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Arpaio to testify about failed investigations
Headline Legal News |
2011/10/18 17:32
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The self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America will appear in court Tuesday to testify about his failed corruption investigations against three public officials who claim the cases were trumped up.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will testify at an ally's attorney discipline hearing at a time when a federal grand jury is investigating abuse-of-power allegations against him and the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation of his immigration patrols.
The politically powerful sheriff, who is being courted by four Republican presidential hopefuls for his endorsement, will testify at former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas' attorney discipline hearing.
Arpaio wouldn't face any punishment if Thomas is found to have violated ethical rules, but the hearing could provide the first official comment from the state's legal establishment on whether the investigations were valid.
Lawyers pressing the discipline case said that the officials, judges and attorneys who crossed Arpaio and Thomas in political disputes were often targeted for investigations and, in some cases, were criminally charged. |
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Utah man charged with threatening air marshals
Areas of Focus |
2011/10/17 16:46
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A Utah man has been charged in federal court after authorities say he threatened to shoot air marshals, hijack the flight and urinate in the cabin of a Delta Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit.
During a Thursday appearance in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, a judge allowed Jared L. Hansen to remain free pending a Nov. 7 hearing in Detroit. Hansen was ordered to surrender his passport and abstain from drinking alcohol, among other conditions.
He didn't return a telephone message seeking comment Thursday, and no attorney was listed for him in court records.
Hansen, 31, was aboard an Oct. 4 Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit when authorities say he attempted to use the bathroom in the business class section of the cabin. Members of the flight crew asked him to either return to his seat or use the facilities in the rear of the cabin, but he refused, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Hansen, who was believed to be heavily intoxicated, then threatened to urinate in the cabin and exposed himself, authorities said. |
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Court to hear bid to sue Shell for Nigerian abuses
Legal Topics |
2011/10/17 16:46
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The Supreme Court said Monday it will use a dispute between Nigerian villagers and oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to decide whether corporations may be held liable in U.S. courts for alleged human rights abuses overseas.
The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Shell. The case centers on the 222-year-old Alien Tort Statute that has been increasingly used in recent years to sue corporations for alleged abuses abroad.
The villagers argue Shell was complicit in torture and other crimes against humanity in the country's oil-rich Ogoni region in the Niger Delta.
A divided panel of federal appeals court judges in New York said the 18th century law may not be used against corporations. More recently, appellate judges in Washington said it could.
In a second case the court agreed to hear, the justices will weigh whether the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1992 can be invoked against organizations, or only individuals.
The sons and widow of Azzam Rahim have filed a civil lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Palestinian-born Rahim was a naturalized U.S. citizen who was beaten and died in the custody of Palestinian intelligence officers in Jericho in 1995. Three officers were jailed for their role in the case, according to a State Department report.
But when Rahim's relatives sought money damages for his death, the federal appeals court in Washington said they could not use the 1992 law to go after the Palestinian organizations. The law may be applied only to "natural persons," the appeals court said.
The Nigerians' lawsuit stems from alleged human rights violations between 1992 and 1995. The suit claims that Shell was eager to stop protests about continuing oil exploration in the area and was complicit in Nigerian government actions that included fatal shootings, rapes, beatings, arrests and property destruction. |
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Court blocks Ala. from checking student status
Areas of Focus |
2011/10/17 09:47
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Armando Cardenas says he has thought about leaving Alabama because of the possibility of being arrested as an illegal immigrant and the hostility he feels from residents.
But now that a federal appeals court has sided with the Obama administration and dealt a blow to the state's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, Cardenas said he will stay for at least a while longer.
"It's not easy to leave everything you have worked so hard for," Cardenas said after the appeals court blocked public schools from checking the immigration status of students.
The decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said police can't charge immigrants who are unable to prove their citizenship, but it let some parts of the law stand, giving supporters a partial victory. The decision was only temporary and a final ruling isn't expected for months, after judges can review more arguments.
Unlike in other states where immigration crackdowns have been challenged in the courts, Alabama's law was left largely in effect for about three weeks, long enough to frighten Hispanics and drive them away from the state. Construction businesses said Hispanic workers had quit showing up for jobs and schools reported that Latino students stopped coming to classes. |
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High court to decide double jeopardy question
Areas of Focus |
2011/10/12 16:33
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The Supreme Court will decide whether a jury forewoman's offhand comment that the jury was unable to make a decision on a murder charge means the suspect can't be retried on that charge.
The high court on Tuesday agreed to hear an appeal from Alex Blueford, whose murder trial in Arkansas ended in a hung jury.
The jury forewoman told the judge before he declared a mistrial that the jury had voted unanimously against capital murder and first-degree murder. The jury had deadlocked on a lesser charge, manslaughter, which caused the judge to declare a mistrial.
Blueford argued the forewoman's statement, said in open court, meant that he has been acquitted of capital murder and first-degree murder.
Prosecutors decided to retry Blueford on all three charges. He contended he could not be retried on capital murder and first-degree murder because of Fifth Amendment double jeopardy protections.
Arkansas courts have disagreed. The high court will now review that decision.
Blueford was on trial for killing his girlfriend's 20-month-old son. |
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US court turns down Philly DA in cop-killing case
Areas of Focus |
2011/10/11 16:33
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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request from prosecutors who want to re-impose a death sentence on former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing a white Philadelphia police officer 30 years ago.
The justices on Tuesday refused to get involved in the racially charged case. A federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal after finding that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial were potentially misleading.
Courts have upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing Officer Daniel Faulkner over objections that African-Americans were improperly excluded from the jury.
The federal appeals court in Philadelphia said prosecutors could agree to a life sentence for Abu-Jamal or try again to sentence him to death. |
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Airline attack suspect sought martyrdom
Legal Topics |
2011/10/11 16:33
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A young Nigerian allegedly on a terrorist mission for al-Qaida prayed, washed and put on perfume moments before trying to detonate a bomb in his underwear to bring down an international jetliner on Christmas 2009, a prosecutor told jurors as the man's trial opened Tuesday.
Virtually everyone aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had holiday plans, but Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab believed his calling was martyrdom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel said.
In the plane's bathroom, "he was engaging in rituals. He was preparing to die and enter heaven," Tukel said. "He purified himself. He washed. He brushed his teeth. He put on perfume. He was praying and perfuming himself to get ready to die."
After returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab pushed a small plunger on the chemical bomb in his underwear, an action that produced a "pop," the prosecutor told jurors.
The bomb didn't work as planned but Abdulmutallab was engulfed in flames, said Tukel, who displayed the flight's seating chart on a screen to show jurors where things happened on the plane.
Opening statements began after an unexplained 70-minute recess requested by Abdulmutallab and his attorney, Anthony Chambers, shortly after they entered the courtroom. |
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