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Venezuela’s Supreme Court certifies Maduro’s claims that he won presidential election
Legal Business |
2024/08/25 21:57
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Venezuela’s Supreme Court has backed President Nicolás Maduro’s claims that he won last month’s presidential election and said voting tallies published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
The ruling is the latest attempt by Maduro to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the contested July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader was seeking a third, six-year term.
The high court is packed with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
Its decision, read Thursday in an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response to a request by Maduro to review vote totals showing he had won by more than 1 million votes.
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.
Thanks to a superb ground game on election day, opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide and which show opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The official tally sheets printed by each voting machine carry a QR code that makes it easy for anyone to verify the results and are almost impossible to replicate.
“An attempt to judicialize the results doesn’t change the truth: we won overwhelmingly and we have the voting records to prove it,” González, standing before a Venezuelan flag, said in a video posted on social media.
The high court’s ruling certifying the results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility. Specifically, the outside experts noted that authorities didn’t release a breakdown of results by each of the 30,000 voting booths nationwide, as they have in almost every previous election.
The government has claimed — without evidence — that a foreign cyberattack staged by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the vote counting on election night and publication of the disaggregated results.
González was the only one of 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court’s audit, a fact noted by the justices, who in their ruling accused him of trying to spread panic.
The former diplomat and his chief backer, opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding after the election as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on demonstrations that erupted spontaneously throughout the country protesting the results.
Numerous foreign governments, including the U.S. as well as several allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release the full breakdown of results.
Gabriel Boric, the leftist president of Chile and one of the main critics of Maduro’s election gambit, lambasted the high court’s certification. |
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Biden unveils a proposal to establish term limits for the Supreme Court
Legal Business |
2024/07/28 11:59
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President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He’s also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.
The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Biden’s court proposal, one that appears to have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with just 99 days to go before Election Day.
Still, Democrats hope it’ll help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has sought to frame her race against Republican ex-President Donald Trump as “a choice between freedom and chaos,” quickly endorsed the Biden proposal. She added that the changes are needed because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
The White House is looking to tap into the growing outrage among Democrats about the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issuing opinions that overturned landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory powers that stood for decades.
Liberals also have expressed dismay over revelations about what they say are questionable relationships and decisions by some members of the conservative wing of the court that suggest their impartiality is compromised.
“I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers,” Biden argues in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Harris later issued a statement saying the American people must have confidence in a Supreme Court blighted by ethics scandals and decisions overturning long-standing precedent. She said the reforms being proposed “will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”
The president planned to speak about his proposal later Monday during an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court. He argues term limits would help ensure that court membership changes with some regularity and adds a measure of predictability to the nomination process.
He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a court code of ethics that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. |
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Iowa law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy to take effect Monday
Legal Business |
2024/07/26 18:14
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An Iowa judge has ruled the state’s strict abortion law will take effect Monday, preventing most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
The law passed last year, but a judge had blocked it from being enforced. The Iowa Supreme Court reiterated in June that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state and ordered the hold to be lifted. That translated into Monday’s district court judge’s decision ordering the law to into effect July 29 at 8:00 a.m. Central time.
Lawyers representing abortion providers asked Judge Jeffrey Farrell for notice before allowing the law to take hold, saying a buffer period was needed to provide continuity of services. Iowa requires pregnant women to wait 24 hours for an abortion after getting an initial consultation. Abortion had been legal in the state up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The high court’s order gave a decisive win to Iowa’s Republican leaders after years of legislative and legal battles.
Iowa will join more than a dozen states where abortion access has been sharply curbed in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Currently, 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy and three states — Iowa will make four — ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion access stands to be a major issue in the 2024 election, especially as Vice President Kamala Harris aims to lead the Democratic Party. Harris has said “everything is at stake” with reproductive health in November’s election and has traveled across the country to draw attention to the issue, including in Des Moines roughly a year ago after the stricter law initially passed.
