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High court throws out conviction for Facebook threats
Headline Legal News |
2015/06/01 19:05
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The Supreme Court has thrown out the conviction of a Pennsylvania man accused of making threats on Facebook.
The justices ruled Monday that it was not enough for prosecutors to show that the comments of Anthony Elonis would make a reasonable person feel threatened.
Elonis was prosecuted for making illegal threats after he posted Facebook rants in the form of rap lyrics about killing his estranged wife, harming law enforcement officials and shooting up a school.
Elonis claimed the government had no right to prosecute him if he didn't actually intend his comments to be threatening to others. But the Obama administration said that the test is whether the comments would strike fear in a reasonable person. |
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Court: State can’t order unions, companies to reach binding contracts
Headline Legal News |
2015/05/18 07:19
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A California appeals court sided with one of the largest fruit farms in the nation, ruling that a law allowing the state to order unions and farming companies to reach binding contracts was unconstitutional.
Labor activists say the mandatory mediation and conciliation law is a key to helping farm workers improve working conditions.
However, the 5th District Court of Appeal said Thursday it does not clearly state the standards that the contracts are supposed to achieve.
The ruling came in a fight between Gerawan Farming and the United Farm Workers, the union launched by Cesar Chavez. The union won the right to represent Gerawan workers in 1992, but the two sides did not agree to a contract.
At the union’s request, the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 2013 ordered Gerawan and the UFW to enter into binding mediation. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement so a deal was crafted by the mediator and adopted by the labor relations board, the appeals court said. Gerawan objected to the terms. |
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Ohio man accused in US Capitol terror plot returns to court
Headline Legal News |
2015/05/12 07:20
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A suburban Cincinnati man accused of plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol in support of Islamic State extremists is due back in federal court.
An indictment last week added a fourth charge against 21-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell. The count of attempting to provide material support to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization carries a potential sentence of up to 15 years in prison with conviction.
He already faced two charges with possible 20-year sentences. Cornell pleaded not guilty to those charges.
He is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday in Cincinnati on the new count. He has been held without bond since his Jan. 14 arrest.
His father has said Cornell was coerced by a government "snitch."
U.S. authorities are on alert for "lone wolf" terrorist plots inspired by the Islamic State group. |
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Afghan Court Sentences AP Journalist’s Killer to 20 Years
Headline Legal News |
2015/03/31 19:56
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Afghanistan’s highest court has ruled that the police officer convicted of murdering Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding AP correspondent Kathy Gannon almost one year ago should serve 20 years in prison, according to documents sent to the country’s attorney general on Saturday.
The final sentence for former Afghan police unit commander Naqibullah was reduced from the death penalty recommended by a primary court last year. Twenty years in prison is the maximum jail sentence in Afghanistan, said Zahid Safi, a lawyer for the Associated Press who had been briefed on the decision by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruling upholds an intermediate court’s decision, which was opposed by the Military Attorney General’s office.
Naqibullah, who uses only one name, opened fire on Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon without warning on April 4 as the two were covering the first round of the country’s presidential election outside the city of Khost in southeastern Afghanistan.
An award-winning German photographer, Ms. Niedringhaus was renowned for her humane depictions of ordinary life as well as for her coverage of conflict zones from the Balkans to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. She died instantly of her wounds at the age of 48. Ms. Gannon, a senior correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan with decades of experience in the region, was hit with six bullets that ripped through her left arm, right hand and left shoulder, shattering her shoulder blade. She is recovering from her injuries while undergoing physical therapy in her native Canada.
According to witnesses and court testimony, Ms. Gannon and Ms. Niedringhaus were seated in the back seat of a car parked in a crowd of police and election officials at a police station when Naqibullah walked up to the vehicle, shouted “Allahu Akbar,” and fired on them with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He surrendered immediately. Witness and official accounts suggested the shooting was not planned. |
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Supreme Court sides with Kansas in water dispute
Headline Legal News |
2015/02/25 17:40
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.
The justices also gave Nebraska some of what it asked for and ordered changes to the formula for measuring water consumption. Nebraska argued that the formula was unfair.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing the majority opinion, said the court was adopting the recommendations of the independent expert the justices appointed to help resolve the states' differences.
The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river's water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado. Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.
"Both remedies safeguard the compact; both insist that states live within its law," Kagan wrote.
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's office said it was pleased with the decision. The $5.5 million award is significantly less than the $80 million that Kansas had sought.
"We hope the decision will move the basin states forward and provide continued incentives toward shared solutions to our common problems," the office said in a statement. "We are confident that payment of the court's recommended award will finally allow us to leave the past where it belongs — in the past."
While calling the decision "reasonable," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he looked forward to working with his Kansas and Colorado counterparts to move forward. |
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NYPD officer due in court in stairwell shooting
Headline Legal News |
2015/02/16 19:37
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Criminal charges will be unsealed against a rookie police officer who fired into a darkened stairwell at a Brooklyn housing complex, accidentally killing a man who had been waiting for an elevator.
A lawyer says Officer Peter Liang was indicted by a grand jury in the November shooting death of 28-year-old Akai Gurley. It wasn't clear what charges the grand jury considered. He could face a misdemeanor official misconduct, or manslaughter, a felony. A lawyer for Gurley's family says the officer is expected in court Wednesday afternoon.
The case was closely watched following the mass protests and calls for reform of the grand jury system nationwide after a Staten Island grand jury's refusal to indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner |
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Appeals court weighs suit in US Marshals shooting
Headline Legal News |
2015/01/30 17:30
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An appeals court is deciding whether deputy U.S. marshals who shot and wounded a teenage driver eight years ago may be sued in federal court, a case that's unfolding amid a national debate about police use of force and the legal protections afforded to law enforcement.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments last month and could issue an opinion soon.
The case of driver Michael Fenwick raises questions about how police can deal with fleeing individuals and the role video should play in analyzing a police pursuit. A case that presented similar issues was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last year after fascinated justices watched dashboard camera video of the chase.
The key issue for the appeals court is whether the deputies are entitled to qualified immunity, a legal principle that shields government officials from being sued unless their actions violate clearly established constitutional rights. A lower-court judge in 2013 allowed the case to go forward, saying there were legitimate questions about whether excessive force was used, but rejected many other arguments from Fenwick's lawyer.
An appeals court ruling in favor of the marshals would end the case. But if the judges prove sympathetic to arguments that the shooting was unjustified, the case would be returned to the trial court, where it could ultimately reach a jury and add to a body of law that is still developing. That's a potentially heavy legal burden, given past court decisions that give law enforcement leeway in firing at fleeing suspects if they feel endangered. |
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