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Marine wants new charges in Iraq war crime tossed
Press Release |
2014/10/30 09:55
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The Marine Corps should not be retrying a sergeant whose murder conviction in a major Iraq war crime case was overturned by the military's highest court after he served half of his 11-year sentence, his defense attorneys say.
Civilian defense attorney Chris Oprison said he has filed nine motions that he will present during a two-day hearing for Lawrence Hutchins III that starts Thursday at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, north of San Diego.
"We think all these charges should be dismissed," Oprison said. "What are they trying to get out of this Marine? He served seven years locked up, away from his wife and family. Why are they putting him through this again after he served that much time?"
The military prosecution declined to comment.
The Marine Corps ordered a retrial for Hutchins last year shortly after the ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that found his rights were violated by interrogators in 2006 when he was detained in Iraq and held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for a week.
The new defense team is asking the judge to let them go to Iraq to interview witnesses in the village of Hamdania, where Hutchins led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping an Iraqi man from his home in April 2006, marching him to a ditch and shooting him to death. Hutchins has said he thought the man was an insurgent.
Before his release, the Marine, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, had served seven years in the brig for one of the biggest war crime cases against U.S. troops to emerge from the war. None of the other seven squad members served more than 18 months.
The military last summer re-charged Hutchins. Among the charges is conspiracy to commit murder, which Oprison said is double jeopardy. Hutchins was convicted of murder at his original trial and acquitted of murder with premeditation.
Hutchins' defense attorneys also say the military compromised his case when its investigators raided defense attorneys' offices at Camp Pendleton in May. Oprison said investigators rifled through privileged files that held "the crown jewels" of Hutchins' defense case. |
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Kentucky leader pleads guilty in kickbacks scheme
Press Release |
2014/08/27 12:36
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Circular saws squealed and construction workers hammered away on buildings, part of this Appalachian area's painstaking recovery from a deadly 2012 tornado.
About 60 miles away, inside in a federal courtroom Tuesday in Lexington, the elected official who led the reconstruction in Morgan County sobbed as he pleaded guilty to a fraud charge stemming from a kickback scheme.
Judge-Executive Tim Conley, the county's top official, received $120,000 to $200,000 to steer work to a contractor in a scheme that started three years before the tornado and continued while the town struggled to rebuild, prosecutors said. Conley could spend years in prison.
His supporters had a hard time believing the three-term Republican had gone astray.
"Everybody respected Tim Conley," said Morgan County resident Steve Gullett. "I just didn't think that he'd be caught up in something like this. It's heartbreaking."
The recovery has been slow in West Liberty, the county seat ravaged by a tornado on March 2, 2012. The new judicial center has opened, and a few businesses have sprung up downtown. A bank that anchored downtown is being rebuilt, but construction is in its early phases, leaving a massive gap in the tiny downtown. |
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Court further limits reach of gas drilling law
Press Release |
2014/07/21 15:45
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A Pennsylvania court has further limited the reach of a major 2012 law that modernized drilling regulations, ruling Thursday that state public utility regulators cannot review how local zoning restrictions affect the natural gas industry.
The Commonwealth Court decision threw out the Public Utility Commission's newly authorized power to withhold drilling fee revenue from municipalities whose zoning it deems to illegally restrict drilling activity.
The decision is another blow to an effort by Gov. Tom Corbett and the Republican-controlled Legislature to respond to the drilling industry's complaints about municipal zoning. It follows a state Supreme Court ruling in December that said the law could not strip local zoning authority over drilling activity, such as the placement of rigs, pipelines, waste pits and compressor stations.
John M. Smith, a Pittsburgh-area lawyer who helped represent the seven municipalities that sued, said they were pleased that the court "once again protected the rights of local governments and Pennsylvania citizens."
The Commonwealth Court ruling rejected three other challenges in the lawsuit to elements of the sprawling law.
