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Court reverses verdict in Calif. baby-selling case
Headline News |
2013/06/20 22:19
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A midlevel California appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Salinas man who allegedly tried to sell his 8-month-old baby in a Walmart parking lot.
The state's 6th District Court of Appeal ruled Friday that the judge who originally heard the case gave incomplete instructions to the jury that ultimately convicted 41-year-old Patrick Fousek of child endangerment, The Monterey Herald reports.
Both Fousek and his girlfriend, Samantha Tomasini, were arrested two years ago when two women reported that Fousek had approached them and asked if they wanted to buy his infant daughter for $25. Fousek's lawyers argued during his 2011 trial that the offer had not been serious, but the appeals court said Monterey County prosecutors had presented enough evidence to support a guilty verdict.
But the court, in its unpublished opinion, said Superior Court Judge Pamela Butler should have been told they needed to agree unanimously on the specific act or acts on which they based their verdict. In Fousek's case, that could have been the proposed sale of the baby, the squalid home in which she was being raised, or the fact that Tomasini allegedly breastfed the little girl while high on methamphetamine. |
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State's largest court poised for staff cutbac
Headline News |
2013/06/19 18:19
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Los Angeles court officials will layoff or cut 539 jobs, likely resulting in long lines and reduced services.
Presiding Superior Court Judge David Wesley made the announcement Thursday, further restricting a court system that began facing cuts with the budget crisis in 2008.
"We have reached the new normal, and there is nothing to like about it," said Wesley.
He said the cuts will save $56 million a year but undermine the goal of a court system serving all areas of the county.
"This is not the neighborhood court we worked so hard to build," Wesley said in a written statement. "It is not our vision for access to justice. But this is the court the state is willing and able to support."
By the time July 1 rolls around, Wesley said the court will have eliminated 30 percent of its budgeted staff positions since 2002. It marks a 24 percent reduction since the state budget crisis began in 2008. |
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Conn. court declines to address email warrants
Headline News |
2013/06/10 17:26
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The Connecticut Supreme Court has declined to address whether state judges can issue search warrants for email accounts maintained by out-of-state companies like Google.
The court took up the issue in the case of former Monroe youth minister David Esarey, who was sentenced in May 2010 to six years in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and trading nude photos with her.
Justices upheld Esarey's convictions Friday. But they decided not to address his appeal argument that a state judge had no authority to issue a search warrant for his Google Gmail account because Google is based in California.
The court ruled instead that the issuing of the search warrant didn't affect the jury's verdict. |
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Court strikes down Arizona 20-week abortion ban
Headline News |
2013/05/23 20:25
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A federal court in San Francisco Tuesday struck down Arizona's ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting with Roe v. Wade that guarantees a woman's right to an abortion before a fetus is able to survive outside the womb. That's generally considered to be about 24 weeks. Normal pregnancies run about 40 weeks
Several states have enacted similar bans starting at 20 weeks. But the 9th Circuit's ruling is binding only in the nine Western states under the court's jurisdiction. Idaho is the only other state in the region covered by the 9th Circuit with a similar ban.
A trial judge had ruled that the ban could take effect. U.S. District Judge James Teilborg ruled it was constitutional, partly because of concerns about the health of women and possible pain for fetuses.
But abortion-rights groups appealed that decision, saying the 20-week ban would not give some women time to carefully decide whether to abort problem pregnancies. |
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Court: US can keep bin Laden photos under wraps
Headline News |
2013/05/22 20:26
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A federal appeals court is backing the U.S. government’s decision not to release photos and video taken of Osama bin Laden during and after a raid in which the terrorist leader was killed by U.S. commandos.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned down an appeal Tuesday from Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the images.
The court said that the CIA properly withheld publication of the images. The court concluded that the photos used to conduct facial recognition analysis of bin Laden could reveal classified intelligence methods — and that images of bin Laden’s burial at sea could trigger violence against American citizens. |
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Voting rights law gets Supreme Court challenge
Headline News |
2013/03/01 07:42
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The Supreme Court is wrestling with the fate of a section of a landmark civil rights law that has helped millions of Americans exercise their right to vote.
In an argument at the court on Wednesday, liberal and conservative justices engaged in a sometimes tense back and forth over whether there is an ongoing need in 2013 for a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The measure requires states with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before making changes in the way elections are held.
Chief Justice John Roberts asked the government's top Supreme Court lawyer whether the Obama administration thinks Southerners "are more racist than citizens in the North."
The answer from Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was no. |
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