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US appeals court overturns release of detainee
Court Watch News |
2011/06/09 23:52
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A Yemeni detainee ordered to be freed from Guantanamo Bay has to stay now that a U.S. appeals court has overturned his release.
The U.S Court of Appeals in Washington says circumstantial evidence of terrorist ties can be enough to keep a prisoner like Hussain Salem Mohammad Almerfedi at the U.S. naval prison in Cuba.
Almerfedi was captured in Iran after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and eventually transferred to U.S. authorities through Afghanistan. Government attorneys argue he was staying at an al-Qaida-affiliated guesthouse, based on the testimony of another Guantanamo detainee. Almerfedi denied it, and a lower court judge found the testimony against him unreliable and ordered him released.
But the appeals court said the judge erred in finding the testimony unreliable and found it was likely Almerfedi was part of al-Qaida. |
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Wis. DOJ asks court to lift ban on union law
Court Watch News |
2011/05/26 14:15
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State attorneys asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday to immediately vacate a Madison judge's decision striking down Republican Gov. Scott Walker's contentious collective bargaining law.
Judge Maryann Sumi invalidated the law on Thursday after finding Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open records law during the run-up to passage in March. The decision came in a lawsuit Democratic Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed challenging the law.
The state Justice Department is representing the Republicans. The agency's attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to take the case and the court set oral arguments on whether it should make a move for June 6. Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John said in a letter to the justices late Friday they need to act now.
St. John said the issues have been fully briefed so the court can immediately vacate Sumi's decision without hearing any further argument.
He argued Sumi issued the decision on her own, even though no one involved in the case had asked for such a ruling. She didn't give any of the parties a chance to be heard on the final disposition.
He also reiterated the Justice Department's argument that the Republicans can't be sued because they enjoy legislative immunity and Sumi can't invalidate the law due to an open meetings violation. |
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Appeals court upholds sentence in NC bus stop case
Court Watch News |
2011/05/21 14:15
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A man who a federal judge ruled had sex with his adopted sister has lost an appeal of his 2½ year prison sentence.
The judge ordered Royce Mitchell to jail because he decided his sexual relationship with 15-year-old Tiffany Wright violated terms of his 2007 probation on a federal drug charge.
Wright, who was eight months pregnant, was shot to death as she waited for the school bus in September 2009. Police named Mitchell a person of interest, but later concluded he wasn't involved with the killing.
But Wright told a detective that she had sex with Mitchell before she died.
Mitchell continues to deny the allegations, and Wright's lawyer said a DNA test that found Mitchell was not the baby's father proves they didn't have sex. But The Charlotte Observer reports that the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that just because prosecutors couldn't independently verify Wright's allegations doesn't mean they aren't true. |
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Supreme Court to hear another arbitration argument
Court Watch News |
2011/05/02 09:13
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The Supreme Court will consider a plea from companies that cater to people with bad credit to keep disputes with their customers out of court and in the more business-friendly forum of arbitration.
Days after handing businesses a huge victory by limiting class action claims against them, the court said Monday it will take up a new arbitration dispute in the fall.
The new case involves consumer complaints about companies that issue low-rate credit cards to people with bad credit ratings. The consumers said they were promised an initial $300 in available credit, but were charged $257 in fees in the first year they had the credit card.
The consumers sued in federal court, but the companies say the dispute must be handled by an arbitrator, under an agreement the customers signed to receive the card.
The federal Credit Repair Organizations Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, says consumers have a right to sue, which the federal appeals court in San Francisco interpreted as a right to go into court, rather than be forced to submit to arbitration. Appeals courts in Atlanta and Philadelphia have ruled otherwise in evaluating the same language in the law. |
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