Those three victories led Corbett's office to say the opinion "speaks volumes to the constitutionality of state regulation of oil and gas activities." A spokesman would only say that the office is evaluating the impact of the ruling on the intended role of the utility commission. |
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California high court to decide defibrillator case
Press Release |
2014/06/23 12:35
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The California Supreme Court will decide whether large retailers in the state are required to have defibrillators on hand to help treat customers and workers who suffer sudden cardiac arrest.
The high court said it will issue an opinion Monday morning. The devices deliver a jolt of electricity to a stalled heart and help victims recover.
For two decades, an increasing number of public places in the U.S. have been required to have automated external defibrillators on hand, including government buildings, airports and many other public places. A Los Angeles-area family who lost a relative to sudden cardiac arrest while shopping in Target filed a lawsuit to require large retailers to join the list.
During oral arguments in May, a majority of the seven-judge court appeared cool to the idea. |
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Court: BP must pay Clean Water Act fines for spill
Press Release |
2014/06/06 14:23
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The owners of the blown-out Macondo well cannot avoid federal fines for the 2010 oil spill by blaming another company's failed equipment, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The oil came from a well owned by BP and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., so they are liable, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. It upheld a 2012 ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who has scheduled a trial in January to help decide how much the oil giant owes in federal Clean Water Act penalties.
"We hope the court's decision will be one more step toward reaching a just conclusion for the American people," U.S. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in an email.
Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the blowout preventer, pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor Clean Water Act violation and agreed to pay a $1 billion fine.
Anadarko is reviewing Wednesday's ruling and its options, spokesman John Christiansen said in an email.
Loyola University law professor Blaine LeCesne said he doubts Anadarko will have to pay much, if anything, in Clean Water Act fines because its partnership gave BP complete control over how the well was drilled and run. In 2011, Anadarko agreed to pay BP $4 billion. BP said that payment would be part of its $20 billion fund to compensate people and businesses hurt by the spill.
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California court charging for online access
Press Release |
2014/05/16 14:39
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A Northern California county has begun charging people to look at civil court records online — part of a trend at cash-strapped courthouses around the state that is raising concerns among some lawyers and public access groups, a newspaper reported.
As of April 23, Alameda County Superior Court charges $1 for each of the first five pages of a civil court record downloaded online, the Oakland Tribune reported on Monday.
The per-page viewing cost drops to 50 cents after the fifth page, and there is a $40 maximum charge for any single document.
Sacramento County Superior Court is implementing a similar fee structure this summer, the Tribune reported. Fees in the Los Angeles County Superior Court system start at $4.75 for each record search. Santa Clara County plans to begin charging in two to four years, according to the Tribune.
Court officials say the fees help make up for cuts in state aid.
"There's a budget crisis in the courts," said Teresa Ruano, spokeswoman for the state's Administrative Office of the Courts. "Revenue is part of the solution, a small part of the solution."
Each court decides whether it wants to charge a fee for records, though the state sets the maximum amount that can be charged for both paper and online records. Some counties don't put records online, forcing people to come in and visit the clerk's office. |
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Bankrupt Stockton defends financial plan in court
Press Release |
2014/05/13 11:30
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The largest city in California to file for bankruptcy protection is asking a judge Monday to approve its plan for reorganizing more than $900 million in long-term debt to rescue the city from two years of financial uncertainty.
Standing in Stockton's way is Franklin Templeton Investments, which says the city is treating it unfairly. In 2009, Templeton loaned Stockton $35 million to build firehouses, parks and move its police dispatch center. Franklin says the city today is offering it $350,000.
The city has reached deals with all of its major creditors, except for Franklin, which is taking Stockton to a trial before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein.
Stockton's bankruptcy attorney Marc Levinson recently told the City Council that he knows Franklin isn't happy. "We are choosing our battles and fighting where we have to fight and making deals where we can," Levinson said.
An inland port city 80 miles east of San Francisco, Stockton filed for Chapter 9 protection in 2012, making it the nation's largest bankrupt city before Detroit filed for bankruptcy last year. Vallejo went through bankruptcy before Stockton. San Bernardino filed shortly after Stockton, but it has yet to present an exit plan. |
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