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Pakistani woman alleged to be al-Qaeda appears in US court
Legal Topics |
2008/08/07 16:06
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The first woman scheduled to stand trial in the US on charges related to suspected al-Qaeda ties has been extradited to the US and appeared before the District Court for the Southern District of New York Tuesday on terrorism charges. Aafia Siddiqui, who comes from Pakistan, was charged with assault and the attempted murder of a US officer after allegedly opening fire on agents at the Afghan detention facility where she was being held last month. According to the complaint:
AAFIA SIDDIQUI, the defendant, who will be first brought to and arrested in the Southern District of New York, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did use a deadly and dangerous weapon and did forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with a person designated in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1114, namely, officers and employees of the FBI and the United States armed services, while engaged in and on account of the performance of official duties, to wit, SIDDIQUI obtained a United States Army Officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at officers and employees of the FBI and the United States armed services. If convicted, she could face 20 years in prison on each charge.
Siddiqui's family has insisted that she is not an al-Qaeda agent and that the FBI has publicized misleading information about her. They say that Siddiqui, a former student at Brandeis University and MIT in Boston, may have been a victim of extraordinary rendition after she vanished from Karachi, Pakistan in 2003. Family lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp alleged that Siddiqui may have been wrongly detained and tortured at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. |
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ICE launches voluntary deportation program
Legal Topics |
2008/08/06 17:41
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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new program Tuesday that allows certain illegal immigrants to coordinate their removal from the US with ICE without the risk of home raids, arrest or detention. The Scheduled Departure Program, a pilot program that will run through August 22 in five major cities, is designed for illegal immigrants without criminal records who have ignored official removal orders. According to the ICE press release:
The agency recognizes there are those less inclined to accept the intentions of such a compassionately conceived enforcement initiative, but remains committed to providing sensible alternatives that balance the welfare of the individuals and families in question with its clear obligation to uphold the law.
The Scheduled Departure Program will not alter a participant's immigration status or provide any immigration benefit. The program is not a form of voluntary departure or voluntary return. Participants will continue to have a final order of removal, deportation or exclusion.
ICE stressed that illegal immigrants without formal removal orders, those with criminal records and those who pose a threat to national security would not qualify for the program and would be detained, but said that participation by those who qualified would ease the transition process and the impact on the immigrants' families. ICE also began an ad campaign in the five participating cities, but critics have said the program will be ineffective because eligible immigrants will not voluntarily surrender.
ICE maintains a number of additional initiatives [fact sheet] to combat illegal immigration. In May, 270 illegal immigrants arrested during an ICE-led raid at an Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Iowa were each sentenced to five months in prison and 27 more received probation after pleading guilty to the use of false immigration documents. ICE also carried out a raid in California the same month targeting 495 people who had ignored deportation orders, resulting in the arrest of more than 900 illegal immigrants. In general, US immigration prosecutions continued to increase in March 2008, jumping nearly 50 percent from the previous month and nearly 75 percent from the previous year, according to a report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. |
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Third Circuit rules on confiscation of materials
Legal Topics |
2008/08/01 15:42
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The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Thursday affirmed a decision to dismiss claims filed by fifteen current and former inmates alleging that various employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections violated their constitutional rights when they confiscated inmates' legal materials. After a DOC inmate filed fraudulent liens against a state court judge, a superintendent and the DOC secretary in June 2005, the DOC banned all materials related to the copyrighting of names, the filing of liens, and filings under the Uniform Commercial Code. Upon a search of the plaintiff inmates' cells, prison officials discovered these contraband documents and subsequently confiscated all of the inmates' legal materials, including items that had not been designated as contraband. The inmates filed suit, alleging that the seizures violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of Due Process as well as their right to access the courts and possess publications and legal materials under the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals dismissed the inmates' Due Process claims, noting that prison officials provided the inmates with three separate opportunities to reclaim their non-contraband property following the seizures, explaining that:
[A]n unauthorized intentional deprivation of property by prison officials does not violate the Due Process Clause if a meaningful postdeprivation remedy for the loss is available.
In affirming the lower court's determination that the DOC's confiscation did not unreasonably deprive the inmates of their right to possess publications and legal materials, the Third Circuit found that:
In light of the DOC’s experience with the inmate’s June 2005 filing, which demonstrated that fraudulent UCC filings are easy to file but burdensome to remove, along with the research that informed their judgment on this policy, we conclude that the defendants’ decision to engage in preemptive action in this case was reasonable
The court dismissed the inmates' claims that the seizures blocked their access to the courts, ruling that their initial pleadings were insufficient to support a claim. The court found that "the plaintiffs’ claim rested solely on the ground that the defendants confiscated their legal materials, contraband and non-contraband alike" and did not show an actual injury or that the inmates possessed no other remedy to compensate them for their lost claims.
