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La. high court upholds murder conviction
Legal Watch |
2012/07/02 09:20
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The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a woman in the shooting death of her live-in boyfriend in 2009.
The Advocate reports that Mary Henderson Trahan was convicted of second-degree murder in Lafayette Parish in 2010 in the death of George Barbu.
An appeals court ruled the evidence did not support her conviction. Prosecutors appealed.
The Supreme Court this week said a rational juror could find from the evidence that Trahan had "specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm" to Barbu.
Trahan had claimed she accidentally shot Barbu after she slipped and fell while holding a gun.
The Supreme Court said jurors heard no evidence to support Trahan's claim.
Trahan faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced. |
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Court throws out FCC penalties for cursing, nudity
Headline News |
2012/06/22 18:07
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Broadcasters anticipating a major constitutional ruling on the government's authority to regulate what can be shown and said on the airwaves instead won only the smallest of Supreme Court victories Thursday.
The justices unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves.
Forgoing a broader constitutional ruling, however, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs on Fox stations and a brief display of nudity on an episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue" could give rise to penalties. ABC and 45 affiliates had been hit with proposed fines totaling nearly $1.24 million. |
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Etan Patz suspect's court date postponed to Oct. 1
Legal News |
2012/06/21 19:19
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Prosecutors made it clear Wednesday they are still investigating and assessing a case against a man charged in a notorious 1979 child disappearance, agreeing with his lawyer to postpone a court date for three months for both sides to keep gathering information.
Pedro Hernandez had been due in court Monday as doctors evaluate his mental fitness for trial in the murder case surrounding Etan Patz, one of the first missing children whose picture ever appeared on a milk carton. But the Manhattan district attorney's office said Wednesday that both sides had agreed to put off Hernandez's appearance to Oct. 1 "to allow all parties to proceed with their investigations in a measured and fair manner."
Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, declined to comment.
Postponing court dates is far from unusual. But the three-month timeframe appears to allow plenty of time for both sides to see what information might be available to strengthen — or weaken — a court case that arose from a confession from a man who has struggled with mental illness and hallucinations, according to his lawyer and family. |
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Ex-AT&T executive pleads guilty in NY insider case
Headline News |
2012/06/19 17:03
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A former executive at AT&T has pleaded guilty in New York to charges in an insider trading scheme that authorities say involved the passing of secrets disguised as expert guidance.
Alnoor Ebrahim pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Manhattan to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. He was formerly an associate director of channel marketing at AT&T.
Prosecutors say the information that Ebrahim provided through his work for an expert networking firm involved information about product sales for the company's handset devices.
The government said Ebrahim was paid more than $180,000 to serve as a consultant for employees of Manhattan-based investment firms. |
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High court sides with state in DNA case
Top Legal News |
2012/06/18 20:09
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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The court's 5-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions that bolstered the right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.
Justice Clarence Thomas provided the margin of difference in the case to uphold the conviction of Sandy Williams, even though Thomas has more often sided with defendants on the issue of cross-examination of witnesses.
The case grew out of a DNA expert's testimony that helped convict Williams of rape. The expert testified that Williams' DNA matched a sample taken from the victim, but the expert played no role in the tests that extracted genetic evidence from the victim's sample.
And no one from the company that performed the analysis showed up at the trial to defend it.
The court has previously ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports used at trial. |
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Massive LA County court layoffs to begin Friday
Court Center |
2012/06/15 18:28
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Squeezed by state budgets cutbacks, the Los Angeles County court system is launching massive job layoffs, pay cuts and transfers, court officials said Thursday.
Cutbacks that will be implemented Friday will affect 431 court employees and 56 courtrooms throughout the nation's largest superior court system.
Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon bemoaned the loss of longtime employees as well as the impact on public services.
"We are laying off people who are committed to serving the public," she said. "It is a terrible loss both to these dedicated employees and to the public."
The union representing state and municipal employees called Friday's action a "freeze on justice in Los Angeles" and warned that the county would experience "an end to timely justice" with cases being delayed for years, particularly in civil courts.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — AFSCME — planned to have representatives on hand to assist employees who will not know they are losing their jobs until they are informed individually Friday.
A spokeswoman for the California Judicial Council said other courts in the state will also be impacted by the budget cuts but will handle them individually. Los Angeles' court system, as the largest, will be the most heavily affected.
Edmon said the drastic actions are the result of a state mandate to reduce annual spending by $30 million. She noted that earlier reductions already saved $70 million, but more cuts in state support for trial courts are scheduled for the next fiscal year. |
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Del. court hears pedophile ex-pediatrician appeal
Legal Watch |
2012/06/14 17:32
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A lawyer for a former pediatrician serving a life sentence for sexually abusing scores of young patients appealed Wednesday to the Delaware Supreme Court, arguing that a search warrant didn't allow police to seize a flash drive containing videotaped sex crimes against children.
Earl Bradley, 59, was sentenced last year to 14 life sentences without parole for 14 counts of first-degree rape. He also was sentenced to more than 160 years in prison for multiple counts of assault and sexual exploitation of a child in a case that shook this small state.
Bradley was convicted by a judge who viewed more than 13 hours of videos showing sex crimes against more than 80 victims, most of them toddlers. The videos were seized by police who executed a search warrant in 2009 at his Lewes office complex, which was decorated with Disney themes and miniature amusement park rides.
Bradley had waived his right to a jury trial after the trial judge denied a defense motion to suppress the video evidence because it had been illegally seized.
Defense attorneys argued Wednesday that Bradley's convictions should be reversed because the warrant did not allow police to search an outbuilding in which a computer flash drive containing the videos was found. They also said the warrant didn't allow authorities to seize the flash drive. |
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