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Panel scolds Wisconsin justice for remarks in Trump case
Legal Business |
2023/02/26 10:30
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A judicial oversight commission has dismissed a complaint against a liberal-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who accused an attorney for former President Donald Trump of making racist contentions and trying to protect his “king” in a case challenging the 2020 election results in the battleground state.
Judicial complaints are confidential under Wisconsin law but Justice Jill Karofsky released documents to The Associated Press on Saturday that show a retired attorney in Maryland filed one against her with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission two years ago. The commission decided in November 2022 not to discipline her but warned her to remain neutral and avoid making sarcastic remarks from the bench.
Karofsky’s attorney remained defiant, telling the commission in a letter Tuesday that Karofsky was trying to save the U.S. government and accusing the panel of allowing itself to become a political weapon.
“The Judicial Code (sic) requires judges to act with impartiality towards the parties, but it does not require a judge to turn a blind-eye to dangerous, bad-faith conduct by a lawyer or litigant,” Karofsky said in an email to the AP, quoting a passage from one of her attorney’s responses to the commission. “It is beyond reason to read the Code to require judges to be mouse-like quiet when parties are arguing in favor of a slow-motion coup.”
Trump filed suit in Wisconsin in December 2020 after a recount confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had won the state by about 21,000 votes. The filing was one of scores of lawsuits Trump filed across multiple states in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the election results and remain in office.
The Wisconsin lawsuit asked the state Supreme Court to toss out about 171,000 absentee ballots cast in Dane and Milwaukee counties. The conservative-leaning court ultimately rejected the lawsuit by a 4-3 vote, with swing Justice Brian Hagedorn casting the deciding vote to uphold Biden’s victory in the battleground state. |
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Court: Michigan city can’t conceal police force policy
Court News |
2023/02/22 23:38
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A police department in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has been ordered to release its full policy on the use of force after failing to convince the state appeals court that portions should be concealed from the public.
The court noted that Amy Hjerstedt’s request in Sault Ste. Marie followed the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in 2020.
“Michigan has a strong public policy favoring public access to government information,” Judge Sima Patel said Tuesday in a 3-0 opinion.
“Although certain information may be exempt from disclosure, the statutory exemptions are not intended to shield public bodies from the transparency that FOIA was designed to foster,” Patel said, referring to Michigan’s public records law.
Sault Ste. Marie, population 13,400, gave Hjerstedt only a heavily redacted copy of its policy. The redactions centered on use-of-force considerations and other strategies.
A police department in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has been ordered to release its full policy on the use of force after failing to convince the state appeals court that portions should be concealed from the public. |
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Pakistani court acquits parents of activist in treason case
Legal Business |
2023/02/19 07:37
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A Pakistani court on Wednesday acquitted the parents of an exiled female human rights activist, a defense lawyer said, three years after the couple was arrested on charges of terror financing and sedition.
The 2019 arrests of Gulalai Ismail’s parents, Mohammad and Uzlifat Ismail, in the northwestern city of Peshawar, had drawn widespread condemnation. The U.S. State Department also expressed concern over the arrests.
On Wednesday, an anti-terrorism court acquitted the couple, saying the prosecution failed to prove the charges, according to the couple’s lawyer, Shabbir Hussain Gigyan.
Mohammad Ismail is a teacher and a social activist. His daughter fled to the U.S. in 2019 and she sought asylum there to avoid harassment by Pakistani security agencies over her investigations into alleged human rights abuses by soldiers.
In recent years, Pakistani activists and journalists have increasingly come under attack by the government and the security establishment, restricting the space for criticism and dissent. The criticism of the military can result in threats, intimidation, sedition charges and in some cases, being arrested with no warning. |
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Maryland mulls ending child sexual abuse lawsuit time limits
Legal Business |
2023/02/16 10:27
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Maryland lawmakers are considering ending the state’s statute of limitations for when lawsuits can be filed against institutions related to child sexual abuse, though the state’s courts are likely to decide whether such a change in the law is constitutional if the General Assembly passes one.
Accusers who are now adults were scheduled to testify in favor of the legislation at a hearing Thursday.
