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Evans & Petree, Bogatin Law Firm to merge
Law Firm News |
2008/08/01 08:32
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The Bogatin Law Firm PLC, one of Memphis' oldest law firms, will dissolve on Friday. 10 Bogatin attorneys will be absorbed by law firm Evans & Petree PC, which employs 29 attorneys, in a merger that will create one of the top five Memphis-based law firms. A source familiar with the merger said the name Evans Petree Bogatin has been proposed to serve as the combined firm's moniker. According to another source familiar with the deal, several Bogatin attorneys will not join the combined law firm, including: Stephen Biller, Stephen Brown, Susan Callison, Charles Cottam, Charles Key, Jack Magids and Robert Wilson. Irvin Bogatin, founder of The Bogatin Law Firm, died last month. Managing partners of Evans & Petree and Bogatin declined to comment. In April, Memphis Business Journal reported on the planned dissolution of Bogatin and its merger with Evans & Petree. In October 2007, MBJ first reported on early merger talks between the two firms, which called for 20 Bogatin attorneys to be absorbed by Evans & Petree. Located at 1000 Ridgeway Loop, Evans & Petree will now add Bogatin's strong litigation practice, which will compliment Evans & Petree's focus on transactional law, estate planning and corporate law, MBJ has reported. Both Bogatin and Evans & Petree practice in health care and tax law. |
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NY man arrested in baby food poison video threats
Criminal Law Updates |
2008/08/01 08:31
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A man was arrested Thursday after he allegedly claimed in hoax Internet videos that he had poisoned millions of bottles of baby food, some with cyanide or rat poison, because he wanted to kill black and Hispanic children. Gerber Products Co. and the Food and Drug Administration have found no evidence of tampering with Gerber products. The company was flooded with complaints after people saw the videos, the FDA said. Authorities said Anton Dunn caused to be posted on the Internet three videos of himself in which he boasted about the poisonings and said he could not be caught. Dunn, 42, of New York, was charged with sending threats in interstate commerce and falsely claiming to have tampered with a consumer product, crimes that carry a potential penalty of 10 years in prison upon conviction. A U.S. District Court judge ordered Dunn held until a bail hearing on Tuesday. His lawyer, Sarah Baumgartel, had no comment outside court. In a statement, Gerber's parent company, Nestle Nutrition, said it believed the Internet postings were a "malicious hoax" and the company was cooperating with authorities. "The safety of Gerber and Nestle Nutrition products is our top priority," it said. In court papers, FDA agent Michael Felezzola wrote that a Gerber representative on April 20 reported a threatening video entitled "gerbersbabyfoodalert" had been posted on YouTube. In the 10-minute video, apparently recorded in a shower stall, a man identified as Trashman said Gerber employees acting at his direction had poisoned millions of bottles of baby food with the intent to kill babies. Authorities said the person appearing on the videos was Dunn and he sometimes wore a mask that partially covered his face. Subsequent videos stated that the poisoning would involve cyanide and rat poison, and that four babies had already died. Dunn, who is black, claimed in a July 24 video that he was trying to kill black and Hispanic babies, though white babies also were likely to die, authorities said. "Our main reason for doing this is we're trying to cut down on the black population," the video says. |
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Alabama Supreme Court stays execution
Court Feed News |
2008/08/01 08:30
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The Alabama Supreme Court postponed executing a man after an inmate claimed in an sworn statement to defense attorneys that he committed the murder that sent the condemned man to death row. The justices in a 5-4 vote late Wednesday stopped the execution by injection of Thomas Arthur "pending further orders of this Court." Arthur, 66, was scheduled to die Thursday, more than 26 years after he was convicted of killing Troy Wicker Jr. of Muscle Shoals. It was the third time Arthur received a stay on the eve of his execution. "My reaction is we finally look forward to the opportunity to examine fully Mr. Arthur's claim of innocence by assessing witness testimony and DNA evidence," said defense attorney Suhana S. Han. "That is the right result." State Attorney General Troy King called the stay a serious setback for the prosecution. "The crimes against Troy Wicker's family continue to compound," he said. "There is a good chance he is going to escape his sentence before all is said and done." Han said Arthur "was absolutely ecstatic." "Having to face execution is something that most of us can never really imagine," she said. Arthur's attorneys sought a stay from the governor and the courts by using Monday's sworn statement by Bobby Ray Gilbert, who claimed he killed Wicker. Gilbert is serving a life sentence for a different murder. But Wicker's widow, who served 10 years of a life sentence for hiring the killer, told attorney general investigators that she never met Gilbert. "I hired and paid money to Thomas Arthur, not Bobby Gilbert, to kill Troy Wicker," Judy Wicker said in a statement Monday. Han said a hearing was needed to assess the credibility of Gilbert and Wicker. |
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US judge: White House aides can be subpoenaed
U.S. Legal News |
2008/07/31 17:34
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President Bush's top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches. Congressional Democrats called the ruling a ringing endorsement of the principle that nobody is above the law. They swiftly announced that the Bush officials who have defied their subpoenas, including Bush's former top adviser Karl Rove, must appear as part of a probe of whether the White House directed the firings of nine federal prosecutors. Democrats announced plans to open hearings at the height of election season. The Bush administration was expected to appeal.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Bates said there's no legal basis for Bush's argument and that his former legal counsel, Harriet Miers, must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person. The committee also has sought to force testimony from White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten. |
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Alabama Supreme Court stays execution
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/07/31 17:31
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The Alabama Supreme Court postponed executing a man after an inmate claimed in an sworn statement to defense attorneys that he committed the murder that sent the condemned man to death row. The justices in a 5-4 vote late Wednesday stopped the execution by injection of Thomas Arthur "pending further orders of this Court." Arthur, 66, was scheduled to die Thursday, more than 26 years after he was convicted of killing Troy Wicker Jr. of Muscle Shoals. It was the third time Arthur received a stay on the eve of his execution. "My reaction is we finally look forward to the opportunity to examine fully Mr. Arthur's claim of innocence by assessing witness testimony and DNA evidence," said defense attorney Suhana S. Han. "That is the right result." State Attorney General Troy King called the stay a serious setback for the prosecution. "The crimes against Troy Wicker's family continue to compound," he said. "There is a good chance he is going to escape his sentence before all is said and done." Han said Arthur "was absolutely ecstatic." "Having to face execution is something that most of us can never really imagine," she said. Arthur's attorneys sought a stay from the governor and the courts by using Monday's sworn statement by Bobby Ray Gilbert, who claimed he killed Wicker. Gilbert is serving a life sentence for a different murder. But Wicker's widow, who served 10 years of a life sentence for hiring the killer, told attorney general investigators that she never met Gilbert. "I hired and paid money to Thomas Arthur, not Bobby Gilbert, to kill Troy Wicker," Judy Wicker said in a statement Monday. Han said a hearing was needed to assess the credibility of Gilbert and Wicker. |
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S. Korea to end ban on revealing sex of babies
Legal World News |
2008/07/31 15:32
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South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned a ban on doctors telling parents the gender of unborn babies, saying Thursday the country has grown out of a preference for sons and that the restriction violates parents' right to know. South Korea introduced the ban in 1987 to try to prevent abortions of female fetuses in a country that had traditionally favored sons in the widespread Confucian belief that males carry on family lines. Abortion has also been illegal but practiced widely. On Thursday, the Constitutional Court said it was too restrictive to ban doctors from telling parents the gender of the unborn for the entire pregnancy because there was little chance of aborting fetuses older than six months due to risks for mothers. |
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Recent Lawyer News Updates |
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