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Retrial of Harvey Weinstein unlikely to occur soon, if ever, experts say
Legal Business |
2024/05/01 22:54
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A retrial in New York of disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein won’t be coming to a courtroom anytime soon, if ever, legal experts said on a day when one of two women considered crucial to his rape trial said she wasn’t sure she would testify again.
A ruling Thursday by the New York Court of Appeals voided the 2020 conviction of the onetime Hollywood power broker who prosecutors say forced young actors to submit to his prurient desires by dangling his ability to make or break the their careers.
On Saturday, Weinstein was in custody in a Manhattan hospital where he was undergoing multiple tests, attorney Arthur Aidala said. He was returned Friday to New York City jails from a state prison 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany. He remains behind bars because he was also convicted in a similar case in California.
“He’s got a lot of problems. He’s getting all kinds of tests. He’s somewhat of a train wreck health wise,” Aidala said.
The appeals court in a 4-3 decision vacated a 23-year jail sentence and ordered a retrial of Weinstein, saying the trial judge erred by letting three women testify about allegations that were not part of the charges and by permitting questions about Weinstein’s history of “bad behavior” if he testified. He did not. He was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant and of third-degree rape for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013.
Several lawyers said in interviews Friday that it would be a long road to reach a new trial for the 72-year-old ailing movie mogul and magnet for the #MeToo movement who remains behind bars, and it was doubtful that one could start before next year, if at all.
“I think there won’t be a trial in the end,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. “I don’t think he wants to go through another trial, and I don’t think the state wants to try him again.”
Naftalis said both sides may seek a resolution such as a plea that will eliminate the need to put his accusers through the trauma of a second trial.
Aidala said Saturday that he plans to tell a judge at a Manhattan court appearance Wednesday that he believes a trial could occur anytime after Labor Day.
With the scaled-down case ordered by the appeals court, Aidala predicted that it could be finished in a week and his client would be exonerat |
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What to know about abortion in Arizona under the near-total 1864 ban
Legal Business |
2024/04/12 15:55
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The Arizona Supreme Court gave the go-ahead Tuesday to prepare to enforce a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions, drastically altering the legal landscape for terminating pregnancies in a state likely to have a key role in the presidential election.
The law predating Arizona’s statehood provides no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. Arizona’s highest court suggested doctors can be prosecuted under the 1864 law, though the opinion written by the court’s majority didn’t explicitly say that.
The Tuesday decision threw out an earlier lower-court decision that concluded doctors couldn’t be charged for performing abortions in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The Civil War-era law, enacted long before Arizona became a state on Feb. 14, 1912, had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge lift an injunction that blocked enforcement of the 1864 ban. Then the state Court of Appeals suspended the law as Brnovich’s Democratic successor, Attorney General Kris Mayes, urged the state’s high court to uphold the appellate court’s decision.
The court itself was expanded in 2016 from five justices to seven, all appointed by Republican governors.
The high court said enforcement won’t begin for at least two weeks. However, plaintiffs say it could be up to two months, based on an agreement in a related case to delay enforcement if the justices upheld the pre-statehood ban.
The law orders prosecution for “a person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life.”
The Arizona Supreme Court suggested in its ruling Tuesday that physicians can be prosecuted, though justices didn’t say that outright.
“In light of this Opinion, physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal,” and additional criminal and regulatory sanctions may apply to abortions performed after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the ruling said.
The law carries a sentence of two to five years in prison upon conviction. Lawyers for Planned Parenthood Arizona said they believe criminal penalties will apply only to doctors. But the penalties also apply to providing abortion pills — the most common method in the United States.
In other places with abortion bans, some women have obtained pills both through underground networks and from telehealth from medical providers in states that have laws intended to protect prescribers from out-of-state prosecutions. This was already illegal in Arizona, the attorney general’s office said.
Dr. Maria Phillis, an Ohio OB-GYN with a law degree, said she believes women who obtain pills through those means could be prosecuted under the 1864 law. Across the country, new abortion bans have not been used to prosecute women in similar cases, and measures that have been introduced to punish those who obtain abortions have not been adopted.
Fourteen other states are now enforcing bans on abortion in all stages of pregnancy.
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Trump wants N.Y. hush money trial to wait for Supreme Court immunity ruling
Legal Business |
2024/03/12 01:50
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Donald Trump is seeking to delay his March 25 hush money trial until the Supreme Court rules on the presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases.
The Republican former president’s lawyers on Monday asked Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan to adjourn the New York criminal trial indefinitely until Trump’s immunity claim in his Washington, D.C., election interference case is resolved. Merchan did not immediately rule.
