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Court upholds sentence for Ala. police officer
Legal Career News |
2008/05/06 15:57
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A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and 10-month sentence of an Alabama police officer for lying about a prisoner injured during arrest. A federal judge sentenced Jason Hardy Hunt, who was a narcotics detective in Prichard, Ala., to five months in prison and five months home detention. James Woodard became agitated and argued with officers March 22, 2005 when he was detained, searched and then released. Officers tried to arrest him after he cursed and threatened them, and Hunt threw Woodard to the pavement, injuring his head. Hunt reported that Woodard grabbed him first, and repeated the falsehood to an FBI agent almost a year later. On appeal, Hunt said the evidence was insufficient to convict him of deliberate falsehood and that the 10-month sentence was excessive. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed in an opinion filed Monday. |
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Albany attorney leaves firm after state investigation
Headline News |
2008/05/06 14:00
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An Albany, N.Y., attorney investigated by the state for allegedly exaggerating his time sheets has stepped down from his post at Girvin & Ferlazzo P.C. James McCarthy resigned from his "of counsel" position at the Albany law firm on the afternoon of May 2, according to a spokesman with Sawchuk Brown Associates, which is representing the law firm. Generally, attorneys "of counsel" are part-time workers who are not partners or associates. McCarthy had been with the firm since 1992 and never earned a salary, according to the Sawchuk Brown spokesman. Earlier on May 2, McCarthy resigned from his job with the state Department of Correctional Services after the state inspector general published a report saying that McCarthy exaggerated his time sheets and was often either at Girvin & Ferlazzo or at Wolferts Roost Country Club in Albany when he was allegedly on the clock. McCarthy was in charge of preparing and processing paperwork for extraditions and renditions of fugitives or accused criminals. It was a part-time job, meaning he was supposed to work 18.75 hours per week, earning $60,867 a year. In the resignation letter to the state, McCarthy said he stepped down "so as not to be a distraction" to the state corrections department. "There are no shortage of opportunities for him. His talent as a lawyer allows him to walk away from those jobs with some confidence," said Karl Sleight, an attorney with Harris Beach PLLC and McCarthy's lawyer. State investigators studied 12 weeks of McCarthy's work over the course of 2007. During those weeks, McCarthy was paid $6,000 for hours that he never logged, according to the inspector general's report. On his time sheets, he claimed more than twice the hours that he actually worked, adding 120 hours of work onto the 98 hours he actually logged, the report said. |
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National law firm opens Jacksonville office
Law Firm News |
2008/05/06 13:01
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A White-Plains, N.Y.-based firm with a national reach has added an office in Jacksonville, making it the firm's 36th. Former Akerman Senterfitt attorneys Richard N. Margulies and Benjamin D. Sharkey joined Jackson Lewis LLC as partners. Both attorneys practice labor and employment law. "Ben and I were very familiar with Jackson Lewis and marveled at the expansion of their national footprint, especially in the last two years," said Margulies in a news release. "Their national network of offices gives us a real chance of expanding our client base outside of the Jacksonville region." Jackson Lewis, founded in 1958, has more than 480 attorneys, whose expertise covers over 17 specialized practices of law. |
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Executions scheduled to take place in US states
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/05/06 11:54
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Georgia is poised to become the first state in the nation to execute an inmate since the U.S. Supreme Court decided in September to review Kentucky inmates' claims that lethal injection is unconstitutional. The court ruled last month that Kentucky's method of executing inmates, also used by about three dozen other states, is constitutional. The last execution in the U.S. was Michael Richard of Texas on Sept. 25, 2007. These are some of the executions that have been scheduled since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month: GEORGIA: William Earl Lynd, 53, scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Tuesday. He was convicted of kidnapping and killing his live-in girlfriend, 26-year-old Ginger Moore, and shooting her three times in the face and head nearly 20 years ago. MISSISSIPPI: Earl Wesley Berry, 49, on May 21, for the 1987 slaying of Mary Bounds. Berry was convicted of kidnapping Bounds from the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Houston, Miss., and beating her to death. OKLAHOMA: Terry Lyn Short, 47, on June 17, for throwing a homemade explosive into an Oklahoma City apartment building in 1995, resulting in the death of 22-year-old Ken Yamamoto. TEXAS: Jose Medellin, 33, on Aug. 5, for his participation in the gang rape and strangulation deaths of two teenage girls 15 years ago in Houston. |
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Gay ex-N.J. gov's divorce trial promises sordid details
Court Feed News |
2008/05/06 10:55
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New Jersey's former first couple is finally about to become unhitched, and it figures to be especially messy. Jim and Dina Matos McGreevey's divorce trial, which starts Tuesday, means the end of their 3 1/2-year separation that has lasted nearly as long as their marriage. The trial will feature the usual squabbles — the ex-governor wants equal custody of their 6-year-old daughter, and alimony and child support are at issue as well. But the proceedings figure to be particularly salacious because of the question everybody has asked at least once: Did she know he was gay? Matos McGreevey, 41, claims she was duped into marriage by a closeted gay man who needed the cover of a wife to advance his political career. McGreevey says he gave her a child and the coattails she rode to the governor's mansion, thus fulfilling the marriage contract. Matos McGreevey seeks $600,000 as compensation for the time she would have lived at the governor's mansion in Princeton had her soon-to-be-ex not resigned in disgrace. Perks enjoyed by a sitting governor's spouse include household servants, access to a state police helicopter and a state-owned beach house. The gay former governor and his estranged wife will sit at adjacent legal tables, fewer than 5 feet apart, in the Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth as their high-priced lawyers lay bare the pair's sex lives and finances. Only issues concerning custody of their kindergartner are expected to be decided away from the glare of tabloid reporters and Court TV. |
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Fl. court to hear arguments in anthrax death lawsuit
Lawyer Blog News |
2008/05/05 16:19
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The Florida Supreme Court is taking up key issues in a lawsuit over the anthrax death of a photo editor for a supermarket tabloid publisher. Robert Stevens died Oct. 5, 2001 after being exposed to the deadly substance. It was in an envelope mailed to the offices of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, Sun and Globe newspapers. His wife sued the federal government and a private laboratory, claiming they both had a duty to protect the public from anthrax. The court is hearing arguments on Monday in the case. |
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