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Court to Release Audio in Guantanmo Case
Court Feed News |
2007/11/28 13:00
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| The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week about the rights of prisoners who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will immediately release audio tapes of the proceeding. The court made available same-day releases of audio tapes on two occasions last term, for cases involving abortion and the use of race in public school assignments. The quick release of audio tapes in major cases dates to 2000, when justices heard Florida ballot recount appeals that determined the outcome of the presidential election. Television cameras are barred from the court and reporters are not allowed to use tape recorders there. But arguments are taped by the court and usually are released at the end of the term. The cases to be argued next Wednesday deal with whether the Guantanamo detainees can contest their confinement in U.S. civilian courts. |
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New court date set for Vick over dogfighting
Court Feed News |
2007/11/28 09:59
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| Disgraced football star Michael Vick will stand trial on April 2 on state charges of involvement in dogfighting, a Virginia state court ruled on Tuesday. The trial of the suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback in a state court is separate from federal charges of dogfighting to which Vick pleaded guilty in August. Vick is due to be sentenced on those charges on December 10 and faces up to five years in jail, though prosecutors have requested a sentence of between 12 and 18 months. In an unusual move, the 27-year-old turned himself in to U.S. marshals last week to begin serving the federal sentence early. The two state charges carry sentences of five years each, which would be added to any sentence on the federal charges, according to media reports. Vick's indictment in July shocked U.S. sports fans because it was a spectacular fall from grace and because dogfighting, in which people bet on pit bulls and other aggressive dogs, is widely reviled for its cruelty. Vick initially pleaded innocent but then admitted his guilt after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. The brief hearing at Surry County Circuit Court, Virginia, also set court dates in March and April for three other co-defendants, according to a member of the prosecutor's team. |
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CA Aims to Appease Death Penalty Appeals Process
Court Feed News |
2007/11/21 19:43
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The California Supreme Court proposed a constitutional amendment to change the death penalty appeals process on Monday in an effort to ease the backlog in the state's death penalty system.
California has the largest number of inmates on Death Row in the nation. With 666 condemned inmates who must appeal through the Supreme Court, the average time between sentencing and execution is more than 17 years—twice the nation’s average.
Thirty people have been on death row for more than 25 years, 119 for more than 20 years and 408 for more than a decade.
Chief Justice Ronald George, who announced the proposal, said the court spends around 20 percent of its time on capital cases alone. The amendment would allow the Court, which is required to hear all death sentence appeals, to send some of the cases to one of six appeals court in the state.
“For many, many years, people have lamented the very slow process of these capital cases," George told the San Francisco Chronicle. "And rather than just speak about the delay and how the system is dysfunctional, I thought this would be a good idea to consider as a way to improve the system."
If the amendment were approved, the court would refer 30 cases a year at most to the appellate courts, according to George.
The chief justice said death penalty rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 400 death penalty cases decided by the State Supreme Court would provide considerable guidance to the state appeals court, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The state high court, however, would retain the right of final review, George noted.
George said he is looking for a legislator who will sponsor the measure, which he hopes will secure the two-thirds vote needed from lawmakers to appear on the November 2008 ballot. A majority of state voters would also need to approve the amendment.
Professor Evan Lee at UC Hastings College of the Law welcomed the proposal and said that the court should be spending more answering “highly controversial questions of law or novel questions of law.”
Many death penalty cases "are what we call fact-bound," Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Those are the kinds of cases that for the Supreme Court are sort of a waste of time.”
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a defense lawyers' association, disagreed that the constitutional amendments would cure “court congestion” in the state. The major problem instead is the lack of qualified attorneys, a matter not addressed in the proposal, argued the group, according to the Associated Press.
Stefanie Faucher, a spokeswoman for Death Penalty Focus, a San Francisco-based organization that opposes capital punishment, said the proposal has her “very concerned.”
