contributions to numerous politicians including Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley. But records show only Reid received donations of more than $100,000 on a single day in 2007. |
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