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Ruling favors suspected Calif. gang members
Criminal Law Updates |
2011/05/11 13:04
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Authorities in California's Orange County violated the constitutional rights of dozens of suspected gang members when they enforced a gang injunction without giving them a chance to defend themselves in court, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank's ruling favors those who challenged a temporary gang injunction issued in February 2009, notifying suspected members of the Orange Varrio Cypress gang that they will be barred from associating in public, wearing gang clothing or being out late at night within a roughly 4-square-mile area of Orange.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sued, arguing that when some 60 people challenged their inclusion in the temporary injunction prosecutors removed their names. Those people were nonetheless named in the permanent injunction.
Fairbank ruled that the action violated those people's rights to defend against allegations that they have gang affiliations. She ordered police and prosecutors not to enforce the injunction against them. |
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School residency arrests raise fairness questions
Legal Career News |
2011/05/11 11:06
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A homeless single mother's arrest on charges she intentionally enrolled her son in the wrong school district by using her baby sitter's address is raising questions about uneven enforcement of residency rules as budget-conscious cities nationwide crack down on out-of-towners in their classrooms.
Tanya McDowell's arrest in Norwalk last month came a few months after Kelley Williams-Bolar of Akron, Ohio, was convicted of falsifying records for using her father's address to send her children to safer suburban schools.
Yet in Connecticut, Ohio and elsewhere throughout the U.S., officials acknowledge parents are routinely caught doing the same thing but rarely face criminal charges.
McDowell and Williams-Bolar are low-income black single mothers, a fact that disturbs civil rights activists who question whether they are being singled out unfairly.
McDowell returns to court Wednesday in Norwalk, where she is charged with felony larceny for allegedly stealing $15,686 of educational services by enrolling her 5-year-old in kindergarten last fall under her baby sitter's Norwalk public housing unit address. The baby sitter was later evicted. |
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Pa. lawmaker faces hearing on gun-related charge
Legal Career News |
2011/05/10 15:11
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A Berks County judge says a Pennsylvania state senator who allegedly displayed a handgun while driving on Interstate 78 is guilty of a summary charge of disorderly conduct. District Andrea Book convicted Sen. Bob Mensch after a hearing that lasted more than two hours. Mensch faces a maximum $300 fine and 90 days in jail, but the prosecutor says he will not recommend jail time. Mensch, a Montgomery County Republican, denied displaying any weapon even though state troopers who stopped him after the March 9 incident found two handguns in his vehicle. Mensch, who has a permit to carry the weapons, said the other motorist was harassing him The other motorist, Brian Salisbury of Easton, called 911 after he says Mensch displayed the gun in the palm of his hand. |
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Truman schools settle whistleblower lawsuit
Court Feed News |
2011/05/10 11:13
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U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg reached the opposite conclusion in a lawsuit filed by Liberty University, the conservative Christian school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Two weeks before Hudson's ruling, the 1997 appointee of President Bill Clinton ruled that the mandate is a proper exercise of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause.
The Truman School District in southern Minnesota will settle a lawsuit filed by a paraprofessional who said she was fired for being a whistleblower.
The school board voted Monday night to settle the lawsuit filed by Val Wilcox-Pesta for $80,000. The school district admits no guilt in the matter.
Wilcox-Pesta's lawsuit, filed in 2009, says she went to Principal Brian Shanks after finding marijuana in her son's pocket. Wilcox-Pesta alleged Shanks' son sold her son the drugs. Shanks' son denied the allegations.
The Fairmont Sentinel says Wilcox-Pesta went to state officials and the Minnesota Board of School Administrators because she believed there was a lack of concern by administrators and a failure to discipline students involved in the drug sale. Wilcox-Pesta was notified several months later that her position was eliminated. |
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Lawyers for USS Cole bomb suspect file court case
Court Feed News |
2011/05/10 11:10
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Lawyers for the suspected al-Qaida mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole said Tuesday they have filed a case against Poland at Europe's court of human rights over alleged abuse against him at a CIA-run site in that country about eight years ago. The Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based human rights group, and lawyers for Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri are challenging Poland for "active complicity" in the extraordinary rendition program carried out under then-President George W. Bush. The case filed with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, seeks in part to press Poland to help block an "imminent risk" that al-Nashiri could face the death penalty. The 46-year-old Saudi national was held at a secret CIA site in Poland between December 2002 and June 2003, and is now being held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. military prosecutors re-filed terrorism and murder charges last month and requested the death penalty against al-Nashiri over the alleged planning and preparation for the attack that killed 17 sailors and injured 41. The filing alleges that Poland's government violated the European Convention of Human Rights by enabling al-Nashiri's to face torture and helping his transfer, despite risks he faced in U.S. custody: further abuse, "a flagrantly unfair trial" and the death penalty, the group said. |
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Court to reconsider case of Super Bowl threat
Criminal Law Updates |
2011/05/10 10:09
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A federal appeals court will reconsider the case of an Arizona man accused of planning a massacre at the 2008 Super Bowl before changing his mind. Kurt Havelock was convicted in 2008 of mailing threatening messages, but a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction last year. The panel's decision is now void, and the full 11-judge court will consider the conviction anew. Authorities alleged that Havelock bought an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition, and wanted to kill people at the 2008 Super Bowl in Glendale. The documents say Havelock was armed when he reached a parking lot near University of Phoenix Stadium but had a change of heart. Havelock called his parents, who persuaded him to turn himself in. |
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