Trump contends he is immune for prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. His lawyers argue some of the evidence and alleged acts in the hush money case overlap with his time in the White House and constitute official acts.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments April 25, a month after the scheduled start of jury selection in Trump’s hush money case. It is the first of his four criminal cases slated to go to trial as he closes in on the Republican presidential nomination in his quest to retake the White House.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment. Prosecutors are expected to respond to Trump’s delay request in court papers later this week.
Trump first raised the immunity issue in his Washington, D.C., criminal case, which involves allegations that he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The hush money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s internal records to hide the true nature of payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who helped Trump bury negative stories during his 2016 presidential campaign. Among other things, Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Trump’s lawyers argue that some evidence Manhattan prosecutors plan to introduce at the hush money trial, including messages he posted on social media in 2018 about money paid to Cohen, were from his time as president and constituted official acts.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and not part of any cover-up.
A federal judge last year rejected Trump’s claim that allegations in the hush money indictment involved official duties, nixing his bid to move the case from state court to federal court. Had the case been moved to federal court, Trump’s lawyers could’ve tried to get the charges dismissed on the grounds that federal officials have immunity from prosecution over actions taken as part of their official duties.
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Sen. Bob Menendez enters not guilty plea to latest criminal indictment
Legal Business |
2024/03/11 01:50
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U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife pleaded not guilty on Monday to new obstruction of justice charges recently added to a broad corruption indictment threatening the Democrat’s re-election chances.
“Once again, not guilty your honor,” Menendez responded after Judge Sidney H. Stein asked him to enter a plea at a 20-minute hearing at a federal court in Manhattan. Menendez had previously pleaded not guilty to other charges in October.
Menendez and his wife, Nadine, left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. Menendez ignored a shouted question about whether he intends to run for re-election.
The couple is charged with taking bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for the senator’s help in projects pursued by three New Jersey businessmen. Prosecutors say that in return for the loot, Menendez helped one of the men get a lucrative meat-certification deal with Egypt — and in doing so took actions favorable to the Egyptian government. An indictment said Menendez helped another associate get a deal with a Qatari investment fund.
Two of the three businessmen accused of bribing Menendez also entered not guilty pleas on Monday. A third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty two weeks ago to bribery charges and agreed to testify against the others at a trial set for May 6.
After his fall arrest, Menendez, 70, was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.
If Menendez does choose to seek re-election, he’ll likely have to face two other strong Democratic contenders in a June 4 primary: U.S. Rep. Andy Kim and Tammy Murphy, the wife of New Jersey’s governor.
The new allegations — part of what is now an 18-count indictment — are related to what prosecutors say were efforts to cover up the illegal bribes.
One of those gifts included a Mercedes-Benz convertible that Uribe says he bought for Nadine Menendez because her husband had been trying to use his influence to squash two criminal investigations into people close to him.
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Hong Kong court affirms landmark sedition conviction for pro-democracy activist
Legal Business |
2024/03/07 16:43
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Criticizing laws or chanting anti-government slogans can be enough to jail someone for sedition in Hong Kong, an appeal court ruled Thursday in a landmark case brought under a colonial-era law increasingly used to crush dissent.
Tam Tak-chi, the first person tried under the city’s sedition law since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Tam’s lawyers had argued his conviction should be overturned because the prosecution did not show he meant to incite violence.
The prosecution is widely seen as part of Beijing’s clampdown on dissent in the former British colony, following widespread anti-government protests in 2019.
Hong Kong court affirms landmark sedition conviction for pro-democracy activist
Tam was convicted on 11 charges in 2022, including seven counts of “uttering seditious words.” A judge at the lower court took issue with him chanting the popular protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” — words the government says imply separatism — and criticizing the Beijing-imposed National Security Law during a primary campaign.
The judge said his words broke the law because they incited discontent against Hong Kong and disobedience to the law.
Tam and his lawyers had drawn hope from a ruling made by a top Commonwealth court in a 2023 case about a similar law. In that case, the London-based Privy Council said that the sedition law in Trinidad and Tobago could not be used to convict people unless they intended to incite violence or disorder. The Privy Council is the court of final appeal for a number of Commonwealth countries.
But the Hong Kong court rejected the argument, finding that the Privy Council ruling only applied to the law in Trinidad and Tobago.
Judge Jeremy Poon said sedition in Hong Kong is a statutory offense, not a common law offense. He added that law’s legislative history made it clear that an intention to incite violence is not a necessary element of most sedition offenses.
“Nothing suggests that any individual, including the applicant, a politician and activist highly critical of the government and a stern opponent of government policy, would be subject to an unacceptably harsh burden because of the restriction on seditious acts or speeches imposed by the offense,” the ruling said.
