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Appeals court sets aside conviction of bin Laden assistant
Lawyer News |
2015/06/10 17:28
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A federal appeals court has set aside the military commission conviction of a Guantanamo Bay detainee who allegedly produced an al-Qaida recruiting video and served as Osama bin Laden's personal assistant and public relations secretary.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the conspiracy case against the detainee was legally flawed because conspiracy is not a war crime. The detainee is Ali Hamza al-Bahlul.
The system of military commissions was created by the administration of President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Obama administration argued that Congress acted within its authority in making conspiracy a crime that could be tried by military commission.
Al-Bahlul's lawyers argued that military commissions can only try offenses under the law of war.
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Another Arizona immigration law dismantled by the courts
Lawyer News |
2015/06/04 00:25
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The U.S. Supreme Court landed the final blow against an Arizona law that denied bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and are charged with certain felonies, marking the latest in a series of state immigration policies that have since been thrown out by the courts.
The nation's highest court on Monday rejected a bid from metro Phoenix's top prosecutor and sheriff to reinstate the 2006 law after a lower appeals court concluded late last year that it violated civil rights by imposing punishment before trial.
While a small number of Arizona's immigration laws have been upheld, the courts have slowly dismantled most of the other statutes that sought to draw local police into immigration enforcement.
"At this point, we can say that was a failed experiment," said Cecillia Wang, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who led the challenge of the law. "Like the rest of the country, Arizona should move on from that failed experiment."
Voters overwhelmingly approved the no-bail law as the state's politicians were feeling pressure to take action on illegal immigration. It automatically denied bail to immigrants charged with a range of felonies that included shoplifting, aggravated identity theft, sexual assault and murder.
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Attorney: Court orders release of anti-nuclear activists
Lawyer News |
2015/05/16 11:26
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A federal appeals court has ordered the immediate release of an 85-year-old nun and two fellow Catholic peace activists who vandalized a uranium storage bunker, their attorney said Friday.
The order came after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week overturned the 2013 sabotage convictions of Sister Megan Rice, 66-year-old Michael Walli and 59-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed and ordered resentencing on their remaining conviction for injuring government property. The activists have spent two years in prison, and the court said they likely already have served more time than they will receive for the lesser charge.
On Thursday, their attorneys petitioned the court for an emergency release, saying that resentencing would take weeks if normal court procedures were followed. Prosecutors on Friday afternoon responded that they would not oppose the release, if certain conditions were met.
After the close of business on Friday, attorney Bill Quigley said the court had ordered the activists' immediate release. He said he was working to get them out of prison and was hopeful they could be released overnight or on the weekend.
"We would expect the Bureau of Prisons to follow the order of the court and release them as soon as possible," he said.
Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed are part of a loose network of activists opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons. To further their cause, in July 2012, they cut through several fences to reach the most secure area of the Y-12 complex. Before they were arrested, they spent two hours outside a bunker that stores much of the nation's bomb-grade uranium, hanging banners, praying and spray-painting slogans.
In the aftermath of the breach, federal officials implemented sweeping security changes, including a new defense security chief to oversee all of the National Nuclear Security Administration's sites.
Rice was originally sentenced to nearly three years and Walli and Boertje-Obed were each sentenced to just over five years. In overturning the sabotage conviction, the Appeals Court ruled that the trio's actions did not injure national security. |
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High court rejects Wisconsin appeal over tribal night hunts
Lawyer News |
2015/04/23 14:49
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin officials who want to keep in place a decades-old ruling that bars Chippewa tribes from hunting deer at night.
The justices did not comment on their decision to let stand an appeals court ruling that orders a federal judge to reconsider the ban.
The Chippewa have pushed for years for a night hunt in northern Wisconsin in large swath of the state that the tribes handed over to the federal government in the 19th century. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in 1991 that night hunting was too dangerous.
Last year, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered her to re-open that ruling, noting that that Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Michigan allow tribal night hunts. The appeals court said the deer hunting has grown much safer over the past 20 years and said hunting at night was not likely to pose serious safety problems.
The Chippewa renewed their push for night hunting in 2012 after state lawmakers angered the tribes by allowing hunters to kill wolves at night. The Chippewa consider the wolf a spiritual brother. The wolf-hunting program ended after one season. |
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Man kills his lawyer, judge, co-defendant in Milan court
Lawyer News |
2015/04/15 11:37
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A real estate developer on trial for fraudulent bankruptcy fired 13 shots inside the Milan Tribunal on Thursday, killing his lawyer, a co-defendant and a judge, eluding court security before being captured 25 kilometers away.
The shooting raised concerns about security at Italy's courthouses, where much of the surveillance has been outsourced to private contractors, and about Italy's ability to protect visitors during the Milan Expo 2015 world's fair, which opens May 1 and is expected to attract 20 million visitors over six months.
Premier Matteo Renzi pledged a robust investigation into how the gunman, identified as Claudio Giardiello, managed to bring a pistol into the monumental Fascist-era tribunal, where defendants and other visitors are required to pass through metal detectors, but accredited court officials, including lawyers, are not.
"Our commitment is that this never happens again, and that those responsible pay," Renzi said.
The chief federal prosecutor in Milan, Edmondo Bruti Liberati, told reporters it appeared Giardiello may have used a fake document to enter through the only pedestrian entrance not equipped with a metal detector and intended only for use by accredited court officials. He said the metal detectors at the other entrances were in good working order.
Bruti Liberati praised law enforcement, who apprehended Giardiello at a shopping center more than an hour after the shooting. They had identified the license plate on his motor bike with video surveillance cameras and tracked his arrival in Vimercate, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the scene in the heart of Milan.
Prosecutors said Giardiello, 57, was still armed with a loaded pistol and intended to kill another business partner whom he blamed for a failed real estate venture. |
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Supreme Court rejects North Carolina appeal on election law
Lawyer News |
2015/04/07 12:45
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The Supreme Court has passed up an early chance to review a contested North Carolina election law that opponents say limits the ability of African-Americans to cast ballots.
The high court intervened in October to order that the law remain in effect for the fall elections after a lower court ruling blocking part of the law.
But the justices on Monday wiped away their earlier order by rejecting the state's appeal of that lower court ruling. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia had blocked a part of the law that eliminated same-day registration during early voting in North Carolina.
A trial is set for July in the lawsuit filed by civil rights groups, and the issue of voting restrictions could return to the Supreme Court before the 2016 elections.
North Carolina is among several Republican-led states that have passed election laws imposing photo identification requirements and reducing the number of days set aside for early voting, among other provisions. Officials have said the measures are needed to prevent voter fraud. But critics have called the laws thinly veiled efforts to make it harder for Democratic-leaning minorities to vote. |
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New Jersey, leagues renew court tussle over sports gambling
Lawyer News |
2015/03/20 13:13
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The fight over legalized sports gambling in New Jersey returned to a federal appeals court Tuesday, where attorneys for the state and the country's major sports leagues spent nearly an hour parsing language in a decades-old federal statute and in recent court rulings.
At issue: Whether a 2014 New Jersey law repealing prohibitions against sports gambling violates the 1992 federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which says states cannot "sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license or authorize" sports betting.
A good portion of Tuesday's oral arguments before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals focused on the meaning of the word "authorize," and whether New Jersey did that when Gov. Chris Christie signed the law striking the betting prohibitions.
Attorneys from both sides endured sharp questioning from the court, which heard a previous incarnation of the case in 2013. In the ruling that followed that argument, the court said New Jersey couldn't be prevented from repealing its sports gambling laws. The state seized on that language to write its 2014 law.
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