Jurisdictions across the country have seen an increase in the malicious filing of fraudulent liens, which can cause great hardship for the affected parties. Some experts attribute the rise in such filings to a bizarre and convoluted new scam known as "redemption", in which participants are told that every American has a "strawman" account created by the the US government. Participants pay large sums to obtain fraudulent instructions said to be grounded in the UCC. These materials claim to show how to access the government money in that strawman account, and participants are encouraged to exact financial revenge against government officials. In February, a Texas inmate was sentenced to 12 years in prison after he filed fraudulent liens against a US District Judge and Assistant US Attorney involved in the prosecution of his initial drug convictions. |
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United Airlines Takes on Pilots Union
Legal Topics |
2008/07/31 16:18
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United Airlines wants to put an end to a pilot union's campaign to pressure the airline into reopening union negotiations by urging pilots to refuse voluntary flight assignments and to participate in an organized "sick-out," which forced United to cancel 329 flights between July 19 and July 27.
"United simply cannot afford a repeat of the summer of 2000 and its impact on the Company's customers and employees," the airline claims in Federal Court, referring to a widely publicized slowdown in 2000 that inconvenienced customers and took a toll on United's reputation.
United seeks an injunction barring the Air Line Pilots Association International and its members "from advocating or engaging in any form of job action designed to put economic pressure on United or disrupt its operations." |
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Bush Approves Military Death Sentence
Legal Topics |
2008/07/30 16:15
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President Bush approved the death sentence of Pvt. Ronald Gray, thefirst execution by the military since 1961. The former Army cook wasconvicted by court-martial of two murders and an attempted murder,among other offenses, while serving at Fort Bragg, N.C., in themid-1980s.
Gray had been charged with four counts of murderand eight counts of rape, and pleaded guilty to two murders and fiverapes in North Carolina state court.
In a separateproceeding, a court-martial panel convicted him of two counts ofmurder, one count of attempted murder and a slew of other charges,including rape, forcible sodomy and robbery.
An appeals courtfor the Armed Services rejected Gray's appeal in 1999, and Bushapproved his death sentence on Monday under the Uniform Code ofMilitary Justice.
"While approving a sentence of death for amember of our armed forces is a serious and difficult decision for acommander-in-chief, the president believes the facts of this case leaveno doubt that the sentence is just and warranted," White House PressSecretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
The last militaryexecution was ordered by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, and wascarried out by hanging in 1961. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld themilitary's use of the death penalty in 1996, but no one in the servicehas been executed since the Eisenhower administration. President JohnF. Kennedy chose to commute a death sentence to life in prison in 1962.
Currently, six people sit on military's death row at FortLeavenworth, Kan. The president has the final say whether they live ordie. |
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Actor's Pet Food Co. Sues over Contamination
Legal Topics |
2008/07/29 16:11
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Actor and self-professed animal lover Dick Van Patten, owner of Nature Balance Pet Foods, joined the fray of litigants suing over the massive 2007 pet-food recalls spurred by tainted wheat gluten and rice protein from China.
Wilbur-Ellis Co. continued to process contaminated shipments, which Nature Balance unwittingly distributed, the pet-food company claims in Superior Court.
The lawsuit invokes the words of Sir Walter Scott: "Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit." In the next sentence, Nature Balance points out that Wilbur-Ellis "displayed just the opposite nature and as a result pets across the country died and were sickened."
Nature Balance demands actual and punitive damages for its economic losses and severe damage to its reputation.
Van Patten starred in "Spaceballs," "High Anxiety" and numerous television shows. |
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Fundamentalist Mormon Leader Indicted
Legal Topics |
2008/07/23 16:06
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Six men in the fundamentalist Mormon "Yearning for Zion" compound were indicted Tuesday on charges of sexual assault and bigamy, including the group's leader, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs, who is in an Arizona jail on separate charges, is charged with first-degree felony sexual assault of a child, said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
The other as-yet unnamed suspects also were charged with felony sexual assault of minor girls. The indictments were issued by a Schleicher County grand jury.
One suspect faces an additional three counts of failure to report child abuse, Abbott said.
Arrest warrants are still under review, Abbott says, in refusing to provide further information. |
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