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Britney in court for major hearing
Court Feed News | 2008/01/13 16:46

Britney Spears' effort to regain access to her two small children will go back to court on Monday for what a lawyer described as "the most significant hearing in the case so far".

Police and emergency medical technicians who were summoned to the singer's Los Angeles home on January 3 in a stand-off involving her refusal to return the boys to ex-husband, Kevin Federline, will testify, probably behind closed doors, Mr Federline's lawyer said.

"I don't know if she will be there," Mark Kaplan said, but he suggested she would have to appear in person if she wanted to press her request to see her children.

"You can't phone this one in," he added.

If Spears comes to court, Mr Kaplan said she would be expected to testify. "She will have the opportunity to persuade the court that she can have some visitation under monitored conditions," he said.

Phone and email messages requesting comment from Spears' lawyers were not immediately returned.

Mr Kaplan said he knew it was only a temporary measure when he obtained emergency court orders two weeks ago granting sole physical and legal custody to Mr Federline.

"These are very, very draconian orders," he said. "Because of that the court wanted to have a hearing to give her and her attorneys the opportunity to refute some of the declarations.

"No judge likes making orders terminating a person's involvement with their kids."

Meanwhile, police were preparing for a media frenzy in the downtown Los Angeles civic centre if Spears appeared, issuing warnings that vehicle and pedestrian offences would lead to prosecution.



Appeals Court Rules Against Ex-Detainees
Headline News | 2008/01/12 16:49
A federal appeals court ruled Friday against four British men who contend they were systematically tortured and their religious rights abused throughout their two-year detention at Guantanamo Bay.

In a suit against ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and individual U.S. military officials, the four men argued that the defendants had engaged in criminal conduct.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 3-0 that the men should have invoked a different law when they filed their lawsuit.

"Criminal conduct is not per se outside the scope of employment," a requirement for bringing a claim under the Alien Tort Statute, said the decision by appeals judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of President Bush's father.

The four men challenge the methods Rumsfeld and the military officers used, but the former detainees don't allege that the defendants "acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence," the court said.

"Therefore, the alleged tortious conduct was incidental to the defendants' legitimate employment duties," the ruling added.

The four British men also brought constitutional claims and claims under the Geneva Conventions and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Rejecting all of the men's allegations, the appeals court overturned the only part of a lower court decision that hadn't already been dismissed. That was the alleged violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged RFRA claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person,'" the court ruled. The law provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."

The ruling came on the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay being used to house detainees gathered from around the world as part of the U.S. war on suspected terrorists.

The other two judges in the case are Janice Rogers Brown, an appointee of President Bush; and A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of Bush's father.

The defendants in the case include retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four who sued are Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith, all British citizens and residents. They were sent back to Great Britain in 2004.

The appeals court ruling comes at a time when the Supreme Court is considering whether other prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Rasul, Iqbal and Ahmed allege they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan to provide humanitarian relief the month after the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Harith says he traveled to Pakistan the same month to attend a religious retreat.

All four wound up at Guantanamo Bay. There, they allege, they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs, subjected to extreme medical care and communication. They also allege they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them copies of the Koran and prayer mats and throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet bucket.

Al-Harith says that he was first imprisoned by the Taliban who accused him of being a British spy. When the Taliban fell, he says he contacted British embassy officials to secure his evacuation, but that U.S. forces in coordination with British officials sent him to Guantanamo.



Mars Chocolate Heir Loses Natural Gas Drilling Fight
Court Feed News | 2008/01/11 17:52
An attempt by the reclusive billionaire heir to the Mars chocolate bar fortune to ban drilling for natural gas on his Montana ranch was defeated in a court hearing late on Tuesday.

A judge ruled that Forrest Mars Jr, the former chief executive of the confectionary giant and the son of Forrest Mars Sr, the man credited with inventing M&Ms and the Mars bar, could not prevent Pinnacle Gas Resources from drilling on a 10,000-acre lease it holds for the land beneath Mars's Diamond Cross cattle ranch in south-eastern Montana.

On Monday, Mars employees at the ranch prevented Pinnacle from entering the property when it tried to force its way on to the ranch. Montana law gives companies the right to drill on private land provided they hold a valid lease. The lease expires tomorrow if the company does not commence exploration. Pinnacle said it expected to begin drilling before the end of the week.

"Who the surface owner is should not make any difference, and it didn't today," a Pinnacle attorney, Bryan Wilson, said after the ruling.

In the Diamond Cross case, Pinnacle Gas Resources and another company, Fidelity, have gas and oil leases on the ranch that predate Mars' ownership, according to public records and company officials.

Mars, who is worth an estimated $14bn, owns 82,000 acres along the Tongue river near Montana's border with Wyoming. He is opposed to the drilling because large amounts of underground water are pumped out to access the natural gas. Many farmers view that water as a precious reserve, given the extended drought in the western US.

Mars began buying land in south-eastern Montana in 2003, at the same time that natural gas exploration in the area was booming. He also has residences in Wyoming and Virginia. Since then he has joined several court actions challenging the natural gas industry.

An attorney for Mars, Loren O'Toole, said the objective was not to prevent exploration but to ensure that the water could be returned. "The point is, we can't lose all that water and at the same time have no provision to put it back," O'Toole said.

"Forrest has a lot of money, but he's in the same boat as anybody else," Beth Kaeding, chairwoman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, told the Associated Press news agency.

"If you don't own the mineral rights, it doesn't matter how huge your ranch is, how politically powerful you are, how much money you have. Mineral rights trump surface rights."

Forrest Mars Jr, who was not in court for the hearing, is in his 70s and is one of three children of Forrest Mars Sr, the son of the founder of the company.

