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North Carolina shooting victim's family hires lawyer
Court News |
2016/08/13 16:57
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The family of a black North Carolina man shot to death in a neighborhood confrontation in Raleigh has hired the lawyer representing two other black men who were killed by white police officers.
State Rep. Justin Bamberg of South Carolina says he is representing relatives of Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas.
Thomas was killed Aug. 7 when a white man living two doors down from a neighborhood party called police to complain of "hoodlums" and then fired a shotgun from his garage. Chad Cameron Copley is charged with murder.
Bamberg also is representing the family of Alton Sterling. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana, man was killed last month after he scuffled with two police officers outside a convenience store.
Bamberg also represents the family of Walter Scott, an unarmed South Carolina motorist killed by a North Charleston officer last year. Michael Slager faces state and federal charges.
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Appeals court hands loss to New Jersey sports betting effort
Court News |
2016/08/09 20:35
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A federal appeals court has rejected New Jersey's attempt to legalize sports betting, setting aside the state's legal challenge to a federal ban.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling published Tuesday invalidates a law passed by New Jersey in 2014 that would have allowed sports betting at casinos and racetracks.
The four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA sued the state, claiming the expansion of legal sports betting would damage the integrity of their games and lead to game-fixing.
Currently, only Nevada offers betting on individual games. Delaware offers multigame parlay betting in which players must pick several games correctly to win. Hundreds of billions of dollars are bet illegally on sports annually.
The 3rd Circuit wrote Tuesday New Jersey's law violates a 1992 federal law. |
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Courts derail voting limits pushed by GOP in 3 states
Court News |
2016/07/29 23:41
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Courts have dealt setbacks in three states to Republican efforts that critics contend restrict voting rights — blocking a North Carolina law requiring photo identification, loosening a similar measure in Wisconsin and halting strict citizenship requirements in Kansas.
The rulings Friday came as the 2016 election moves into its final phase, with Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton locked in a high-stakes presidential race and control of the U.S. Senate possibly hanging in the balance. North Carolina is one of about a dozen swing states in the presidential race, while Wisconsin has voted Democratic in recent presidential elections and Kansas has been solidly Republican.
The decisions followed a similar blow earlier this month to what critics said was one of the nation's most restrictive voting laws in Texas. The New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Texas' voter ID law is discriminatory and must be weakened before the November election.
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Court won't reinstate church official's conviction
Court News |
2016/07/27 15:34
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The first U.S. church official convicted over his handling of priest-abuse complaints could soon leave prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed Tuesday that his conviction was flawed.
Monsignor William Lynn, who served two cardinals at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has been imprisoned for almost three years for child endangerment.
But the high court Tuesday declined to reinstate his 2012 conviction. A lower appeals court had found the trial judge allowed too much indirect testimony from other church-abuse victims.
Defense lawyer Tom Bergstrom will ask that his client be released this week. Lynn, 65, has nearly served the minimum of his three- to six-year term.
"He was in the middle of this thing, by direction of the cardinal," Bergstrom said. "He was thrown into this melting pot of awfulness, without a whole lot of experience (and) without a whole lot of education. ... And he did his best."
Prosecutors after two grand jury investigations found that Lynn played a key role helping the archdiocese transfer known pedophile-priests through his job as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.
The trial revealed that his bosses kept a half century of abuse complaints in secret, locked files under Lynn's control and that he reviewed them to compile lists of suspected pedophiles.
Lynn was charged, though, with enabling the abuse of a single, 10-year-old altar boy by a priest transferred to the parish despite other complaints.
Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, in sentencing Lynn, said he had "enabled monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children."
Lynn's novel case has reached the state Supreme Court twice, and he has been in and out of prison amid several rounds of appeals.
Prosecutors could ask to retry the case. A spokesman for District Attorney Seth Williams said the office would review its options.
Lynn, during several grueling days on the stand, said he tried his best but "my best was not good enough."
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Court denies hospital's bid to perform brain death test
Court News |
2016/07/12 16:40
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The Virginia Supreme Court has denied a hospital's request to allow it to immediately perform a test to determine whether a 2-year-old who choked on a piece of popcorn is brain dead.
The court Friday denied a petition from Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, which wants to perform an apnea test on Mirranda Grace Lawson. Mirranda's family has refused to allow it.
The Richmond Circuit Court ruled against the Lawsons last month but allowed them to pay a $30,000 bond barring the hospital from conducting the test while they appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court.
The hospital asked the state Supreme Court to throw out the circuit court's bond order. The Supreme Court didn't explain why it rejected the hospital's petition.
The Lawsons' appeal is due to the state Supreme Court in September.
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Thai military court adds to singer's jail term for insults
Court News |
2016/07/08 16:40
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A Thai country singer and political activist was sentenced Monday by a military court to more than three years in jail for insulting the monarchy, adding to a 7½-year sentence a criminal court imposed on him earlier for the same offense.
Thanat Thanawatcharanon, known by his stage name Tom Dundee, was convicted and sentenced under Article 112, which makes criticism of the monarchy and the king punishable with up to 15 years in jail. The lese majeste law has been used prodigiously by the military government that came to power in a May 2014 coup.
Thanat got into trouble because of the speeches he made in 2013 at a rally organized by the so-called Red Shirts, who are supporters of a charismatic prime minister ousted in an earlier military coup supported by the Yellow Shirt royalists.
The case in criminal court followed complaints by a Yellow Shirt group. The second case involving the same speeches was transferred to a military court after the 2014 coup.
Thanat's lawyer Saowalux Po-Ngam said his client was sentenced to five years in jail for the second case, but the time was reduced to three years and four months because he confessed.
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Court orders release of Chicago police disciplinary records
Court News |
2016/07/06 16:41
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An Illinois appeals court on Friday vacated an injunction obtained by the Chicago police union that barred the city's release of disciplinary files dating back decades.
The Fraternal Order of Police sued to block the release after a March 2014 appellate court ruling that documents dating back to 1967 should be made public. Several news outlets had requested the records.
As a result of the 2014 ruling, the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization, obtained 11 years of records and published an interactive database of police misconduct.
Last year, Cook County Circuit Judge Peter Flynn issued an injunction based a clause in the union's bargaining contract requiring the destruction of public records after four years. The union also claimed releasing the documents would unfairly harm the officers named in the citizen complaints.
The union contends police officers are susceptible to false complaints, and reports that go unsubstantiated should not have an indefinite shelf life. The city of Chicago appealed the injunction.
In its ruling Friday, the appeals court confirmed the records must be released under Freedom of Information Act laws. The court also ruled the union contract clause requiring the destruction of disciplinary records after four years was "legally unenforceable" because it conflicted with the state's public records law.
FOP President Dean Angelo Sr. declined to comment on the ruling, saying he had not yet read it.
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