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Utah man charged with threatening air marshals
Industry News |
2011/10/17 10:07
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A Utah man has been charged in federal court after authorities say he threatened to shoot air marshals, hijack the flight and urinate in the cabin of a Delta Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit.
During a Thursday appearance in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, a judge allowed Jared L. Hansen to remain free pending a Nov. 7 hearing in Detroit. Hansen was ordered to surrender his passport and abstain from drinking alcohol, among other conditions.
He didn't return a telephone message seeking comment Thursday, and no attorney was listed for him in court records.
Hansen, 31, was aboard an Oct. 4 Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit when authorities say he attempted to use the bathroom in the business class section of the cabin. Members of the flight crew asked him to either return to his seat or use the facilities in the rear of the cabin, but he refused, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Hansen, who was believed to be heavily intoxicated, then threatened to urinate in the cabin and exposed himself, authorities said. |
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US court turns down Philly DA in cop-killing case
Industry News |
2011/10/11 09:46
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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request from prosecutors who want to re-impose a death sentence on former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing a white Philadelphia police officer 30 years ago.
The justices on Tuesday refused to get involved in the racially charged case. A federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal after finding that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial were potentially misleading.
Courts have upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing Officer Daniel Faulkner over objections that African-Americans were improperly excluded from the jury.
The federal appeals court in Philadelphia said prosecutors could agree to a life sentence for Abu-Jamal or try again to sentence him to death. |
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Airline attack suspect sought martyrdom
Industry News |
2011/10/11 09:46
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A young Nigerian allegedly on a terrorist mission for al-Qaida prayed, washed and put on perfume moments before trying to detonate a bomb in his underwear to bring down an international jetliner on Christmas 2009, a prosecutor told jurors as the man's trial opened Tuesday.
Virtually everyone aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had holiday plans, but Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab believed his calling was martyrdom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel said.
In the plane's bathroom, he was engaging in rituals. He was preparing to die and enter heaven, Tukel said. He purified himself. He washed. He brushed his teeth. He put on perfume. He was praying and perfuming himself to get ready to die.
After returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab pushed a small plunger on the chemical bomb in his underwear, an action that produced a pop, the prosecutor told jurors.
The bomb didn't work as planned but Abdulmutallab was engulfed in flames, said Tukel, who displayed the flight's seating chart on a screen to show jurors where things happened on the plane.
Opening statements began after an unexplained 70-minute recess requested by Abdulmutallab and his attorney, Anthony Chambers, shortly after they entered the courtroom. |
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European court rules against Soros in trading case
Industry News |
2011/10/06 09:38
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The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that France did not violate George Soros' rights when convicting him of insider trading, defeating a years-long effort by the billionaire financier to clear his name.
Though Soros has faced criticism for other investment decisions before and since, the French conviction over trades in 1988 left a particular stain on the Hungarian-born businessman and philanthropist's five-decade career.
He was fined euro2.2 million in 2002, or $2.92 million at current rates, for purchasing shares in French bank Societe Generale in 1988, days after being informed about a planned takeover bid for the bank.
That was the amount he was accused of making when he sold the shares shortly afterward. France's highest court reduced the fine in 2007 to euro940,000 ($1.25 million at current rates).
Soros argued that France's insider trading rules at the time were unclear, and that the length of the investigation — from 1993 until his indictment in 2000 — made it difficult to call reliable witnesses, violating his right to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The human rights court, based in Strasbourg, France, disagreed. In a 4-3 decision, the panel of judges argued that the law applicable in 1988 was sufficient for Soros to have been aware that his conduct might be unlawful. |
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Court seems divided over Miranda rights case
Industry News |
2011/10/05 09:38
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The Supreme Court seemed split Tuesday on whether to require police to read Miranda rights to prison inmates every time they interrogate them about crimes unrelated to their current incarceration.
The high court heard arguments from lawyers from the state of Michigan who want a federal appeals court decision overturning Randall Lee Fields' conviction thrown out.
Fields was serving a 45-day sentence in prison on disorderly conduct charges when a jail guard and sheriff's deputies from Lenawee County, Mich., removed him from his cell and took him to a conference room. The deputies, after telling him several times he was free to leave at any time, then questioned him for seven hours about allegations that he had sexually assaulted a minor. Fields eventually confessed and was charged and convicted of criminal sexual assault.
Fields was then sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison but appealed the use of his confession, saying that he was never given his Miranda rights on the sexual assault charges.
On appeal, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati threw out his confession and conviction, ruling that it is required that police read inmates their Miranda rights anytime they are isolated from the rest of the inmates in situations where they would be likely to incriminate themselves.
This case is another example of the courts' recent struggle to clearly define Miranda rights, which have been litigated since they first came into being in 1966. The courts require police to tell suspects in custody they have the right to remain silent and the right to have a lawyer represent them, even if they can't afford one. |
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Bankruptcy judges asking $100 to cover Kagan talk
Industry News |
2011/10/05 03:48
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The national organization of bankruptcy judges says reporters are welcome to cover Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's talk at its convention in mid-October, if they pay $100.
Groups sometimes close their events to the press or allow reporters in with restrictions on the use of cameras and audio recorders. But it's very unusual to charge the news media merely to attend.
Kagan is scheduled to speak Oct. 15, at the end of the four-day conference in Tampa, Fla. She did not immediately comment on the fee arrangement.
Christine Molick, executive director of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, says the $100 fee is greatly reduced from what other attendees must pay. Registration fees for some participants top $900, according to the organization's website. |
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Court: Can gov't get involved in church dispute?
Industry News |
2011/10/04 10:49
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The Supreme Count on Tuesday seemed deeply divided on how far the government can intrude inside the employment practices of churches and religious groups, a decision being closely watched by religious institutions concerned about their independence and by civil rights groups looking out for their employees.
The issue in the dispute between the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., and former teacher Cheryl Perich is whether a government agency has the right to sue the school on her behalf for firing her after she complained of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Perich was promoted from a temporary lay teacher to a called teacher in 2000 at the Redford, Mich., school by a vote of the church's congregation and hired as a commissioned minister. She taught secular classes, as well as a religious class four days a week. She also occasionally led chapel service.
She got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy. The school said she couldn't return because they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her after she showed up and threatened to sue to get her job back.
Perich complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued the church for violations under the disabilities act.
A federal judge threw out the lawsuit, saying that Perich fell under the ADA's ministerial exception, which keeps the government from interfering with church affairs. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her lawsuit, saying Perich's primary function was teaching secular subjects so the exception didn't apply. |
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