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Court finds Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/25 19:03
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An international tribunal found three Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty of crimes against humanity.
The court found all three guilty of forced marriage, marking the first time the charge has been handed down in an international tribunal.
Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon, two top leaders of the Revolutionary United Front, were found guilty on 16 of 18 counts. They include sexual slavery, forced marriage, amputation, murder and the enlistment of child soldiers. Augustine Gbao, a battlefield commander, was found guilty on 14 of the 18 counts. The convictions mark the end of the Special Court that was set up after the country's disastrous civil war. The rebels were infamous for amputating the arms of victims, as dramatized in the film "Blood Diamond." |
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Court rules for Utah city in religious marker case
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/25 19:03
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The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that a small religious group cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display.
In a case involving the Salt Lake City-based Summum, the court said that governments can decide what to display in a public park without running afoul of the First Amendment.
Pleasant Grove City, Utah, rejected the group's marker, prompting a federal lawsuit that argued that a city can't allow some private donations of displays in its public park and reject others. The federal appeals court in Denver agreed. In his opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito distinguished the Summum's case from efforts to prevent groups from speaking in public parks, which ordinarily would violate the First Amendment's free speech guarantee. Alito said "the display of a permanent monument in a public park" requires a different analysis. Because monuments in public parks help define a city's identity, "cities and other jurisdictions take some care in accepting donated monuments," he said. |
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Court upholds conviction in guns case
Court Feed News |
2009/02/24 18:03
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a West Virginia man for violating a federal law barring people convicted in domestic violence cases from possessing firearms.
In a 7-2 vote, the court ruled that a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., wrongly threw out the conviction of Randy Edward Hayes. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia dissented.
The federal government, gun control groups and women's rights advocates worried that a ruling for Hayes would have weakened the federal law enacted in 1996 that applied the 40-year-old ban on gun possession by a felon to people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Hayes' favor because the West Virginia state law on battery under which he was convicted did not contain specific wording about a domestic relationship between the offender and the victim. Nine other appeals courts rejected that interpretation. |
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Court will rule in dispute over 8-foot cross
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/24 18:03
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The Supreme Court agreed Monday to step into a long-running legal fight over an 8-foot cross that stands as a war memorial in the vast Mojave National Preserve in California.
The justices said that in court arguments set for this fall, they will consider throwing out an appeals court ruling that ordered the cross be torn down.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a former National Park Service employee have been challenging the cross' continued presence on national parkland for nearly eight years. A cross has stood on the site since 1934, when a local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars erected it atop an outcropping known as Sunrise Rock. Congress has transferred ownership of the land on which it sits to a private party. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals twice said the cross must come down. It invalidated the 2004 congressionally approved land transfer, saying that "carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast preserve — like a donut hole with the cross atop it — will do nothing to minimize the impermissible governmental endorsement" of the religious symbol. |
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Barry Bonds' personal trainer ordered to court
Lawyer Blog News |
2009/02/24 12:03
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A federal judge has ordered Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, to court to disclose whether he intends to testify at the slugger's trial next month.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston scheduled a hearing for Wednesday morning and ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to tell Anderson and provide him with transportation, if needed.
The judge has barred prosecutors from using key evidence, such as positive steroids tests, at Bonds' March 2 trial unless Anderson testifies. Anderson has said through his attorney he will refuse to testify, and he may be sent to prison on contempt of court charges. Anderson was sent to prison after refusing to testify about Bonds before a federal grand jury in 2006. |
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Court turns down FTC in Rambus case
Court Feed News |
2009/02/23 16:42
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The Supreme Court has sided with Rambus Inc., a developer of computer memory technology, in its long-standing antitrust fight with the Federal Trade Commission.
The justices, in an order Monday, are refusing to hear FTC's plea to reinstate the commission's ruling that Rambus, based in Los Altos, Calif., violated antitrust law.
A federal appeals court in Washington overturned the FTC ruling last year. The Bush administration had declined to back the FTC in its appeal to the high court. |
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