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Court reinstates rape charges despite delay in indictment
Headline News |
2016/07/28 17:46
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The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated rape and kidnapping charges against a Cleveland man who argued that a 20-year delay in indicting him was unconstitutional.
In a unanimous decision, the court also ordered an appeals court to reconsider the arguments of defendant Demetrius Jones using a different legal standard.
In a twist, the ruling in the closely watched case was praised by attorneys on both sides. Jones' lawyer said ordering the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals to apply the different standard gives his client a new and stronger chance to fight the charges.
The state also applauded the decision after arguing that the dismissal of the charges by the appeals court last year created a legal precedent jeopardizing thousands of unsolved rapes being reinvestigated thanks to improved DNA testing.
"This ruling affirms law enforcement's ability to use new DNA technologies to bring criminals to justice," said Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.
At issue was the 2013 indictment of Jones on a rape charge based on evidence found when an old rape kit was tested. Jones was accused of raping a woman he knew at his mother's apartment in 1993, according to Ohio Supreme Court documents.
The woman identified Jones to police and at the hospital where a rape kit was obtained, Russell Bensing, Jones' attorney, said in a court filing last fall.
Cleveland police set the investigation aside after two unsuccessful attempts to interview the accuser the following week and never tried to locate Jones or his mother, Bensing said.
Jones was indicted in 2013, one day before the deadline for prosecuting a case that old. His attorneys successfully asked a judge to throw out the case because the state took too long, and last year the appeals court upheld the decision.
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Appeals court orders Utah to fund Planned Parenthood branch
Headline News |
2016/07/14 15:48
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The Utah governor’s order to block funding to Planned Parenthood probably was a political move designed to punish the group, a federal appeals court wrote in an ruling that ordered the state to keep the money flowing.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver decided Tuesday there’s a good chance the governor’s order violated the group’s constitutional rights.
Utah’s Republican Gov. Gary Herbert cut off cash last fall for sexually transmitted disease and sex education programs after the release of secretly recorded videos showing out-of-state employees discussing fetal tissue from abortions.
The head of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah hailed the ruling as a victory for the clinic’s patients.
“Our doors are open today and they will be tomorrow — no matter what,” CEO Karrie Galloway said in a statement.
Herbert’s spokesman says the governor believes contract decisions should be made by the state and that he was disappointed in the ruling blocking the defunding order while Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging it goes back to be heard by a lower court.
The state is considering its next legal steps, which could include asking the full 10th Circuit to reconsider the panel’s decision.
Herbert didn’t comment on a finding by two appeals court judges that he likely used the controversy to politically attack the group because it provides abortions. A third judge dissented and questioned whether Planned Parenthood would ultimately prevail.
Lawyers for the Utah branch argued it has never participated in fetal donation programs.
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Court upholds $3M judgment against Gerber Products Co.
Headline News |
2016/06/13 20:13
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A sharply divided Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday said a baby food manufacturer must pay more than $3 million to workers for the time they spent dressing and undressing into uniforms and protective gear.
In a 4-3 ruling, the high court upheld a lower court's ruling that Gerber Products Co. should have compensated more than 800 workers at its Fort Smith facility for the time they spent changing into uniforms, donning protective gear such as ear plugs and washing their hands, as well as undressing after their shifts ended. Justices sided with the workers who said Arkansas' Minimum Wage Act required the company to compensate for the activities despite an agreement with the union.
"We hold that the donning and doffing activities constitute compensable work under the AMWA, despite the custom and practice under the collective-bargaining agreement," Justice Karen Baker wrote in the majority opinion.
The ruling drew sharp objections from three justices, who said in a dissenting opinion that because of the decision "the floodgates will open to litigation at the enormous cost to businesses in Arkansas."
"In addition, the majority undermines the collective-bargaining process and destroys any confidence employers and employees have in the enforceability of their agreements," Justice Rhonda Wood wrote.
Gerber had argued the workers' union had agreed to not be paid for the time in a contract that also included larger wage increases for the employees. The company said in a statement it was disappointed with the ruling and was evaluating its options. |
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Maryland high court issues opinion in Gray case
Headline News |
2016/06/09 20:12
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Maryland's highest court has released an opinion explaining its recent decision to force an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray to testify against his colleagues.
The Maryland Court of Appeals issued its opinion Friday. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbara writes that compelling Officer William Porter to testify while he awaits retrial is not a violation of his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. The judge says there are ways to ensure that the testimony, which is protected by immunity, doesn't make it into his retrial. Porter's trial ended in a hung jury in December.
Gray died April 19, 2015, a week after his neck was broken in a police van. Six officers were charged in his death. One of them, Officer Edward Nero, is currently on trial.
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El Salvador court takes up case on ex-president's finances
Headline News |
2016/05/10 18:25
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A court in El Salvador has agreed to consider a civil case against former President Mauricio Funes, his wife and one of his sons for possible illicit enrichment.
The San Salvador court press office said Saturday that several government institutions have been ordered to hand over information related to the family's finances, properties and businesses.
Under scrutiny is some $728,000 in unexplained income and expenditures. Funes has 20 days to respond to present evidence in his defense.
The former president has criticized the allegations in the past. He said some of the Supreme Court justices who voted to order the lower court to open the case in February had previously attacked his government while sitting on the Constitutional Court.
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Federal court hears appeal of Minnesota sex offender ruling
Headline News |
2016/04/11 08:42
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The lengthy legal debate over a Minnesota program that keeps sex offenders confined indefinitely after they complete their prison sentences shifted south Tuesday as state officials urged a federal appeals court nearly 500 miles away to overturn a judge's ruling that the program is unconstitutional.
Solicitor General Alan Gilbert told a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that District Judge Donovan Frank "lost his neutrality" when he made critical comments before ruling last summer. Even before his ruling, the judge called the program "draconian" and said it is "clearly broken" and needs to be reformed.
"He has prejudged the program," said Gilbert, who asked the jurists to reverse the lower court ruling and appoint a new judge to consider the suit by 14 plaintiffs on behalf of the more than 700 civilly committed offenders. The panel did not immediately issue a decision after hearing 20-minute presentations by both sides.
Only a handful of offenders have been provisionally released to community-based settings in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program's 20-plus-year history, which is why the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit say it's tantamount to a life sentence.
While civilly committed offenders in California, Wisconsin, New Jersey and other states are allowed to re-enter society after completing treatment, no one has been fully discharged from Minnesota's program.
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Karadzic convicted of genocide, sentenced to 40 years
Headline News |
2016/03/24 16:39
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A U.N. court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges Thursday and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war that left 100,000 people dead.
As he sat down after hearing his sentence, Karadzic slumped slightly in his chair, but showed little emotion.
The U.N. court found Karadzic guilty of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Europe's worst mass murder since the Holocaust.
Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said Karadzic was the only person in the Bosnian Serb leadership with the power to halt the genocide.
In a carefully planned operation, Serb forces transported Muslim men to sites around the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia and gunned them down before dumping their bodies into mass graves.
Kwon said Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, intended "that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed."
Karadzic was also held criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians and terror for overseeing the deadly 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during the war and for taking hostage U.N. peacekeepers.
However, the court acquitted Karadzic in a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces. |
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