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Gunman shoots 3 inside NJ church
Criminal Law Updates |
2008/11/23 16:14
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A gunman has fired shots inside a church in New Jersey and authorities say three people have been wounded, one critically. The gunman opened fire just before noon Sunday inside the St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton, in northern New Jersey. Officials say some 200 people were attending a service inside the house of worship. The New Jersey State Police and Passaic County law enforcement agencies say they are hunting for the gunman. A law enforcement official says said the shooting may be a result of domestic violence. Members of the church are mostly first-generation immigrants and their children from Kerala, India. |
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Court could give Obama early test on detentions
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/11/22 16:13
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The Supreme Court could hand President-elect Barack Obama a delicate problem in the coming days: What to do with a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent who is the only person detained in this country as an enemy combatant? Ali al-Marri has been held in virtual isolation in a Navy brig near Charleston, S.C., for nearly 5 1/2 years. He is challenging President George W. Bush's authority to subject a legal resident of the United States to indefinite military detention without being charged or tried. The justices are expected to consider al-Marri's case when they meet in private on Tuesday. If they agree to hear arguments, over the Bush administration's opposition, they could say so the same day. Bush's legal team has claimed authority for such detentions and has argued aggressively for it in court papers. But the case would not be scheduled for argument until sometime in the late winter or early spring, during Obama's first months in office. Al-Marri's fate will wind up in Obama's hands in any event, but a decision by the court to hear his challenge would force the new president to confront the issue quickly. In the event the dispute makes it as far as a court hearing, the new administration's lawyers would have to argue the same basic position urged by Bush's team, despite Obama's repeated criticism during the presidential campaign that Bush was too aggressive in asserting executive authority. |
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German court OKs release of ex-leftist terrorist
Legal World News |
2008/11/22 16:12
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A former top member of the leftist Red Army Faction terrorist group can be released from prison in January after having served the minimum 26 years of a life sentence for multiple murders, a German court ruled Monday. The Red Army Faction, which emerged from German student protests against the Vietnam War, killed 34 people before disbanding in 1998. It subscribed to Marxist-Leninist ideology and sought to overthrow the capitalist West German government and fight perceived U.S. imperialism. The Stuttgart state court ruled that it found no grounds for Christian Klar, 56, to remain behind bars any longer, spokeswoman Josefine Koeblitz said. After his Jan. 3 release he will remain on probation for five years, the court ruled. The judges found "no evidence of a continued threat," Koeblitz said. The court noted that Klar had shown himself "completely changed," urging against armed struggle. Klar was convicted of involvement in nine murders, including those of federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, industrialist Hanns-Martin Schreyer and Dresdner Bank chief Juergen Ponto — all in 1977, when the movement was at its peak. He was sentenced to six concurrent life sentences, as well as individual 15-year, 14-year and 12-year sentences. Before the ruling, Buback's son Michael called on Klar to divulge all the details of the killing, including who fired the fatal shots. |
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Former Congress aide pleads guilty to hiding gifts
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/11/21 16:17
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A former legislative aide to two Missouri Republicans, Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Roy Blunt, pleaded guilty Thursday to hiding thousands of dollars of gifts from lobbyists, the latest political figure to go down in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal. Trevor L. Blackann, 34, pleaded guilty in federal court to not reporting more than $4,100 in illegal gifts from lobbyists on his 2003 tax forms, including tickets to the World Series, concerts and sporting events, free airfare and transportation, free meals and gifts and entertainment at a "gentleman's club." The guilty plea came in U.S. District Court before Judge Richard W. Roberts. In court documents, Blackann said two unnamed lobbyists worked directly with Abramoff, who has been sent to prison for corrupting Capitol Hill lawmakers with expensive meals, golf junkets, luxury sports tickets and other gifts. These lobbyists gave him the World Series tickets, among other items. Abramoff is now helping prosecutors go after other people he bribed. With his help, the Justice Department has won convictions against former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and several top Capitol Hill aides. Blackann said he pushed for a political appointment at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as well as "official action beneficial" to Equipment Rental Co., a construction rental company. Blackann worked for Blunt from 1998 to 2001 and for Bond from 2001 to 2005. Blackann said in court documents he knew "the lobbyists gave these things of value for or because of official actions they were seeking from him or had obtained from him." |
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FCC appeals Janet Jackson case to Supreme Court
Court Feed News |
2008/11/21 16:13
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The Federal Communications Commission has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the indecency case over Janet Jackson's breast-baring performance at the 2004 Super Bowl. The FCC this week appealed a ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, saying that court was wrong to throw out the case and a $550,000 fine against CBS Corp. in July. The appellate court cited the FCC practice of not considering objectionable images indecent if they are "fleeting." In Jackson's halftime show at the 2004 Super Bowl, which spawned the case, she briefly flashed a breast as she performed with Justin Timberlake. The FCC said the court incorrectly applied a rule — since changed — regarding expletives that required a profanity be repeated before it is deemed indecent. The FCC contends the rule didn't apply to images. Reaction to the appeal was swift from the Media Access Project, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the appellate court on behalf of a group of TV writers, directors and producers. "The impact of the FCC's decision on the creative process is very profound," said the group's chief executive, Andrew Jay Schwartzman. "The FCC's decisions in this area have made it very difficult for creative artists to exercise their craft." At the time, broadcasters did not employ a video delay for live events, a practice that changed within a week of the game. The FCC also has an appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in a New York case involving profanity uttered by Cher during a December 2002 music awards show and by Nicole Richie during a December 2003 awards show, both carried on Fox stations. The agency has asked the court to rule in that earlier case before taking on the Jackson incident. |
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Calif. Supreme Court to take up gay marriage ban
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/11/20 17:16
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California's highest court has agreed to hear legal challenges to a new ban on gay marriage, but is refusing to allow gay couples to resume marrying until it rules. The California Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted three lawsuits seeking to overturn Proposition 8. The amendment passed this month with 52 percent of the vote. The court did not elaborate on its decision. All three cases claim the ban abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. They argue that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change. |
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