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Appeals court agrees Trump tax returns can be turned over
Lawyer News |
2019/11/03 18:13
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President Donald Trump’s tax returns can be turned over to New York prosecutors by his personal accountant, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, leaving the last word to the Supreme Court
The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upholds a lower court decision in the ongoing fight over Trump’s financial records. Trump has refused to release his tax returns since he was a presidential candidate, and is the only modern president who hasn’t made that financial information public.
In a written decision, three appeals judges said they only decided whether a state prosecutor can demand Trump’s personal financial records from a third party while the president is in office.
The appeals court said it did not consider whether the president is immune from indictment and prosecution while in office or whether the president himself may be ordered to produce documents in a state criminal proceeding.
According to the decision, a subpoena seeking Trump’s private tax returns and financial information relating to businesses he owns as a private citizen “do not implicate, in any way, the performance of his official duties.”
Several weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan tossed out Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block his accountant from letting a grand jury see his tax records from 2011.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. sought the records in a broader probe that includes payments made to buy the silence of two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal, who claim they had affairs with the president before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied them. |
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Court opens way to send ex-Mozambique minister to US trial
Lawyer News |
2019/11/01 20:51
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Former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang faces the prospect of being extradited to the United States to face trial after a South African court on Friday ruled against him being sent to his home country.
Chang's fate is now with South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola after the court set aside his predecessor's decision to extradite him to Mozambique. Lamola has asserted that the southern African nation has not shown seriousness in prosecuting him.
Chang was arrested in South Africa last year on the request of the U.S. government in relation to the scandal involving $2 billion worth of secret loans guaranteed by Mozambique's government during his tenure from 2005 to 2015.
Companies set up by Mozambique's secret services and defense ministry borrowed the $2 billion in secret to set up maritime projects that never materialized but allegedly enriched a range of local and foreign players.
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Samsung heir Lee appears in court for corruption retrial
Lawyer News |
2019/10/26 20:44
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Billionaire Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong appeared in court Friday for a retrial on corruption allegations linked to a 2016 scandal that spurred massive street protests and sent South Korea's then-president to prison.
"I feel deeply sorry for worrying many people," Lee said while facing a barrage of camera clicks before walking into the Seoul High Court with his lawyers. He didn't answer questions about the prospects of a jail term or how that would affect Samsung's business. Some protesters shouted "Arrest Lee Jae-yong!"
The Supreme Court in August ordered the retrial after concluding the amount of bribes Lee was accused of providing to ex-President Park Geun-hye and her confidante had been underestimated in a previous ruling that freed the Samsung Electronics vice chairman from jail on a suspended sentence.
While Lee apparently faces an increased possibility of serving jail time in the retrial, it's unclear what that would mean for Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer of computer chips, smartphones and TVs.
Some experts say a jailed Lee would hurt Samsung's decision-making process at a critical time as the company grapples with instability in the semiconductor market and ramifications from the trade war between the United States and China. |
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Alaska Supreme Court to Hear Youths’ Climate Change Lawsuit
Lawyer News |
2019/10/09 11:14
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The Alaska Supreme Court will hear arguments in a lawsuit that claims state policy on fossil fuels is harming the constitutional right of young Alaskans to a safe climate.
Sixteen Alaska youths in 2017 sued the state, claiming that human-caused greenhouse gas emission leading to climate change is creating long-term, dangerous health effects.
The lawsuit takes aim at a state statute that says it’s the policy of Alaska to promote fossil fuels, said Andrew Welle of Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting natural systems for present and future generations.
“The state has enacted a policy of promoting fossil fuels and implemented it in a way that is resulting in substantial greenhouse gas emissions in Alaska,” Welle said in a phone interview. “They’re harming these young kids.”
A central question in the lawsuit, as in previous federal and state lawsuits, is the role of courts in shaping climate policy. |
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Ohio counties tell court: Don’t let state stop opioid trial
Lawyer News |
2019/10/03 12:46
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Two Ohio counties are telling a court to deny their state attorney general’s request to delay a major trial over the toll of opioids.
Attorney General Dave Yost asked a federal appeals court in August not to let a district judge move ahead with a case scheduled to begin Oct. 21.
It would be the first federal trial of claims brought by a government seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the opioid crisis.
The attorney general says the state’s similar claims should move ahead of those brought by Cuyahoga and Summit counties, home to Cleveland and Akron.
The counties say the state doesn’t have a say because it’s not part of this case. The judge in charge of the Oct. 21 trial has also denied the state’s request.
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The Latest: Ex-addict says Dallas cop helped her get sober
Lawyer News |
2019/10/02 12:46
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LaWanda Clark told jurors Wednesday during Guyger's murder trial that she struggled with a crack cocaine addiction and that Guyger wrote her a ticket on the day of the drug bust. She says Guyger told her that the ticket could be the impetus to turn her life around.
While Clark was speaking, attorneys showed jurors a photo of Guyger attending Clark's graduation from a community drug treatment program.
Clark said Guyger treated her as a person, not as "an addict," and said she is now sober.
Guyger faces up to life in prison for the September 2018 shooting death of Botham Jean. She says she mistook Jean's apartment for her own, which was one floor below.
A high school friend who played in an all-female mariachi band with Amber Guyger says the former Dallas police officer feels "immense remorse" for fatally shooting a neighbor in his own apartment.
Maribel Chavez testified Wednesday that she met Guyger in ninth grade during orchestra practice. They later went on to play in a mariachi band, with Guyger playing violin and trumpet.
Chavez said Guyger is typically bubbly and extroverted, but that since she killed her neighbor, Botham Jean, in September 2018, "It's like you shut her light off."
She described her friend as selfless, caring and a protector of those around her. |
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Transgender woman in Supreme Court case 'happy being me'
Lawyer News |
2019/09/26 22:58
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Aimee Stephens lost her job at a suburban Detroit funeral home and she could lose her Supreme Court case over discrimination against transgender people. Amid her legal fight, her health is failing.
But seven years after Stephens thought seriously of suicide and six years after she announced that she would henceforth be known as Aimee instead of Anthony, she has something no one can take away.
The Supreme Court will hear Stephens' case Oct. 8 over whether federal civil rights law that bars job discrimination on the basis of sex protects transgender people. Other arguments that day deal with whether the same law covers sexual orientation.
The cases are the first involving LGBT rights since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's gay-rights champion and decisive vote on those issues. They probably won't be decided before spring, during the 2020 presidential campaign.
The 58-year-old Stephens plans to attend the arguments despite dialysis treatments three times a week to deal with kidney failure and breathing problems that require further treatment. She used a walker the day she spoke to AP at an LGBT support center in the Ferndale suburb north of Detroit.
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