Currently, people in Maryland who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38. The Maryland House has approved legislation in recent years that would have lifted that age limit, but it stalled in the state Senate.
This year, state Sen. Will Smith, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would end the age limit. He said in an interview that he’s confident the bill will pass this year but that the judiciary likely will have the final say.
Fifteen states have lifted statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse, according to Child USAdvocacy, a nonprofit that advocates for better laws to protect children. Twenty-four have approved revival periods known as “lookback windows,” which are limited timeframes in which accusers can sue, regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.
In 2017, Maryland raised the age that accusers can file lawsuits from 25 to 38. But the law also included language, known as a statute of repose, that some say prevents lawmakers from extending the statute of limitations again. |
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COVID could create crisis in Alex Murdaugh murder trial
Headline Legal News |
2023/02/13 23:36
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Two jurors in the double murder trial of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh have COVID, leaving the future of the proceedings in some doubt as they enter their 16th day Monday.
Judge Clifton Newman decided keep the trial going in the packed Colleton County courtroom after the remaining 10 jurors and five alternates tested negative. They will be tested again on Wednesday. The clerk of court also tested positive for the virus.
Newman said jurors agreed to wear masks. He rejected suggestions from both the defense and prosecutors to delay the trial until that second round of tests Wednesday, reduce the over 200 people allowed to attend the trial each day or order everyone in the courtroom to wear masks other than testifying witnesses and questioning attorneys.
“At the moment, we are going to encourage everyone here to mask up for your own protection as well as the protection of these proceedings and each other,” Newman said.
Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murdering his wife, 52-year-old Maggie, and their 22-year-old son Paul near dog kennels at the family’s Colleton County home on June 7, 2021.
Monday marked the fourth week of the trial and the 13th day of testimony with prosecutors still presenting their case. They called state agents who tested evidence for DNA. |
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Abortion among major issues at stake in Wisconsin court race
Headline Legal News |
2023/02/11 10:28
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A conservative tilt on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has given Republicans victories on voting restrictions, gerrymandered legislative districts and other high-stakes cases in recent years.
Voters now have a chance to tip that balance toward the left, with implications for abortion rights and perhaps the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in one of the nation’s most closely divided political battlegrounds.
Tuesday’s primary will feature two conservatives and two liberals running for the seat of a retiring conservative justice. The top two finishers advancing to the April 4 general election.
The eventual winner will determine whether conservatives maintain the majority on the officially nonpartisan court or it flips to 4-3 liberal control for at least the next two years. The court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s win in the state in 2020, and both major parties are preparing for another close margin in the 2024 contest.
The Supreme Court election campaign could break national spending records if a conservative and a liberal make it through the primary, with issues such as abortion, the fate of legislative maps, union rights and challenges to election results at stake.
Four of the past six presidential races in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point, including Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and Biden’s win in 2020. In 2024, Democrats will try to reelect Sen. Tammy Baldwin and chip into Republican’s hold on six of the state’s eight congressional seats. |
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N. Carolina courts director leaving, deputy replacing him
Legal Topics |
2023/02/08 10:28
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The North Carolina court system’s top administrator is stepping down soon to join a law firm, and his top deputy will succeed him.
Andrew Heath became Administrative Office of the Courts director in early 2021 as Chief Justice Paul Newby was sworn in following his election the previous November.
In news releases Friday, the Nelson Mullins firm said Heath would join its Raleigh office and the court system said Newby had appointed deputy AOC director Ryan Boyce as Heath’s replacement effective April 4.
Heath has held many state government positions previously, serving as a special Superior Court judge, state budget director to then-Gov. Pat McCrory and chairman of the North Carolina Industrial Commission.
Heath will focus on government relations and civil litigation at his new job, and he’ll also be a registered lobbyist, Nelson Mullins said.
Newby praised Heath in the AOC release, saying there are nearly 10% fewer pending cases in the courts compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed proceedings. An effort to switch court filings from paper to digital statewide began publicly this week with a four-county pilot.
Boyce led the court system’s governmental affairs activities under previous AOC directors and served as a lawyer within two other state departments. |
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