Iowa’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in a special session last July, and a legal challenge was immediately filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. The law was in effect for just a few days before a district court judge temporarily blocked it.
“Today is a victory for life,” Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement Tuesday.
There are limited circumstances under the Iowa law that would allow for abortion after six weeks of pregnancy: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has an abnormality “incompatible with life”; or if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.
The state’s medical board defined standards of practice earlier this year, though the rules do not outline how the board would determine noncompliance or what the appropriate disciplinary action might be.
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Albania’s supreme court leaves ethnic Greek ex-mayor in prison
Legal Business |
2024/07/17 17:18
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Albania’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld a verdict of the lower courts keeping a former elected mayor from the country’s Greek minority in prison after he was convicted of buying votes.
A Supreme Court statement said that it upheld the verdicts of the court of first instance and the court of appeal which had sentenced Freddie Beleris, 51, to two years in prison.
Beleris, who has dual citizenship, is also a member of the European Parliament. He won a Greek seat in the EU legislature in elections last month, representing the governing conservative New Democracy party.
Beleris’ office in Athens said Friday that prison authorities have granted him leave for five days to attend the opening session of the new Parliament in Strasbourg on July 16-21.
In Albania, prison department spokeswoman Fernanda Cenko said Beleris’ leave request was “still being considered.”
European Parliament lawmakers enjoy substantial legal immunity from prosecution, even if the allegations relate to crimes committed prior to their election.
In the case of Beleris, that rule is unlikely to affect the outcome, as he is serving time for a crime committed in a non-EU member country.
Last year Beleris was elected mayor of Himare, 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital, Tirana. He was arrested two days before the vote, accused of offering 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euro at the time) to buy eight votes. Beleris was never sworn in because he was under arrest and later sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Beleris has denied the charges, and Athens has described his detention as politically motivated.
After the appeal court verdict, Albanian election authorities stripped Beleris of his post as Himara’s mayor and a new election will be held Aug. 4.
Beleris’ case has strained ties between Tirana and Athens, with Greece saying the case could harm Albania’s application to join the European Union. Albania, a candidate country, is in the process of negotiating full membership.
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Marilyn Mosby to be sentenced for mortgage fraud and perjury convictions
Legal Business |
2024/05/24 12:08
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A former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore will soon learn her sentence for lying about her personal finances so she could improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby appeared before a judge Thursday at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital. Two juries separately convicted Mosby of perjury and mortgage fraud charges after trials involving her personal finances.
Mosby, 44, gained a national profile for charging six Baltimore police officers in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a Black man fatally injured in police custody. Gray’s death led to riots and protests in the city. After three officers were acquitted, Mosby’s office dropped charges against the other three officers.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Mosby withdrew $90,000 from Baltimore city’s deferred compensation plan and used it to make down payments on vacation homes in Kissimmee and Long Boat Key, Florida.
Prosecutors argued that Mosby improperly accessed the funds under provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act by falsely claiming that the pandemic had harmed her travel-oriented side business.
Mosby’s sentencing argument said the retirement funds came from her own income and that no one was defrauded because she paid an early withdrawal penalty and all federal taxes on the money. The government said that money remained the property of the city until she was legally eligible, and her perjury harmed everyone who followed the rules during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mosby’s mortgage fraud conviction stems from a $5,000 “gift letter” she submitted when taking a loan to buy the Long Boat Key property. Prosecutors said the letter falsely stated that Mosby’s husband was giving her a $5,000 gift for the closing when it actually was her own money.
“Without the gift letter, the loan would never have been provided and Ms. Mosby would not have obtained the property. No gift letter, no loan,” prosecutors wrote.
Federal prosecutors also said she deserves prison because unlike others convicted of white-collar crimes, she’s expressed no remorse or contrition and has tried to delegitimize the case against her. They recommended a 20-month prison sentence for Mosby, who served two terms as state’s attorney for Baltimore. She lost a reelection bid after her 2022 indictment.