"Further increasing of the number of individuals reviewing these cases ... could cause increased disparities in the already unfair administration of the death penalty,” she said. |
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New York Man Cleared on "Standing" Charges
Court Feed News |
2007/11/21 19:02
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New York state's highest court ruled it was not illegal to stand on a sidewalk, handing a win to a man arrested after refusing to move from the spot where he was standing and talking to friends in busy Times Square.
The New York Court of Appeals decided in favor of Matthew Jones on Tuesday. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest — by flailing his arms — on June 12, 2004. Police said other people "had to walk around" him, and he would not move when asked.
Jones man pleaded guilty to a violation after spending a night in jail, but he later appealed.
In order to prosecute someone for disorderly conduct in New York, the person must be acting "with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof" and obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic, according to the opinion written by Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick. The opinion was unanimous.
The court found that Jones' behavior did not meet the definition of disorderly conduct just because he stood in the middle of the sidewalk at 2:01 a.m. with friends.
"Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one's bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute," the opinion said.
The court also found that Jones could not have resisted arrest because his arrest was not authorized by the law. |
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Uzan Family's $1 Billion Upheld by Appeals Court
Court Feed News |
2007/11/21 18:02
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A U.S. appeals court upheld a $1 billion punitive damages award to Motorola Inc against the Uzan family of Turkey on Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the lower court "properly applied the variety of factors relevant to state and federal law."
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff had awarded the punitive damages against certain members of the Uzan family, which ran Turkey's second-largest mobile phone operator, Telsim, and a media and banking empire.
Rakoff had concluded that the defendants fraudulently obtained loans from Motorola for more than $2 billion and from Nokia for about $800 million.
Rakoff had said the family used a "campaign of lies and misrepresentations to swindle Motorola," but in February 2006 he cut the punitive award to $1 billion from $2.1 billion.
"Judge Rakoff's findings establish beyond cavil the extraordinary nature of the Uzans' wrongful behavior and form a valid basis for the substantial punitive award of $1 billion against them," Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi wrote in a 23-page opinion. |
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CPDC President Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Audit
Court Feed News |
2007/11/19 19:43
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The president of the Los Angeles-based Community Partnership Development Corporation (CPDC) pleaded guilty this morning to charges of obstructing an audit conducted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was looking into the expenditure of nearly $3.2 million of federal money on "engineering and construction management supervision fees."
Frank DeSantis, 49, of Santa Clarita, pleaded guilty to the felony obstruction charge before United States District Judge John F. Walter. DeSantis pleaded guilty to a one-count indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury in June and accused him of overstating work hours in relation to grant money that HUD had provided to the CPDC.
HUD provides funding, through the Low-Income Housing Preservation and Resident Homeownership Act of 1991 -- commonly called the Preservation Program -- to support the development and operation of privately owned rental properties for low-income families. The Preservation Program provides financial assistance in the form of grants to private owners for the purchase and rehabilitation of properties. In 1996 and 1997, DeSantis received Preservation Program grants, which he used to purchase three properties -- the New Brittany Housing Foundation Development, the L.A. Garden Community Association Development, and the Casa Community Association Development. In June 2002, HUD’s Office of Inspector General conducted an audit of the grant fund expenditures for the three developments. In order to explain the expenditure of $3,198,245, DeSantis submitted time sheets for CPDC employees. However, the time sheets proved to be false for three reasons: they were created long after the purported work took place, they showed more hours than the employees actually worked on the Preservation Program grant, and the time sheets failed to disclose that a significant number of hours were spent working on non-Preservation Program projects.
“Financial crimes aimed at multifamily housing undermine the economic viability of what is home to dozens and sometimes hundreds of families,” said Kenneth M Donohue, Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “To the extent that we can stop these destructive practices, the HUD Office of Inspector General will be a deterrent to these pernicious activities and a defender of the notion that people should be able to enjoy a safe and affordable home.”
DeSantis is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Walter on February 4. At that time, DeSantis faces a statutory maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. As part of his plea agreement, DeSantis has agreed to pay $400,000 to reimburse HUD for some of the money provided in Preservation Program grants.
This case is the result of an investigation by HUD's Office of Inspector General. |
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