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Greek court postpones retrial in US tourist's beating death
Legal Business |
2020/01/08 19:12
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A Greek court on Wednesday postponed the retrial of seven suspects on murder charges over the 2017 fatal beating of a Texan tourist on an island resort to allow a lawyer newly hired by the victim's family to familiarize himself with the case.
The court in the western port town of Patras postponed the case until Jan. 13.
Six of the men -- five Serbian nationals and a British man of Serbian origin -- had been convicted by a first instance court last year and sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison, but four have since been released. The seventh defendant, a Greek barman, had been acquitted. A public prosecutor had ordered the retrial of all seven, deeming the sentences too lenient.
Bakari Henderson, a 22-year-old from Austin, died in July 2017 after being beaten in the street following an argument in a bar in the Laganas resort area of Zakynthos island.
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Court: Washington drivers must use turn signals to turn
Legal Business |
2019/12/29 19:57
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The state Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that drivers must use their signal every time they turn or change lanes on a roadway.
Thursday’s ruling reverses a Court of Appeals ruling that said a signal is required only when public safety is affected. The high court ruled that the plain language of the law requires drivers “to ensure turns and lane changes are done safely and with an appropriate turn signal."
The ruling was issued in the case of David Brown, who was arrested for driving under the influence in Kennewick in March 2015. State patrol officers pulled him over after he briefly turned on his left turn signal while approaching a light in a designated left turn lane but turned it off and did not reactivate it while at the light or making the turn. He was arrested after his breath test showed .26 breath alcohol content, more than triple the legal limit.
Brown had argued that the evidence of the breath test should be suppressed because the underlying traffic stop was without cause, and a lower court agreed and dismissed the case. The only issue before the Supreme Court was whether Brown violated traffic laws. The case now goes back to the lower courts to proceed in accordance with the high court's guidance on the initial stop.
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Roberts will tap his inner umpire in impeachment trial
Legal Business |
2019/12/24 18:51
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America’s last prolonged look at Chief Justice John Roberts came 14 years ago, when he told senators during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing that judges should be like baseball umpires, impartially calling balls and strikes.
“Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire,” Roberts said.
His hair grayer, the 64-year-old Roberts will return to the public eye as he makes the short trip from the Supreme Court to the Senate to preside over President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. He will be in the national spotlight, but will strive to be like that umpire — doing his best to avoid the partisan mire.
“He’s going to look the part, he’s going to play the part and he’s the last person who wants the part,” said Carter Phillips, who has argued 88 Supreme Court cases, 43 of them in front of Roberts.
He has a ready model he can follow: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who never became the center of attention when he presided over President Bill Clinton’s Senate trial.
As Roberts moves from the camera-free, relative anonymity of the Supreme Court to the glare of television lights in the Senate, he will have the chance to demonstrate by example what he has preached relentlessly in recent years: Judges are not politicians.
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Protests of Indian law grow despite efforts to contain them
Legal Business |
2019/12/18 17:07
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From campuses along India’s Himalayan northern border to its southern Malabar Coast, a student-led protest movement against a new law that grants citizenship on the basis of religion spread nationwide on Wednesday despite efforts by the government to contain it.
The law provides a path to citizenship for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally but can demonstrate religious persecution in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It does not apply to Muslims.
Critics say it’s the latest effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government to marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims, and a violation of the country’s secular constitution.
Modi has defended it as a humanitarian gesture, but on Wednesday, authorities tightened restrictions on protesters, expanding a block on the internet and a curfew in Assam, where protests since the law’s passage a week ago have disrupted life in Gauhati, the state capital. They also restricted assembly in a Muslim neighborhood in New Delhi where demonstrators on Tuesday burned a police booth and several vehicles.
After India’s Supreme Court postponed hearing challenges to the law Wednesday, huge demonstrations erupted in Gauhati, in Chennai, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and in Mumbai, India’s financial capital. Protesters also rallied in Srinagar, the main city in disputed Kashmir and in the tourist mecca of Jaipur in the desert state of Rajasthan, and threw stones at buses in Kochi, the capital of the southernmost state of Kerala.
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Kansas Supreme Court getting new member, new chief justice
Legal Business |
2019/12/14 21:30
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The Kansas Supreme Court will have a new member and a new chief justice next week.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly plans to have a Monday morning news conference to name a replacement for former Justice Lee Johnson, who retired in September.
And Justice Marla Luckert is set to become the state court system's top official Tuesday when current Chief Justice Lawton Nuss retires.
Kelly's appointment Monday will be her first to the seven-member court, and she'll fill a second spot by mid-March because of Nuss' retirement.
The finalists for Kelly's first appointment are Shawnee County District Judge Evelyn Wilson, state Assistant Solicitor General Steven Obermeier and Deputy Kansas Attorney General Dennis Depew.
Johnson left the court after 12 1/2 years. Nuss is stepping down after serving on the court since 2002 and as chief justice since 2010.
Luckert is Nuss' replacement as chief justice because she's the next justice on the seven-member court with the most seniority.
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Supreme Court says Ginsburg released from hospital
Legal Business |
2019/11/25 16:42
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The Supreme Court says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been released from a Baltimore hospital where she had been treated for a possible infection.
The 86-year-old Ginsburg has returned to her home in Washington, D.C., and is “doing well,” court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Sunday. Ginsburg spent two nights at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She was taken there Friday after experiencing chills and fever.
The court says she received intravenous antibiotics and fluids and that her symptoms abated. Ginsburg has had four occurrences of cancer, including two in the past year. She had lung cancer surgery in December and received radiation treatment for a tumor on her pancreas in August.
She had a rare absence from a public session of the court in mid-November because of what the court said was a stomach bug. She was back on the bench the next time the justices met.
Her latest hospital stay began Friday, after the justices met in private to discuss pending cases. She was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington before being transferred to Johns Hopkins for further evaluation and treatment of any possible infection.
Ginsburg has been on the court since 1993, appointed by President Bill Clinton. Only Justice Clarence Thomas has served longer among the current members of the court.
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EU court refers doubts on Polish judiciary to national court
Legal Business |
2019/11/16 11:32
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The European Union's top court ruled Tuesday that there are reasons to question the independence of a new judicial chamber in Poland that monitors and potentially punishes judges.
However, the European Court of Justice left it to Poland's highest court to determine whether the new Disciplinary Chamber is independent of influence from the nations' legislative and executive powers.
In Poland, both sides of the heated dispute around the ruling party's controversial changes to the country's judiciary declared victory upon hearing the verdict.
The head of the Supreme Court, Malgorzata Gersdorf, said the EU court clearly shared concerns over the new chamber, which is part of the Supreme Court. She vowed action aiming to "restore trust" in Poland's top court and its judicial bodies.
The right-wing government, however, said the ruling, which referred the matter back to Poland's judges, was a clear sign that the EU court believes it has no jurisdiction to assess the justice systems of member nations. Poland's ruling Law and Justice party has been voicing that opinion ever since it started to introduce changes to the judiciary when it took power in 2015.
The EU court's ruling also implied there are questions about the independence of another top body in Poland, the National Council of the Judiciary, which proposes judges for court positions, including on the Supreme Court, and is supposed to protect their independence. |
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