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Once-exonerated Conn. man ordered back to prison
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/09 12:05
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A month after the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated murder convictions against two men who had been exonerated, a judge on Monday ordered one of them back to prison but allowed the other to remain free while fighting cancer.
George Gould was sent back to prison while Ronald Taylor, whose lawyer says he has terminal colon cancer, was allowed to remain out on bail. Both men await a new appeal trial connected to their murder convictions in the 1993 fatal shooting of New Haven grocery shop owner Eugenio Deleon Vega.
Gould and Taylor were both sentenced to 80 years in prison for the killing. They filed habeas corpus appeals, challenges to imprisonment that typically come after other appeals fail.
They were freed in April 2010 after 16 years behind bars when Superior Court Judge Stanley Fuger ruled they were victims of "manifest injustice" and declared them "actually innocent." Fuger's ruling came after a key prosecution witness recanted her trial testimony. He ordered both men released.
Prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous decision last month saying that Fuger was wrong to overturn the convictions because Gould and Taylor hadn't proven their innocence. The high court ordered a new habeas corpus trial for the two men. |
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No class-action for suits over Calif. fish kill
Class Action News |
2011/08/09 10:06
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An appeals court has rejected class-action status for a lawsuit prompted by efforts to kill off an invasive fish in Northern California.
The Sacramento Bee says the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled last week that people suing the state had too little in common to comprise a single class and must sue individually.
In 2007, the state Fish and Game Department dumped thousands of gallons of poison into Lake Davis in Plumas County to kill the voracious northern pike. The lake was closed for several months.
The city of Portola and a number of businesses and property owners sued in 2009, arguing that the action caused a decline in tourism that hurt their income, property values and tax receipts. |
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Nevada federal judge to hear Reno billboard law challenge
Headline News |
2011/08/08 15:32
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A Nevada federal judge is set to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging the city of Reno's billboard law.
The Reno Gazette Journal reports the lawsuit contends the ordinance is unconstitutional because it caps the number of billboards at about 275. A voter-approved initiative set the cap in 2000.
Jeffrey Herson sued the city in June after he was denied a billboard permit. Herson wanted the billboard so he could promote a recall of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Judge Larry R. Hicks set a hearing for Wednesday in Reno's U.S. District Court.
In court papers Herson's attorneys contend the law favors commercial speech because it allows new signs for businesses, but bars new signs along city freeways — known as off-premise signs — for non-commercial purposes.
"It is unconstitutional for Reno to require only some non-commercial speakers to obtain permits, while others have carte blanche to post signs as they please," Reno attorney Frank Gilmore, who represents Herson, wrote in court papers. "This fundamental flaw in Reno's permitting process dooms the entire sign ordinance."
City attorneys say the rules only regulate the physical nature of the signs, not the message. They contend Herson could ask a business owner to post a non-commercial message and that there is no special treatment for commercial speech over another. |
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Conn. judge dispensing cash to Haiti abuse victims
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/08 15:32
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Nearly $49,000 seized from a former Connecticut and Colorado resident is being sent to 16 young men he sexually abused at a school for street children he founded in Haiti.
The Connecticut Post reports that U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven has begun dispensing the money seized from the bank and retirement accounts of Douglas Perlitz, who was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in December for the assaults.
Perlitz, a former resident of Eagle, Colo., and Fairfield County, Conn., admitted he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with boys who attended the Project Pierre Toussaint School in Cap-Haitien.
Federal officials have opened bank accounts with $1,000 for the 16 victims and will be adding $2,000 more to those accounts over the next 14 months. |
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Couple pleads guilty in Las Vegas surgery death
Criminal Law Updates |
2011/08/08 15:29
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The teenage daughter of a Las Vegas woman who died after an illegal buttocks enhancement surgery said Thursday there will be no justice for her mother's death after prosecutors worked out a plea deal with the unlicensed doctor and nurse who performed the procedure. Janet Villalovos told The Associated Press she begged prosecutors not to allow Ruben Matallana-Galvas and Carmen Torres-Sanchez to plead guilty to reduced charges to avoid a trial in the death of 42-year-old Elena Caro. The husband and wife pleaded guilty to manslaughter, conspiracy and practicing medicine without a license Thursday in Las Vegas. They each face up to nine years in prison and fines of up to $12,000, but Caro's relatives expressed concern that the court would be lenient on the couple. Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 6. Matallana-Galvas and Torres-Sanchez were running an illegal cosmetic surgery business in the back room of a Las Vegas tile shop when they injected Caro with an unknown substance, then showed her out the door in April, prosecutors said. She was found hours later roaming the streets in agony miles from the makeshift clinic. An autopsy showed Caro died from an allergic reaction to the anesthesia commonly used in cosmetic surgery procedures. Matallana-Galvas' lawyer Scott Coffee said the unlicensed doctor wanted to plead guilty to accept responsibility for not providing Caro with better care. |
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Legally blind Vt. law student wins 1st big case
Legal Career News |
2011/08/08 12:28
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A legally blind law school student has won her first big court victory. Deanna Jones of Middlesex, Vt., sued the National Conference of Bar Examiners in July, accusing it of violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. The examiners would not let her take a legal ethics exam with software she's used for reading in college and in law school. A federal judge ruled last week the NCBE must provide her a computer equipped with the software. She took the test with it Friday and thinks she passed. NCBE had argued that the security of its pencil-and-paper test could be jeopardized when the test is taken electronically. The examiners, who will appeal, offered someone to read the exam to Jones, and offered the test in Braille, as an audio CD and in enlarged print. |
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