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Hunter Biden arrives at court for a final hearing before his June 3 gun trial
Legal Business |
2024/05/19 12:08
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The judge overseeing Hunter Biden ’s federal firearms charges trial agreed Friday to block prosecutors from telling jurors about some other unflattering episodes from his personal life, but left the door open to allowing them in if the president’s son testifies.
It’s unclear whether the president’s son would take the stand during the trial that could last up to two weeks during his father’s reelection campaign and likely include sharp disagreements over evidence.
President Joe Biden’s son is charged with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days in Delaware. A trial is set to begin June 3 and could last up to two weeks as his father’s re-election campaign unfolds.
Hunter Biden has acknowledged an addiction to crack cocaine during that period, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law and the case is politically motivated. He didn’t speak to reporters as he accompanied his lawyers to and from the Wilmington courthouse for a hearing on Friday.
Prosecutors won a victory on a key point as U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika found that they wouldn’t have to prove that he specifically used drugs on the day of the purchase. She agreed to a defense push to keep out other details about his past, including a child-support case in Arkansas and his dismissal from the Navy after a positive drug test. If he does take the stand, however, “there’s a number of issues that may become more contentious,” Noreika said. Prosecutors have acknowledged those episodes likely won’t be relevant unless he testifies.
She also agreed to consider defense questions about the contents of a laptop that he allegedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys want to raise questions about the authenticity of the laptop’s data at trial. Prosecutors say that there’s no evidence it has been compromised and that a drawn-out fight would be a waste of time. The laptop has been the source of controversy for years after Republicans accessed and disseminated personal data from it.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said she will consider objections to specific pieces of data as the trial unfolds.
Prosecutors also plan to show jurors portions of his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he detailed his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse following the 2015 death of his older brother, Beau, of brain cancer at age 46.
Defense attorneys argued prosecutors were cherry-picking evidence, and the judge agreed to allow Biden’s attorneys to introduce wider selections.
His attorney Abbe Lowell also says there are indications that the gun-purchase form was changed by employees after the sale. Prosecutors say there were only minor additions unrelated to the parts Hunter Biden filled out.
Noreika didn’t immediately rule on whether the defense could introduce an altered version of the form at trial, which is expected to begin with jury selection on June 3.
Hunter Biden is also facing federal tax charges in Los Angeles and is set for trial in that case in September. He’s accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years while living an “extravagant lifestyle” during a period in which he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. The back taxes have since been paid.
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Justice Clarence Thomas calls Washington a 'hideous place'
Legal Business |
2024/05/12 03:56
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington, D.C., as a “hideous place.”
Thomas spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems meanspirited.
“I think there’s challenges to that. We’re in a world and we — certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been — just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible,” Thomas said.
“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you unless you permit that,” Thomas said.
Thomas has faced criticisms that he took accepted luxury trips from a GOP donor without reporting them. Thomas last year maintained that he didn’t have to report the trips paid for by one of “our dearest friends.” His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
He did not discuss the content of the criticisms directly, but said that “reckless” people in Washington will “bomb your reputation.”
“They don’t bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor. And that’s not a crime. But they can do as much harm that way,” Thomas said.
During the appearance, Thomas was asked questions by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, one of Thomas’ former law clerks who was later appointed to the federal bench. During his hour-long appearance, the longest-serving justice on the court discussed a wide range of topics including the lessons of his grandfather, his friendship with former colleagues and his belief that court writings and discussions should be more accessible for “regular people.”
Thomas, who spent most of his working life in Washington D.C., also discussed his dislike of it.
“I think what you are going to find and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said. Thomas said that it is one of the reasons he and his wife “like RVing.”
“You get to be around regular people who don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things, merely because they have the capacity to do it or because they disagree,” Thomas said.
A recreational vehicle used by Thomas also became a source of controversy. Senate Democrats in October issued a report saying that most of the $267,000 loan obtained by Thomas to buy a high-end motorcoach appears to have been forgiven.
Thomas did not discuss the court’s high-profile caseload.
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