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North Carolina voter ID trial rescheduled again for spring in federal court
Legal Business |
2024/02/14 00:30
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A federal lawsuit filed over five years ago challenging North Carolina's new photo voter identification mandate is now set to go to trial in the spring, with an outcome that could possibly affect what people must do to cast ballots this fall.
The U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem announced on Monday that Judge Loretta Biggs will convene the nonjury trial starting May 6 over the law, which was implemented just last fall.
While the state's photo ID requirement remains in place for the March 5 primary elections, a spring or summer ruling after the trial by Biggs to strike down the law could threaten its use in the November general election in the nation's ninth-largest state. North Carolina will have races for governor, attorney general and many other statewide races on the fall ballots. Courts, however, can be cautious about changing voting rules close to an election to avoid confusion.
The May date is about three months later than the date that lawyers for the state NAACP and several local chapters had requested several months ago. They sued over the 2018 law claiming it is marred by racial bias.
Attorneys for Republican legislative leaders defending the law had told Biggs in writing that the trial schedule sought by the NAACP groups was deficient. They also said it allowed no opportunity for the judge to dismiss the case on arguments before going to a formal trial.
Biggs held a hearing in November about the trial date and whether the State Board of Elections should be required to provide more public records to the plaintiffs about how voter ID has been implemented since last year. In a separate order Monday, Biggs sent the plaintiff’s request to a magistrate judge to recommend a decision to her. That recommendation can be challenged.
After a state Supreme Court ruling last April upholding the 2018 law as legal, the photo ID mandate was carried out in mostly municipal elections in September, October and November.
The trial date order doesn't estimate how long the trial will last. But it sets aside three weeks after the trial for the sides to file more papers.
The federal lawsuit alleges that the ID law violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating disproportionately against Black and Latino voters to comply with the requirement. Republican lawmakers disagree and say the law builds public confidence in elections. They also point in part to a broader array of exceptions for people lacking an ID to still cast ballots when compared to an earlier voter ID law.
Previous trial dates for 2021 and 2022 were postponed. Biggs delayed one start date while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed her earlier refusal to allow GOP lawmakers to intervene in the case and defend the law in court. The U.S. justices sided with the legislative leaders in June 2022.
Biggs lifted her stay on action in the case last summer a few months after the state Supreme Court determined the mandate comported with state constitution.
In late 2019, Biggs issued a preliminary injunction blocking the 2018 voter ID law, saying it was tainted by racial bias largely because a previous voter ID law approved by legislators in 2013 had been struck down on similar grounds. The 2013 law was implemented briefly in 2016.
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Nevada Supreme Court sides with AP in Wynn defamation suit
Legal Business |
2024/02/07 14:05
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The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by casino mogul Steve Wynn against The Associated Press over a story about two women’s accounts to police alleging he engaged in sexual misconduct.
The court cited state anti-SLAPP law in rejecting Wynn’s claim that he was defamed in the February 2018 AP article, which cited police documents. SLAPP, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, refers to court filings made to intimidate or silence critics.
“Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statutes were designed to limit precisely the type of claim at issue here, which involves a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest,” the three-justice panel said in a unanimous opinion.
Wynn had argued that the documents failed to fully describe elements of a woman’s account that would have cast doubt on her allegation that he raped her in the 1970s in Chicago and that she gave birth to their daughter in a gas station restroom.
Lauren Easton, AP vice president of corporate communications said in a statement that the news organization is pleased with the ruling.
“We believe the Nevada Supreme Court made the right decision,” Easton said. Attorney Todd Bice, representing Wynn, said he was “surprised that the Court would change Nevada law and disregard the Nevada Legislature in order to extend legal protections to a news report that was determined to be false.”
He said Wynn’s legal team now is “considering all options.”
Wynn, the 82-year-old developer of a decadeslong casino empire, filed the lawsuit in April 2018 against AP, one of its reporters and Halina Kuta, the woman who made the claim. Two months earlier he had resigned as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts.
Wynn has consistently denied sexual misconduct allegations, which were first reported in January 2018 by the Wall Street Journal.
The case went to the state high court twice, after Clark County District Court Judge Ronald Israel first dismissed AP from the case in August 2018 on the grounds that it “fairly reported” information based on an official document, a police complaint by Kuta, even though authorities never investigated the allegation.
Las Vegas police said too much time had elapsed since Kuta said the events occurred in 1973 or 1974.
Neither accuser was identified in the AP report. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in documents obtained by AP under a public records request. Las Vegas police refused to provide additional details. |
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