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Massachusetts high court to weigh teen texting suicide case
Legal Topics |
2018/10/05 05:17
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Massachusetts' highest court is set to consider whether to throw out the involuntary manslaughter conviction of a woman who as a teenager encouraged her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages.
Lawyers for 22-year-old Michelle Carter will urge the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday to reject a judge's finding that she caused Conrad Roy III's death when she told him to get back in a truck filled with toxic gas.
Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail last year but has remained free while she pursues her appeal. Prosecutors say Carter could have stopped Roy, who was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in July 2014.
Her lawyers say her conviction criminalizes free speech and that Carter's words didn't cause Roy's death. |
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US Supreme Court declines to hear Drew Peterson's appeal
Legal Topics |
2018/10/01 16:18
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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear former Chicago-area police officer Drew Peterson's appeal of his murder conviction in the drowning death of his third wife.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports the high court refused Monday to take up Peterson's bid to have his murder conviction overturned. His appeal request was filed in June.
The 64-year-old Peterson, a former Bolingbrook police officer, is serving a 38-year sentence for Kathleen Savio's 2004 death and another 40-year sentence after being convicted of plotting to kill the prosecutor in the case.
The Illinois Supreme Court declined to overturn Peterson's murder conviction last year. Peterson is being held at a federal prison in Indiana. He's also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, but hasn't been charged. |
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Egypt court sentences 65 people over 2013 violence
Legal Topics |
2018/09/23 21:49
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An Egyptian court has sentenced 64 people to varying prison terms and one man to death over violence in 2013 when the military overthrew the elected Islamist president.
The Sunday decision by the Minya Criminal Court included a life sentence for Mohammed Badie, the spiritual guide of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, over events in the city of el-Adwa, south of Cairo, where a crowd raided a police station and a sergeant was killed.
The case which ran for over three years included more than 35 hearings, with testimony by the defense and witnesses.
The death sentence, issued to a man named Ahmed Ashour, will now be reviewed by Egypt's top religious authorities for their non-binding opinion. The ruling can still be appealed. |
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Juvenile waived to adult court in Indy doctor's slaying
Legal Topics |
2018/09/15 07:42
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A juvenile has been waived to adult court to face charges in the fatal shooting of an Indiana University doctor and educator last year.
Online court records say 16-year-old Tarius Blade faces three felony burglary charges in the Nov. 20, 2017, slaying of Dr. Kevin Rodgers.
Blade was arrested in December along with Ka'Ron Bickham-Hurst, then 18. Court records show Bickham-Hurst has agreed to plead guilty to three burglary charges.
Two other men were arrested last month. Eighteen-year-old Nehemiah Merriweather was charged with felony murder and two counts of burglary and 17-year-old Devon Seats was charged with murder, felony murder and two counts of burglary.
The 61-year-old Rodgers was the program director emeritus of the emergency medicine residency at the Indiana University School of Medicine. |
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Audit: West Virginia Supreme Court skirted pay law
Legal Topics |
2018/09/11 07:55
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A new legislative audit report says West Virginia's Supreme Court skirted state law concerning pay for senior status judges.
News outlets report the audit released last week found 10 senior-status judges were authorized overpayments. State law prohibits them from making more than active circuit judges. The audit said that to circumvent the law, Supreme Court officials began converting senior status judges from employees to independent contractors.
The audit by the Legislative Auditor's Office Post Audit Division also pegged renovations for Supreme Court offices between 2012 and 2016 at $3.4 million, including $1.9 million for the five justices' chambers. Auditors say invoices for renovations to the court's law library and administrative offices were not made available.
Four justices who were impeached by the House of Delegates are due to go before the state Senate on Tuesday. |
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Senator asks court to declare Duterte arrest order illegal
Legal Topics |
2018/09/06 15:53
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A Philippine senator who has taken refuge in the Senate to avoid an arrest order by President Rodrigo Duterte asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to declare the order illegal and called on the military to defy it.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Duterte's fiercest critic in Congress, told the high court in a petition that Duterte's proclamation voiding his 2011 amnesty for links to failed coup attempts and ordering his arrest was baseless.
"Their basis for this proclamation is a big lie," Trillanes told reporters in the Senate building, where he has remained since Duterte's order was made public Tuesday. "It's bogus, they only wanted to pin me down for being a critic of Mr. Duterte."
Known for his temper and outbursts against critics, Duterte has openly expressed anger against Trillanes, who has accused him of large-scale corruption and involvement in illegal drugs. Duterte has repeatedly denied the allegations.
The standoff has unfolded while Duterte is on a visit to Israel and Jordan. He is scheduled to fly home on Sunday.
The Department of Justice said Duterte voided Trillanes's amnesty because the senator did not file a formal amnesty application and admit guilt for his role in past coup attempts.
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Louisiana Supreme Court upholds life sentence in beating
Legal Topics |
2018/09/05 06:58
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The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld a life prison term for a man convicted of severely beating another man at a convenience store five years ago after telling the victim he was in the “wrong neighborhood.”
Donald Ray Dickerson, of Baton Rouge, was found guilty in 2015 of second-degree battery in the attack on David Ray III, of St. Francisville. Ray was hospitalized with a broken eye socket, broken nose and other injuries.
Dickerson was sentenced to life behind bars, deemed a habitual offender. The Advocate reports he has prior convictions for armed robbery, simple robbery and purse snatching.
Dickerson claims his conduct did not amount to second-degree battery and his sentence is unconstitutionally excessive. An appeals court disagreed, and the Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday let that ruling stand. |
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