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Top German court rejects ex-Auschwitz guard's prison appeal
Law & Politics |
2018/01/07 13:56
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Germany's highest court said Friday it has thrown out a bid by a 96-year-old former Auschwitz death camp guard for a reprieve on serving his sentence as an accessory to murder.
Oskar Groening was convicted in July 2015 of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews and sentenced to four years in prison. A federal court rejected his appeal against the conviction last year.
Groening has remained free during a dispute over his fitness for prison. Prosecutors argued that he is fit to serve time so long as there is appropriate medical care, and regional courts threw out appeals against their decision.
Germany's Federal Constitutional Court said it has now rejected a complaint arguing that Groening's fundamental right to life and physical safety was being violated. In the ruling dated Dec. 21 and released Friday, it said it saw no constitutional reason to question the lower courts' rulings.
The supreme court noted that German law allows for prison sentences to be interrupted if a detainee's health deteriorates significantly.
It wasn't immediately clear when Groening will be formally summoned to start serving his sentence, but he isn't expected to go to prison before the new year.
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Ohio court to hear big online school's funding case Feb. 13
Attorney Blogs |
2018/01/07 13:56
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The Ohio Supreme Court will hear arguments in February over the state's efforts to recoup $60 million from one of the nation's largest online charter schools.
The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is challenging how officials tallied student logins to determine that the virtual school was overpaid for the 2015-16 school year.
The state says that ECOT didn't sufficiently document student participation to justify its funding and could owe millions more from 2016-17.
The court has scheduled oral arguments in the case for Feb. 13.
The e-school has said it could be forced to close in early 2018, in the middle of the school year, if the court doesn't intervene. ECOT said such a closure would affect almost 12,000 students and eliminate more than 800 jobs.
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Often at odds, Trump and GOP relish tax win, court picks
Lawyer Blog News |
2018/01/06 13:56
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Donald Trump's unpredictable, pugnacious approach to the presidency often worked against him as Republicans navigated a tumultuous but ultimately productive year in Congress.
Trump's major accomplishments, confirmation of conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and a major tax cut, actually came with relatively little drama. But Republicans often struggled to stay on the rails, particularly with a big pratfall on health care and repeated struggles to accomplish the very basics of governing.
Several shutdown deadlines came and went, and a default on the government's debt was averted, thanks to a momentary rapprochement with top Democrats, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer. But a promised solution to the plight of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as infants or children was delayed, while a routine reauthorization of a program providing health care to 9 million low-income kids stalled as well.
Often it seemed as if Trump were more interested in picking fights on Twitter than the nuts and bolts of legislating.
A catchall spending deal in May got relatively little attention for what it accomplished, overshadowed by Trump's threat to shut the government down if he didn't get a better deal the next time. But there was no next time — and about $1.2 trillion in unfinished agency budgets got punted into the new year.
Still, there was no shortage of drama this year on Capitol Hill. Trump displayed a penchant for picking fights with fellow Republicans: Arizona's two senators John McCain and Jeff Flake; Tennessee's Bob Corker and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Onetime Republican rivals such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina came firmly into Trump's fold — even as Corker and Flake, both facing potentially difficult primary races, announced their retirements. |
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Ohio court indefinitely suspends law license of ex-judge
Court Feed News |
2018/01/03 13:55
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The Ohio Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended the law license of a former judge sentenced to two years in prison for assaulting his estranged wife inside a vehicle while their two young daughters sat in the back seat.
The court ruled unanimously Thursday that Lance Mason can only apply for reinstatement after meeting conditions including undergoing a mental health evaluation.
The court removed Mason from the Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Common Pleas bench in 2015 after he pleaded guilty to attempted felonious assault and domestic violence.
Authorities say Mason struck and bit his wife, Aisha, while driving with her and their daughters in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights in 2014.
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Northern Indiana man 3rd generation caring for court clock
Class Action News |
2018/01/01 13:55
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Out of habit, as the Elkhart County Courthouse clock struck 11 on a recent morning, Blake Eckelbarger took out his cellphone and compared the time.
The century-and-a-half-old mechanism in the middle of Goshen trailed the timekeeping of his GPS satellite-aided phone by a minute. Thankfully it's an easy fix, he explained as he tinkered with the brass-colored gears and pins of the green-painted machine his grandfather and great-grandfather once cared for - a minute fast would mean advancing the hands through 11 hours and 59 minutes to set it right.
It's not the time it takes that's the hassle, since that's only 20 minutes, but the fact that he has to stop and wait for the bell to ring as an hour goes by every 10 seconds. It's the same story when he has to advance it one hour along with everyone else's clocks one
"Now it should be OK for another couple months," he remarked, before going into the usual weekly routine of oiling and inspecting the mechanism. It's a job he's had since 2000, when he happily took the offer to bring it back into the Eckelbarger family.
Eckelbarger's great-grandfather, Zena Eckelbarger, took care of the clock from 1923 until his death in 1941. Eckelbarger's grandfather, Dan Eckelbarger Sr., then held the duty for the next 50 years, into his 80s.
He remembers going up there with his grandfather on occasion, but didn't really learn how the clock works until he trained for a couple years under Hosea Jump, who held the contract since 1991 and who asked if he wanted the job. He still had to rely on Jump's expertise for another four or five years whenever an issue needed troubleshooting.
His duties, in addition to the weekly checks, include periodically making sure the clock faces are free of things like leaves or dead birds and that the bell and hammer are in good shape. Once a year, he spends a whole day disassembling the clockworks so he can lubricate the shafts and polish the gears. |
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Myanmar court extends detention for 2 Reuters reporters
Attorneys News |
2017/12/30 13:55
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A court in Myanmar extended the detention of two Reuters journalists on Wednesday and set their trial for Jan. 10 on charges of violating state secrets.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested Dec. 12 for acquiring "important secret papers" from two policemen. The police officers had worked in Rakhine state, where abuses widely blamed on the military have driven more than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The charges are are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
"We are just working as journalists. ... We never violate journalism ethics," Wa Lone told reporters as he and his colleague were led out of a police van into the courtroom in Mingalardon, on the outskirts of Yangon.
Their families wept as they got a chance to see them for the first time since their arrests.
"I want my husband to be free soon. And I trust him that he would never violate the law," said Wa Lone's wife, Pan Ei Mon.
U.S., U.N. and European Union officials are among others calling for their release.
Dozens of Myanmar journalists appeared at the court wearing black shirts as part of a protest against the journalists' arrests.
"We are facing the same kind of harassment under the civilian government as we did under the military government," said Thar Lun Zaung Htet, head of a local pressure group for press freedom. "It is not fair for the two journalists to be charged under the official secrets act because they were doing their job as journalists who tried to get information."
On Tuesday, authorities said they would drop charges against two Singaporean reporters and their local staff working for the Turkish state broadcaster TRT. They were arrested on Oct. 27 for allegedly flying a drone over the parliament building without permission. |
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