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Appeals court turns down Tymoshenko appeal
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/12 16:13
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A court in Ukraine on Friday refused to consider an appeal to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail, where she has been kept for a week while her abuse-of-office trial proceeds.
Tymoshenko was jailed on Aug. 5 for violating court procedures at her trial, including refusing to rise when requested by the judge. She says her resistance is a protest of a trial she contends is politically motivated.
On Friday, the Kiev Appeal Court refused to hear an appeal, saying the country's criminal code does not allow appealing a preventive measure.
Tymoshenko attorney Yuriy Sukhov said that ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Tymoshenko is charged in connection with a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009 that prosecutors claim was disadvantageous to Ukraine.
The United States and the European Union have condemned court cases against Tymoshenko and several of her top allies as selective prosecution of political opponents. Tymoshenko was a key figure in the 2004 Orange Revolution protests that forced annulment of a presidential election purportedly won by Viktor Yanukovych. |
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Once-exonerated Conn. man ordered back to prison
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/09 12:05
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A month after the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated murder convictions against two men who had been exonerated, a judge on Monday ordered one of them back to prison but allowed the other to remain free while fighting cancer.
George Gould was sent back to prison while Ronald Taylor, whose lawyer says he has terminal colon cancer, was allowed to remain out on bail. Both men await a new appeal trial connected to their murder convictions in the 1993 fatal shooting of New Haven grocery shop owner Eugenio Deleon Vega.
Gould and Taylor were both sentenced to 80 years in prison for the killing. They filed habeas corpus appeals, challenges to imprisonment that typically come after other appeals fail.
They were freed in April 2010 after 16 years behind bars when Superior Court Judge Stanley Fuger ruled they were victims of "manifest injustice" and declared them "actually innocent." Fuger's ruling came after a key prosecution witness recanted her trial testimony. He ordered both men released.
Prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous decision last month saying that Fuger was wrong to overturn the convictions because Gould and Taylor hadn't proven their innocence. The high court ordered a new habeas corpus trial for the two men. |
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Conn. judge dispensing cash to Haiti abuse victims
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/08 15:32
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Nearly $49,000 seized from a former Connecticut and Colorado resident is being sent to 16 young men he sexually abused at a school for street children he founded in Haiti.
The Connecticut Post reports that U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven has begun dispensing the money seized from the bank and retirement accounts of Douglas Perlitz, who was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in December for the assaults.
Perlitz, a former resident of Eagle, Colo., and Fairfield County, Conn., admitted he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with boys who attended the Project Pierre Toussaint School in Cap-Haitien.
Federal officials have opened bank accounts with $1,000 for the 16 victims and will be adding $2,000 more to those accounts over the next 14 months. |
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Lawyer pleads guilty to illegal Edwards donations
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/05 16:03
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A prominent Los Angeles attorney could face six months in federal prison for making illegal contributions to the 2004 presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards.
The U.S. attorney's office says Pierce O'Donnell pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of making illegal campaign contributions and agreed to a six-month sentence and a $20,000 fine. O'Donnell is set to be sentenced in November.
In a statement, O'Donnell's attorney Brian J. O'Neill says he and O'Donnell are pleased with the resolution.
O'Donnell acknowledged he provided some $20,000 to Edwards' campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination by reimbursing straw donors.
In 2006, O'Donnell was ordered to pay more than $155,000 after pleading no contest to using a false name while making political contributions to former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn's campaign. |
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Lawyer fees case before Miss. Supreme Court
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/04 15:27
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Republican state Auditor Stacy Pickering has asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to declare funds the attorney general collects from lawsuits to be public money and to require the money to all be turned over the Legislature, including what private law firms collect for their work.
Attorney Arthur Jernigan Jr. told the court Wednesday that Pickering has no dispute with Attorney General Jim Hood's hiring of private lawyers to help with litigation. Jernigan said the dispute centers on the legal fees that the firms collect; he contends the money should go to the state.
The Supreme Court heard Pickering's challenge to a judge's decision last year upholding $10 million in fees paid to lawyers for handling a state lawsuit against computer software manufacturer Microsoft Corp.
Microsoft is not a party to Pickering's lawsuit.
Hinds County Chancellor Denise Owens last April ruled against Pickering.
Microsoft reached a $100 million settlement with the state of Mississippi in 2009. It agreed to pay $10 million to private lawyers hired by the attorney general's office to handle the case. |
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Ind. asks court to lift Planned Parenthood order
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/02 16:01
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Indiana has asked a federal appeals court to lift a judge's order blocking parts of a new abortion law that cuts some public Planned Parenthood funding. In an appeal filed Monday, Indiana says the issue should be decided by Medicaid officials and not the courts. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the law May 10, temporarily cutting off about $1.4 million to Planned Parenthood of Indiana because it provides abortions. The state is asking the federal appeals court in Chicago to reverse U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt's June 24 preliminary injunction. Pratt's ruling barred the state from cutting Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. The appeal came just days after the state complied with Pratt's ruling by giving Planned Parenthood a $6,000 grant. |
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