Mars is one of the largest family-owned companies in the US, making confectionery, pet food and other products, from Snickers to Whiskas cat food, with $21bn in annual worldwide revenues and an estimated 40,000 employees. The three Mars siblings all featured in last year's top 20 list of the richest Americans, compiled by Forbes magazine.

Pinnacle sued Mars in December after the gas company's employees were told that they would be treated as trespassers if they attempted to enter the ranch.

In separate cases, Mars is suing Pinnacle over plans to develop coal-bed methane on land near his ranch, and is also seeking to block a new railway line in south-eastern Montana that will facilitate the exploitation of the area's coal reserves.


Domino's Pizza Founder Supports Romney
Law & Politics | 2008/01/11 17:32
Get the door, it's Tom Monaghan. And he's delivering family values to Mitt Romney in 30 minutes or less.

The former Domino's Pizza owner and noted anti-abortion activist today cast his lot with the struggling Romney campaign, which, using its own internal nomenclature, has yet to win a gold medal in a state larger than Wyoming.

Romney is coming of back-to-back second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, places where he once appeared a lock to win. The good news is that he lost those states to two different candidates, Mike Huckabee and John McCain, meaning the GOP race is still relatively wide open.

Monaghan is the wealthy Michigan businessman who, among other things, launched Ava Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, which was intended to be a conservative counterweight to liberal-leaning law schools. He also runs an anti-abortion political action committee. He is building his own town in southeastern Florida to house his academic and philanthropic ventures.

Many prominent Catholic lawyers, including Mary Ann Glendon, recently nominated by the White House to serve as U.S ambassador to the Vatican, have joined up with the Romney effort because of the candidate's anti-abortion stance.

The Michigan Republican primary is Jan. 15.

"As someone who values the importance of faith in one's life, I recognize in Mitt his deep religious convictions which will serve him well in facing the critical moral issues facing our society," Monaghan said in a statement. " I believe he will stand firm on the pro-life issues and for the traditional family values that our country was founded on and which are so critical to the future of our nation."

Romney and Monaghan met each other in 1998, when Monaghan sold Domino's to Romney's Bain Capital for $1 billion.


US Lawmakers Request Probe into Wealth Funds
Lawyer Blog News | 2008/01/11 17:23
U.S. Senate lawmakers have ordered federal investigators to examine foreign state-run investment funds and whether the much-needed capital infusions being provided to major U.S. banks raises any economic or security concerns.

The Government Accountability Office this week began an investigation into sovereign wealth funds, including the size and types of investments funds are making in U.S. markets, a spokeswoman said.

The probe, which was requested by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, will also examine what oversight - both international and in the U.S. - is conducted on the funds and whether the funds pose a risk to U.S. economic stability.

The state-run funds, primarily those located in Asia and Middle East, have made headlines in recent months by acquiring stakes in major banks such as Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER), Citigroup Inc. (C), and UBS AG (UBS), a major Swiss bank with extensive U.S. operations.

Both Merrill and Citi, which have already received billions in cash infusions from the funds, are currently in talks to receive even more capital from outside investors.

That has raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have aggressively scrutinized foreign investments in U.S. companies in recent years. The most notable case involved Dubai-controlled DP World. In 2006, federal approval for the firm to manage six U.S. ports sparked a firestorm of controversy and led lawmakers to pass a law overhauling the review process for foreign investments in the U.S.

The role of sovereign wealth funds has yet to reach the same level of scrutiny as the ports deal, but the GAO investigation could signal lawmakers will focus more attention on the issue when they return to Washington this month.

In addition to the Senate Banking panel, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., is also expected to have his committee conduct oversight hearings on the funds this year.

U.S. lawmakers are not alone. A number of European governments have said they are drafting proposals limiting or blocking foreign state-run investments.


AZ Law Firm Hired to Handle UT Ski Bus Case
Law Firm News | 2008/01/11 17:16
A Scottsdale law firm announced Thursday that it is representing two families who suffered injuries and one death Jan. 6 after a ski bus rolled 41 feet down an embankment in southern Utah.

Nine died and 23 were injured in the accident near Mexican Hat, Utah.

The Rasmussen and Torres families have hired Scott A. Maasenand Jeffry R.Gill of M.G. Law Group, a personal injury firm specializing in trucking and bus cases.

Marc Rasmussen, an 18-year-old Deer Valley High School senior, died in the wreckage. His mother, Kim, and four other family members, including a 5-year-old boy, were injured.

Some family members have been released, but Kim remains hospitalized in the San Juan Regional Hospital in Farmington, N.M.

The firm also represents the family of Daniel Torres, 18, Willow Canyon High School student in Surprise.

Maasen said friends of the victims contacted his firm this week. He began interviewing them Tuesday.

He said it is too early to say whether the families will file a lawsuit against Arrow Stage Lines, the Nebraska-based motor coach company contracted to take 17 busloads of skiers to and from Telluride, Colo., for a three-day ski trip Jan.3-6.

"That is the last thing on the victim's minds," Maasen said of a lawsuit. "What is on their minds is getting better and healing."

The National Transportation Safety Board and Utah Highway Patrol are conducting an investigation into the cause of the Jan. 6 accident on State Route 163, near Mexican Hat in southern Utah.

The investigation includes analysis of a "data collector" on board the bus that logs speed at the time of the accident, its exact position on the high desert highway, and records video of the driver.

A Utah Highway patrolman who investigated the accident said the driver, Walland Lotan, 71, was driving at the 65 mph speed limit when he rounded a tight curve, plunging the 52 passengers into the embankment. But Sgt. Rick Eldredge said the driver should have slowed by several miles an hour as he approached the curve.

Maasen said his firm is doing its own probe of the deadly wreck.

"There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle," he said. "We want to know why this happened."


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