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Kansas court's approval of death sentence not seen as shift
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2015/11/16 22:05
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Even though the state Supreme Court recently upheld a death sentence for the first time under the state’s 1994 capital punishment law, Kansas isn’t likely to see executions anytime soon or a shift in how the justices handle capital murder cases.
“Symbolically, there is something different,” said Robert Dunham, head of the anti-capital punishment, nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. “But I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
Several prosecutors are encouraged by this month’s decision in the case of John E. Robinson Sr. ? who was sentenced to die for killing two women in 1999 and 2000 and tied by evidence or his own admission to six other deaths, including a teenage girl, in Kansas and Missouri ? saying it showed it is possible to preserve a death sentence on appeal in Kansas.
Two Kansas law professors said the 415-page decision in John E. Robinson’s case issued earlier this month suggests the Supreme Court’s examination of future capital cases will remain as thorough as it has been.
The high court’s past decisions overturning death sentences inspired a campaign that almost succeeded in ousting two justices in last year’s elections and handed republican Gov. Sam Brownback a potent issue in the final weeks of his race for re-election. And there are more capital cases before the justices.
Only four days after the Robinson decision, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., an avowed anti-Semite, was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of three people at Jewish sites in the Kansas City suburbs.
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High court won't hear appeal on mortgage ratings
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2015/11/03 08:52
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from shareholders who claim the Standard & Poor's ratings firm made false statements about its ratings of risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the financial crisis.
The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that threw out a lawsuit filed by the Boca Raton Firefighters & Police Pension Fund against S&P's parent company, McGraw-Hill.
A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that statements about the integrity and credibility of S&P's credit ratings used routine, generic language that did not mislead investors.
The shareholders argued that false statements regarding a central aspect of the company's business were enough to violate federal securities laws.
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Woman charged in slayings of Connecticut couple due in court
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2015/11/02 08:53
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A Connecticut woman accused of conspiring with her boyfriend to kill his parents when they were considering cutting him out of their will is scheduled to make her first court appearance.
Jennifer Valiante of Westport is expected to be arraigned Monday in Bridgeport Superior Court on charges including conspiracy to commit murder and hindering prosecution. It's not clear if she has a lawyer.
Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Kyle Navin of Bridgeport, is facing murder charges in the slayings of his parents, Jeanette and Jeffrey Navin of Easton. His arraignment hasn't been set. His lawyer declined to comment.
The Navins disappeared Aug. 4 and their bodies were found Thursday in Weston.
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Britain's High Court rules that Uber app is lawful
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2015/10/18 00:31
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Britain's High Court has ruled that the Uber app to hail minicabs is lawful ? a blow to London's famous black cab drivers, who argued that it violated city regulations.
The court's decision Friday came after Transport for London sought clarification as to whether the San Francisco-based company's app worked in the same way as meters used by the strictly regulated black cabs.
The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association argued the app ? which records a car's location and travel time and feeds it back to servers in California ? worked like a meter.
But Justice Duncan Ouseley disagreed, ruling that the app relies on GPS signals and did not operate in the same way.
Uber has come under fire in several European countries, including France, Italy and Spain.
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