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Court won't hear free speech challenge to metals dealers law
Press Release |
2015/01/12 16:28
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The Supreme Court won't consider the constitutionality of an Ohio law that bars precious metals dealers from advertising without a license.
The justices on Monday declined to take up an appeal from Liberty Coins, a gold and silver dealer that claims the law violates the free speech rights of businesses.
Ohio officials say the 1996 law was enacted to protect consumers from theft and help police track down stolen wedding rings, gold bracelets and other items resold at stores that buy gold and silver merchandise.
A federal judge in 2012 ruled the law unconstitutional because the state failed to prove the license requirement was effective in curbing theft, fraud and terrorism. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling last year.
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NY court: Chimps don't have same rights as humans
Press Release |
2014/12/05 14:53
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A chimpanzee is not entitled to the rights of a human and does not have to be freed by its owner, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday.
The three-judge Appellate Division panel was unanimous in denying "legal personhood" to Tommy, who lives alone in a cage in upstate Fulton County.
A trial level court had previously denied the Nonhuman Rights Project's effort to have Tommy released. The group's lawyer, Steven Wise, told the appeals court in October that the chimp's living conditions are akin to a person in unlawful solitary confinement.
Wise argued that animals with human qualities, such as chimps, deserve basic rights, including freedom from imprisonment. He has also sought the release of three other chimps in New York and said he plans similar cases in other states.
But the mid-level appeals court said there is neither precedent nor legal basis for treating animals as persons. |
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Venezuela opposition leader will appear in court
Press Release |
2014/12/01 15:17
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Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Thursday she will continue working toward a peaceful change of Venezuela's government even as she complies with an order to face charges of plotting to kill the president.
Venezuela's chief prosecutor on Wednesday ordered the former congresswoman to appear in court next week on charges of participating in what the government described back in May as a U.S.-backed plot to assassinate socialist President Nicolas Maduro. She denies the allegations.
Machado told journalists the charges are further evidence that the Maduro administration has become a dictatorship and said the charges may have been retribution for demanding the resignation of national election council leaders earlier Wednesday.
"Maduro is trying to bring chaos to Venezuela, and we are in danger," she said.
Together with fellow opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, Machado called tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets to protest the government earlier this year. The strategy brought them into conflict with more moderate opposition leaders who were advocating gradual electoral change. |
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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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