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Court Halts Execution Of Tyler Woman's Killer
Court Watch |
2015/07/18 16:09
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The Texas Court of Criminal of Appeals halted the scheduled lethal injection of Clifton Lamar Williams until questions about some incorrect testimony at his 2006 trial can be resolved.
Williams, 31, had faced execution Thursday evening for the killing of Cecelia Schneider of Tyler, about 85 miles east of Dallas. Investigators determined she had been beaten and stabbed before her body and her bed were set on fire.
In a brief order, the court agreed to return the case to the trial court in Tyler to review an appeal from Williams' attorneys. They want to examine whether incorrect FBI statistics regarding DNA probabilities in population estimates cited by witnesses could have affected the outcome of Williams' trial.
"We need time to look at this," said Seth Kretzer, one of Williams' lawyers. "No way we can investigate this in five hours.
"It requires some time, and the CCA saw that."
The Texas Department of Public Safety sent a notice June 30 that the FBI-developed population database used by the crime lab in Texas and other states had errors for calculating DNA match statistics in criminal investigations. The Texas Attorney General's Office informed Williams' attorneys of the discrepancy on Wednesday.
Prosecutors in Tyler, in Smith County, had opposed Williams' appeal for a reprieve, telling the appeals court the state police agency insisted that corrected figures would have no impact. Williams is black, and prosecutors said the probability of another black person with the same DNA profile found in Schneider's missing car was one in 40 sextillion. Jurors in 2006 were told the probability was one in 43 sextillion. A sextillion is defined as a 1 followed by 21 zeros.
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US appeals court upholds EPA plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay
Court Watch |
2015/07/08 20:07
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A U.S. appeals court has upheld a federal plan limiting pollution in the Chesapeake Bay despite objections from farmers who accuse the Environmental Protection Agency of abusing its power.
The ruling Monday upholds restrictions on farm and construction runoff and wastewater treatment and is a clear win for environmentalists.
Six states have agreed to the pollution limits: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, along with Washington, D.C.,
The American Farm Bureau Federation and others fought the restrictions. They argued that the EPA was usurping state authority to regulate waterways.
The EPA says animal waste and fertilizer that moves from streams into the Chesapeake is the single largest source of bay pollution.
Third Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro says Chesapeake Bay pollution is a complex problem that affects more than 17 million people. |
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Kansas court rules against parts of state school funding law
Court Watch |
2015/06/28 16:00
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A district court panel in Kansas declared Friday that key parts of a new state law for funding public schools violate the state constitution and ordered an immediate increase in aid.
State officials and an attorney for four school districts challenging the law said the decision from the three-judge panel in Shawnee County District Court would force the state to provide between $46 million and $54 million in extra aid next week, distributing the money under an old formula that legislators junked.
The same panel ruled in December that the state must boost its annual spending by at least $548 million to fulfill its duty under the Kansas Constitution to provide a suitable education to every child. In its latest ruling, the panel of judges said school funding changes this year make the distribution of more than $4 billion a year less fair.
The new law scrapped a per-student formula for distributing aid to Kansas' 286 school districts. Gov. Sam Brownback and other conservative Republicans in the GOP-dominated Legislature disliked the old formula partly because it automatically left the state on the hook for additional spending if schools gained students, if more students had special needs or even if districts had major building projects.
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Supreme Court extends gay marriage nationwide
Court Watch |
2015/06/26 15:48
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The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States, a historic culmination of decades of litigation over gay marriage and gay rights generally.
Gay and lesbian couples already could marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court's 5-4 ruling means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage.
Gay rights supporters cheered, danced and wept outside the court after the decision, which put an exclamation point on breathtaking changes in the nation's social norms.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, just as he did in the court's previous three major gay rights cases dating back to 1996. It came on the anniversary of two of those earlier decisions.
"No union is more profound than marriage," Kennedy wrote, joined by the court's four more liberal justices.
The stories of the people asking for the right to marry "reveal that they seek not to denigrate marriage but rather to live their lives, or honor their spouses' memory, joined by its bond," Kennedy said.
As he read his opinion, spectators in the courtroom wiped away tears after the import of the decision became clear. One of those in the audience was James Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court fight.
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Iowa court allows remote dispensing of abortion pill
Court Watch |
2015/06/18 18:31
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The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down a restriction that would have prevented doctors from administering abortion-inducing pills remotely via video teleconferencing, saying it would have placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion.
Iowa is one of only two states that offers so-called telemedicine abortions — Minnesota offers them on a smaller scale — and doctors at Iowa's urban clinics that perform abortions had been allowed to continue offering the remotely-administered abortions while the ruling was pending.
Planned Parenthood's local affiliate, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, had sued the Iowa Board of Medicine over its 2013 decision that would have required a doctor to be in the room with a patient when dispensing abortion-inducing medication.
The board cited safety concerns when it passed the rule requiring a physical examination, but Planned Parenthood and other critics said it was just another attempt by abortion rights opponents to make it harder for women to get abortions. They said the Iowa board's restriction particularly would have made it harder for women in more rural areas who don't live near the few urban clinics where doctors who perform abortions are based.
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German court cancels session in Auschwitz guard trial
Court Watch |
2015/06/02 19:05
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A German court has canceled another session in the trial of a 93-year-old former Auschwitz guard due to his poor health.
The Lueneburg state court said Wednesday's session in the trial of former SS sergeant Oskar Groening was called off, the fourth to be scrapped, and proceedings should resume June 9. The court already has limited sessions in Groening's trial, which opened in April, to three hours.
Groening is charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he helped the death camp function by sorting cash and valuables seized from Jews.
On Tuesday, the court heard testimony from Angela Orosz-Richt, who was born at Auschwitz. She said she survived "because I have a mission to speak for those who can't speak," the news agency dpa reported. |
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Attorney: Court orders release of anti-nuclear activists
Court Watch |
2015/05/16 07:19
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A federal appeals court has ordered the immediate release of an 85-year-old nun and two fellow Catholic peace activists who vandalized a uranium storage bunker, their attorney said Friday.
The order came after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week overturned the 2013 sabotage convictions of Sister Megan Rice, 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and ordered resentencing on their remaining conviction for injuring government property. The activists have spent two years in prison, and the court said they likely already have served more time than they will receive for the lesser charge.
On Thursday, their attorneys petitioned the court for an emergency release, saying that resentencing would take weeks if normal court procedures were followed. Prosecutors on Friday afternoon responded that they would not oppose the release, if certain conditions were met.
After the close of business on Friday, attorney Bill Quigley said the court had ordered the activists' immediate release. He said he was working to get them out of prison and was hopeful they could be released overnight or on the weekend.
"We would expect the Bureau of Prisons to follow the order of the court and release them as soon as possible," he said.
Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed are part of a loose network of activists opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons. To further their cause, in July 2012, they cut through several fences to reach the most secure area of the Y-12 complex. Before they were arrested, they spent two hours outside a bunker that stores much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium, hanging banners, praying and spray-painting slogans.
In the aftermath of the breach, federal officials implemented sweeping security changes, including a new defense security chief to oversee all of the National Nuclear Security Administration's sites.
Rice was originally sentenced to nearly three years and Walli and Boertje-Obed were each sentenced to just over five years. In overturning the sabotage conviction, the Appeals Court ruled that the trio's actions did not injure national security. |
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