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Lawyer: Don't judge Chicago officer based on shooting video
Opinions |
2015/11/24 04:42
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An attorney for a white Chicago police officer who shot a black teenager 16 times says his client acted lawfully and urges the public not to rush to judgment based solely on a video of the shooting that's to be released within days.
Attorney Dan Herbert told reporters Friday that Officer Jason Van Dyke is — in his words — "scared to death." Herbert says the officer is concerned about the safety of his wife and two school-age children in the event the video prompts violence.
A judge on Thursday ordered the city to release squad car dashcam video of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald's 2014 shooting.
Herbert says the video doesn't capture the whole confrontation.
Van Dyke has been stripped of his police powers, but remains at work on desk duty.
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Rancher pleads guilty to falsely claiming cattle losses
Headline Legal News |
2015/11/23 04:42
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A South Dakota rancher has pleaded guilty in federal court to falsely claiming he lost more than a hundred cattle during the autumn blizzard of 2013 that left ranchers in the state reeling with financial losses.
Karl Knutson pleaded guilty Friday as part of a deal with prosecutors, the Rapid City Journal reported. The agreement dismisses a felony count of making a false statement, and prosecutors are recommending Knutson be sentenced to probation and fines.
Knutson's indictment said he submitted a claim in May 2014 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency for the loss of 129 head of cattle in the October blizzard, even though the Vale rancher actually lost at most 13.
Court documents say the disaster payment for that claim would have paid out nearly $117,000.
The indictment also says Knutson told the agency in "a handwritten invoice" in August 2014 that he paid $135,350 for 103 head of cattle that he didn't actually buy.
Knutson didn't immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press requesting comment regarding the plea. The maximum sentence the 27-year-old could face would be five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release.
The 2013 storm is estimated to have killed more than 50,000 livestock, causing financial problems for ranchers in the western part of the state. |
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Detroit-area ex-officer found guilty in videotaped beating
Legal Topics |
2015/11/21 04:41
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A white, former Detroit-area police officer was found guilty Thursday of assault and misconduct in the bloody beating of a black driver during a traffic stop that was captured on video.
Wayne County jurors handed down the verdict in the case against William Melendez, who was charged in the January beating of Floyd Dent. Police stopped Dent, 58, in the Detroit suburb of Inkster for disregarding a stop sign, and dashcam video from a police vehicle shows Melendez punching him 16 times in the head.
It wasn't until after WDIV-TV aired the footage in March that Melendez was fired. Inkster later agreed to pay $1.4 million to Dent, who suffered broken ribs, blood on his brain and other injuries.
The jurors found Melendez guilty of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and of misconduct in office. They cleared him of a charge of assault by strangulation.
The packed courtroom was largely quiet after the verdict was read, following Judge Vonda Evans' orders to neither "cry out" nor "applaud" out of respect for the jury. Melendez's wife rushed out of the courtroom, invoking Evans' ire and a demand that she return and "sit down."
Evans ordered Melendez to jail pending his Dec. 3 sentencing. Beforehand, defense attorney James Thomas argued that Melendez "is not a danger to the community" and posed "no risk of flight."
Thomas told reporters after the verdict that despite his disappointment, Melendez "remains upbeat" and "resolved." Thomas said he plans to appeal the verdict after sentencing.
Melendez did not testify during the eight-day trial, but his attorney said the officer was justified in the assault because Dent was aggressive and resisting police. Other officers and a criminal justice professor testified that the beating was reasonable because Dent was resisting arrest.
But Vicki Yost, who was chief of police at the time of the beating, said Melendez's actions were unnecessary, based on the video.
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Perry's indictment in hands of top Texas criminal court
Legal Topics |
2015/11/20 05:55
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Attorneys for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged the state's highest criminal court Wednesday to dismiss felony abuse-of-power charges that the Republican blames in part for foiling his short-lived 2016 presidential run.
After two hours of arguments, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave no timetable for ruling whether Perry should face trial in the case that has dragged on since August 2014 — about five times longer than his second unsuccessful White House bid.
Perry didn't attend the crowded hearing in a courtroom behind his old Texas Capitol office, but his high-powered lawyers told judges that enough was enough.
"The danger of allowing a prosecutor to do this is mind-boggling," Perry attorney David Botsford said.
