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Lawsuit: former officer involved in sex crime
Headline Court News |
2009/10/26 09:34
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WATERBURY, Conn. - !-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT content_item_dateline_preview END -- !-- P2P_LIVE_EDIT content_item_body_preview START --A lawyer for a 17-year-old boy has fileda lawsuit against the city of a class=taxInlineTagLink href=http://www.courant.com/topic/us/connecticut/new-haven-county/waterbury-PLGEO100100205240000.topic title=Waterbury id=PLGEO100100205240000Waterbury/a, claiming a now-retiredcity police officer handcuffed the teen during an attempted sexualassault in 2006.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this month and seeks unspecifieddamages. It accuses the city of negligent hiring and supervision offormer Officer Stephen Flanigan.
Flanigan could not be reached Monday. His home phone number isnot listed.
The boy told police that Flanigan handcuffed him during anattempted assault by Charles Fullenwiley at Fullenwiley'snow-defunct electronics store in Waterbury. Fullenwiley wassentenced last week to 40 years in prison for assaulting boys hetied up in his shop.
Flanigan has not been arrested, and an internal affairsinvestigation found the allegations unsubstantiated. |
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ND Supreme Court upholds Internet provider probe
Headline Court News |
2009/05/07 10:28
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North Dakota's Supreme Court says the attorney general may continue a probe into the marketing practices of an Internet service provider.
p
Simple.net Inc. of Mesa, Ariz., has tried to block investigations by North Dakota and other states. It contends the investigations are barred because of a settlement between the company and the Federal Trade Commission./ppIn a unanimous ruling, the North Dakota Supreme Court says the FTC agreement does not prevent the North Dakota attorney general from looking into Simple.net's business practices./ppAttorney General Wayne Stenehjem got complaints about Simple.net because the company was sending out incentive checks./ppWhen customers cashed the checks, they started getting billed almost $20 a month for Internet services. Stenehjem says the sales pitch was misleading./p |
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Court Debates Convict's Rights to DNA Re-Testing
Headline Court News |
2009/03/04 09:33
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Justice David Souter led the charge for the ability of convicts like William Osborne of Alaska to have the right to re-test DNA evidence. His strongest argument or his -- his basic argument is this evidence is potentially so important that the State has no valid interest in keeping [Osborne] at least from seeing it; i.e., testing it.
But other justices weren't as comfortable with that idea. Justice Antonin Scalia was the most vocal in his opposition. He suggested such a right would allow the accused to game the system.
A concern also shared by Justice Anthony Kennedy who told Osborne's lawyer what you are doing is setting up a game in which it would be really unwise to have the DNA test. Take your chances. You have a -- you have a built-in -- you have a -- a built-in second chance. And that's just -- that's just not sound trial strategy, counsel, and you know that.
Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly returned to the idea that if the court were to grant the right for post-conviction DNA testing that it would then open for debate a slew of other problems.
I'm trying to figure out what the limit of the constitutional right you're asserting is, Roberts asked. He went on to wonder if there would be re-testing rights at other stages in the trial process or even for fingerprint analysis and he questioned how long states would have to preserve DNA evidence in the name of this right.
Osborne was convicted of raping and nearing killing an Anchorage prostitute in 1993. At trial, his lawyers made the strategic decision not to seek more stringent DNA testing for fear that it would more strongly inculpate their client. Osborne is now seeking to re-test that DNA on the hope that it will lead to his freedom.
Osborne's attempts however have not also included a claim of innocence drawing the ire of a number of justices who wondered why they should confer a constitutional right on someone who doesn't even claim he is an innocent man. Today's oral arguments also drew out the fact that under Alaska law, Osborne could petition for the retesting of the DNA evidence if he does so while also claiming innocence. Something he has yet to do.
This development opens the door for the court to send the case back for further proceedings without answering the constitutional question. That potential ruling would be supported by the federal government which joined the case on behalf of Alaska.
[T]he unusual facts of this case, which include failure to attest to actual innocence under threat of perjury, two recent confessions to the crime, and a tactical decision at trial to forego a highly discriminating....DNA test, all together make this a particularly poor candidate for recognizing a new constitutional entitlement, said Neal Katyal arguing his first case before the court as deputy solicitor general.
If the court does issue a ruling declaring a federally protected constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing it isn't clear that it would have that much of an impact because most states already have statutes in place for such testing. Alaska is one of six states that does not guarantee that right. |
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Court Suit: Pfizer Testing on Nigerian Kids
Headline Court News |
2009/02/02 09:57
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The 2nd Circuit reinstated two lawsuits accusing Pfizer of testing an experimental antibiotic on Nigerian children, causing the deaths of 11 children and leaving others blind, deaf, paralyzed or brain-damaged. A group of unwitting test subjects and their families filed two federal lawsuits against the world's largest pharmaceutical company, claiming Pfizer violated a customary international law prohibiting involuntary medical experimentation on humans.
The plaintiffs said Pfizer sent three physicians to Africa to give Nigerian children doses of its new antibiotic, Trovan. The doctors allegedly teamed up with Nigerian officials and recruited 200 sick children at Nigeria's Infectious Disease Hospital in Kano to receive the experimental drug.
Half of the patients were given Trovan, while the other half received Ceftriaxone, an FDA-approved antibiotic.
The plaintiffs say Pfizer knew that the results could be dangerous, as animal tests showed that the antibiotic had life-threatening side effects, including joint disease, abnormal cartilage growth, liver damage and a degenerative bone condition.
After approximately two weeks, Pfizer allegedly concluded the experiment and left without administering follow-up care, the ruling states. According to the appellants, the tests caused the death of 11 children, five of whom had taken Trovan and six of whom had taken the lowered dose of Ceftriaxone, and left many others blind, deaf, paralyzed, or brain-damaged.
Pfizer allegedly failed to obtain the informed consent of either the children or their parents, and specifically failed to disclose or explain the experimental nature of the study or the serious risks involved, Judge Parker summarized.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley dismissed the claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute and, alternatively, on the ground that U.S. courts were not the most convenient forum.
The federal appeals court in New York reversed on a 2-1 vote, disagreeing with Pauley's conclusion that the prohibition against human experimentation can't be enforced through the Alien Tort Statute.
The administration of drug trials without informed consent poses threats to national security by impairing our relations with other countries, Judge Parker wrote. The judge cited an Associated Press finding that the Trovan trials engendered so much distrust in the local population that they contributed to an 11-month boycott of a polio vaccination campaign in 2004.
Judge Pauley had acknowledged the international law norm, but concluded that it wasn't legally binding on the United States, because no single source or treaty had officially recognized it.
The 2nd Circuit said the courts must look to a variety of sources to determine whether an international norm is sufficiently specific, universally accepted, and obligatory for courts to recognize a cause of action to enforce the norm.
Judge Parker said the plaintiffs made their case for such a recognized norm.
Judge Wesley dissented, saying the majority had undertaken to define a 'firmly established' norm of international law, heretofore unrecognized by any American court or treaty obligation, on the basis of materials inadequate for the task. |
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