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2 men sue priest who pleaded guilty to raping them
Court Feed News |
2009/04/22 15:37
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Two upstate New York men have filed a $10 million lawsuit against a Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to raping them.
The men say in court papers filed Monday in New York City that the Rev. Frank Genevive abused them between 1978 and 1987, when they were teens.
The Associated Press doesn't normally name rape victims. But Mark Lyman of Stillwater and David Landfear of Cohoes asked to be identified. They say the abuse included oral sex and sodomy. The 53-year-old Genevive and his Franciscan supervisors are named as defendants. Genevive and Franciscan Superior Robert Campagna didn't reply Tuesday to messages seeking comment. In July 2008, Genevive pleaded guilty in Boston to raping Lyman, Landfear and others. He received a suspended sentence. |
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Supreme Court limits warrantless vehicle searches
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/04/21 15:50
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The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested if the person is locked up in a patrol cruiser and poses no safety threat to officers.
The court's 5-4 decision puts new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after the arrest of a suspect.
Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that warrantless searches still may be conducted if a car's passenger compartment is within reach of a suspect who has been removed from the vehicle or there is reason to believe evidence of a crime will be found. "When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant," Stevens said. Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, complained that the decision upsets police practice that has developed since the court first authorized warrantless searches immediately following an arrest. "There are cases in which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or evidence," Alito said. Even more confusing, he said, is asking police to determine whether the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. "What this rule permits in a variety of situations is entirely unclear," Alito said. |
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Supermarket mogul guilty of bribery, racketeering, soliciting murder
Court Feed News |
2009/04/21 15:48
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George Torres, a feisty entrepreneur who built a multimillion-dollar grocery store chain by catering to some of Los Angeles' poorest communities, was convicted of racketeering, solicitation of murder, bribery and other crimes Monday by a federal court jury.
Torres, who faces potential life imprisonment as a result of the verdict, showed no emotion when it was read. Friends and family, however, burst into tears and embraced one another outside the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson.
The verdict represents a major victory for federal authorities who charged Torres last year with running a criminal enterprise, or so-called shadow organization, to ensure the success of his Numero Uno market chain.
Prosecutors' portrayal of Torres differed starkly from the 52-year-old's public persona as a successful businessman and influential political donor.
According to prosecutors, Torres hired undocumented workers at his stores, bribed a Los Angeles city planning commissioner and sought to have people killed.
In one such instance, jurors concluded that Torres arranged for the murder of a local gang member who tried to shake him down for protection money. Jose "Shorty" Maldonado was fatally shot and his pregnant girlfriend was wounded as they walked across the street from Torres' main market on Jefferson Boulevard in 1994.
A former associate of Torres' testified that he was present when Torres solicited the killing, and another witness admitted driving the car from which the shots were fired.
The jury acquitted Torres of arranging the killing of his onetime confidant Ignacio "Nacho" Meza, who mysteriously disappeared in 1998 after supposedly stealing half a million dollars from Torres. Another slaying charge Torres faced was dropped by the judge during the trial.
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Court turns down challenge to jury's use of Bible
Court Feed News |
2009/04/21 10:48
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The Supreme Court has turned away a challenge from a death row inmate in Texas who claimed his constitutional rights were violated by jurors who consulted a Bible during deliberations.
Jurors reviewed a biblical passage relating that a murderer who used an iron object to kill "shall surely be put to death." They were deciding whether to impose a death sentence on Khristian Oliver for fatally shooting and bludgeoning his victim with the barrel of a gun.
The court previously has said that jurors should base their verdicts only on evidence presented in the courtroom. But state and federal courts upheld Oliver's sentence, despite testimony that some jurors consulted the passage that described a killing similar to the one Oliver committed. |
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Court to weigh state's duty to English learners
Legal Career News |
2009/04/20 17:30
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The Supreme Court on Monday takes up an Arizona case that could limit a federal court's power to tell states to spend more money to educate students who aren't proficient in English.
Arizona state legislators and the state superintendent of public instruction want to be freed from federal court oversight of the state's programs for English learners. They've been ordered by a lower court judge to spend potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with rulings in a 17-year-old case.
Parents of students attending southern Arizona's Nogales Unified School District sued the state in 1992, contending programs for English-language learners in Nogales were deficient and received inadequate funding from the state. In 2000, a federal judge found that the state had violated the Equal Educational Opportunities Act's requirements for appropriate instruction for English-language learners. He ordered state legislators to create a plan to provide sufficient funds and placed the state's programs for non-English speaking students under court oversight. Since then, the two sides have fought over what constitutes compliance with the order. Arizona has more than doubled the amount that schools receive per non-English speaking student and taken several other steps prescribed by the No Child Left Behind Act, a broader education accountability law passed by Congress in 2002. Plaintiffs say that's not enough to comply with federal law and a judge agreed. But the state appealed, and now the high court will answer the question. |
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Ole Miss coach makes plea deal in Ohio
Court Feed News |
2009/04/20 15:31
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Mississippi basketball coach Andy Kennedy has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct in his cab driver assault case.
Kennedy avoided trial and possible jail time with the plea deal Monday in Hamilton County Municipal Court in Cincinnati. He will be on probation for six months and must perform 40 hours of community service.
He was arrested last December when Mississippi was in Cincinnati for a game against Louisville as part of the SEC/Big East Invitational. The cab driver said Kennedy punched him in the face and called him a terrorist after he told the coach he couldn't legally fit him and four others into his cab. Kennedy is still embroiled in civil lawsuits with the driver and a valet who says he saw the confrontation. |
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