Perry is accused of misusing his power in 2013 when he vetoed funding for local prosecutors after Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, an elected Democrat, refused calls to resign following a drunken driving arrest. He was indicted a year later by a grand jury in liberal Austin and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Perry has denounced the charges as a partisan attack. But in a lively back-and-forth with an eight-judge panel, all but one of whom is an elected Republican, Perry's legal team didn't raise claims of political retribution and instead framed the veto as a rightful constitutional power.
Special prosecutors say that's for a trial to determine — and not for the court to settle now. Judges met that with a tone of skepticism, with Republican Judge Kevin Yeary pressing at one point whether going through with a trial would be "wasting everyone's time."
Perry was originally indicted on two counts, but a lower court has already thrown out the other charge of coercion of a public servant. Prosecutors are asking the court to not only order a trial on the remaining charge but also reinstate the other one.
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Court won’t hear case over grant to Planned Parenthood
Headline Legal News |
2015/11/18 05:36
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The Supreme Court has rejected an anti-abortion group’s bid to force disclosure of confidential Planned Parenthood and federal government records about a contract for family planning services in New Hampshire.
The justices on Monday let stand a ruling that allowed the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to withhold some documents in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by New Hampshire Right to Life.
Abortion opponents objected to a $1 million contract HHS awarded Planned Parenthood in 2011 for family planning services in New Hampshire. The move followed action by the state’s Executive Council to stop a long-standing practice of funneling federal money to the clinics. Councilors who opposed funding Planned Parenthood said they didn’t want grant money given to the organization because it provides abortions using private funds.
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India court orders action on crematorium near Taj Mahal
Court News |
2015/11/17 23:14
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India's Supreme Court has ordered a state government to remove a wood-burning crematorium from near the Taj Mahal to protect the monument from pollution damage.
The judges said Monday the Uttar Pradesh government could either move the crematorium or install an electric one in its place.
They ruled after a letter from another Supreme Court judge, who said that he'd noticed the mausoleum spewing smoke and ash during a recent visit to the monument and was concerned about the effect of air pollution on the marble structure.
In their order, the two judges suggested that the state could move the wood-burning crematorium and also build an electric one at the current site. This would allow people wanting to use wood pyres to do so, while others could use the electric crematorium, they said.
Hindus traditionally cremate their dead using wood fires. The government has been trying to encourage people to use electricity-powered crematoriums.
With its gleaming dome and graceful spires, the Taj Mahal is one of the world's most recognizable buildings, visited by more than 3 million tourists a year.
With its domes and minarets, semi-precious stone inlays and carvings, the monument is considered the finest example of Mughal art in India. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
On the banks of the Yamuna River in the city of Agra, the Taj Mahal was built in the 17th century by Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child.
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Ruling gives Sandusky back $4,900-a-month Penn State pension
Legal Business |
2015/11/17 05:36
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The state must restore the $4,900-a-month pension of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky that was taken away three years ago when he was sentenced to decades in prison on child molestation convictions, a court ordered Friday.
A Commonwealth Court panel ruled unanimously that the State Employees' Retirement Board wrongly concluded Sandusky was a Penn State employee when he committed the crimes that were the basis for the pension forfeiture.
"The board conflated the requirements that Mr. Sandusky engage in 'work relating to' PSU and that he engage in that work 'for' PSU," wrote Judge Dan Pellegrini. "Mr. Sandusky's performance of services that benefited PSU does not render him a PSU
employee."
Sandusky, 71, collected a $148,000 lump sum payment upon retirement in 1999 and began receiving monthly payments of $4,900.
The board stopped those payments in October 2012 on the day he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for sexually abusing 10 children. A jury found him guilty of 45 counts for offenses that ranged from grooming and fondling to violent sexual attacks. Some of the encounters happened inside university facilities.
The basis for the pension board's decision was a provision in the state Pension Forfeiture Act that applies to "crimes related to public office or public employment," and he was convicted of indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
The judges said the board's characterization of Sandusky as a Penn State employee at the time those offenses occurred was erroneous because he did not maintain an employer-employee relationship with the university after 1999.
The judges ordered the board to pay back interest and reinstated the pension retroactively, granting him about three years of makeup payments.
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