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North Carolina Supreme Court to revisit school funding
Criminal Law Updates |
2023/03/06 17:01
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A ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday siding with the state controller means the court will revisit a school funding case in which an earlier lineup of justices issued a landmark opinion just four months ago.
In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court restored enforcement of a 2021 order by the Court of Appeals that stopped the controller from transferring money from state coffers to agencies for education purposes without the General Assembly’s express approval. A trial judge had directed the controller’s predecessor to transfer the funds — an action the Supreme Court upheld in November. Two new justices joined the bench in January, altering the court’s partisan makeup.
A lawyer for current Controller Nels Roseland told the Supreme Court last month that Roseland remained worried that he or his staff could face criminal and civil penalties for making the transfer with several issues unaddressed. The controller keeps the state’s books and manages cash flow.
A lawyer for current Controller Nels Roseland told the Supreme Court last month that Roseland remained worried that he or his staff could face criminal and civil penalties for making the transfer with several issues unaddressed. The controller keeps the state’s books and manages cash flow. |
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Belarus hands 8-year term to journalist for top Polish paper
Criminal Law Updates |
2023/02/08 18:51
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A Belarusian court on Wednesday sentenced a journalist and prominent member of the country’s sizable Polish minority to eight years in prison, amid an ongoing crackdown on critics of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Andrzej Poczobut, 49, was found guilty of harming Belarus’ national security and “inciting discord” in a closed trial held in the western city of Grodno. Poczobut, a journalist for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a top figure in the Union of Poles in Belarus, has been behind bars since his detention in March 2021.
He reported extensively on the mass protests that gripped Belarus for weeks in 2020 following a presidential election that gave Lukashenko, in power since 1994, a new term in office, but that was widely regarded by the opposition and Western countries as fraudulent.
The indictment against Poczobut referenced his coverage of the protests, along with his statements in defense of ethnic Poles in Belarus and reference to the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland as an act of “aggression,” as evidence that he was guilty of the charges.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a Tweet Wednesday condemned the “inhumane decision by the Belarusian regime” and vowed to “do everything to help the Polish journalist bravely fighting for the truth.”
Poland’s foreign ministry summoned the top Belarusian diplomat in Warsaw, Alexander Tshasnouskyy, to protest the verdict.
Poland demands the release of Poczobut and of all political prisoners in Belarus and urges Minsk to respect international laws and put an end to actions against the Polish minority, the ministry said in a statement. |
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Top German court nixes subsidy raise for political parties
Criminal Law Updates |
2023/01/31 18:30
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Germany’s top court has ruled that a decision five years ago to raise the upper limit for state financing of political parties by 25 million euros ($27.2 million) a year was illegal.
The country’s Constitutional Court said Tuesday that a 2018 law change backed by the left-right governing coalition under former Chancellor Angela Merkel to increase the annual limit for all parties to 190 million euros ($206.7 million) could make them too dependent on the state.
State funding in Germany matches the amount of money political parties receive from members or donations, up to a fixed limit.
Judges concluded that the arguments for raising that limit put forward by lawmakers at the time — such as the need to digitize their communication — weren’t sufficient to justify the increase. They had also failed to take into account savings resulting from switching to electronic communication.
Three smaller parties — the Greens, Free Democrats and Left party — had challenged the law. The Greens and Free Democrats are now in a coalition with the Social Democrats, who had backed the law. Merkel’s Union bloc has been in opposition since 2021.
It wasn’t immediately clear what impact the verdict will have for state funding already provided to parties. |
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State seeks long prison term for accused NYC subway gunman
Criminal Law Updates |
2023/01/03 19:07
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Prosecutors plan to seek a decades-long prison sentence for a man who is expected to plead guilty this week to opening fire in a subway car and wounding 10 riders in an attack that shocked New York City.
Frank James, 63, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court, admitting that he was responsible for the April 12 attack. It set off a massive 30-hour manhunt that ended when he called the police on himself.
Prosecutors told Judge William F. Kuntz II in a letter late last week that they plan to ask him to go beyond the roughly 32-year to 39-year sentence that federal sentencing guidelines would recommend. James planned the attack for years and endangered the lives of dozens of people, prosecutors said in the letter.
Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, when courts were closed to observe the New Year’s holiday.
James had been scheduled to stand trial in late February.
His lawyers informed the judge on Dec. 21 that James wanted to plead guilty. Prosecutors say he plans to plead guilty to 11 charges without a plea agreement.
Ten of those charges — each one corresponding to a specific victim — accuse him of committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system carrying passengers and employees.
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Canada condo killer faced possible eviction before shooting
Criminal Law Updates |
2022/12/21 19:56
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A suburban Toronto man who was killed by police after authorities say he fatally shot five people in his condominium building, including three members of the condo board, had a court hearing scheduled for the next day to determine if the building’s management could evict him.
Francesco Villi, 73, attacked neighbors on three floors of his building on Sunday night, killing three men and two women and wounding a sixth person, a 66-year-old woman who is expected to survive, according to police. One of the officers who responded to a call about an active shooter inside the building in the suburb of Vaughan shot and killed Villi, authorities said.
The attack happened the day before a scheduled online court hearing in which lawyers for the condominium corporation were set to argue that it should be allowed to evict Villi because he had spent years harassing building employees, board members and other neighbors. In court documents, the building’s lawyers said Villi ignored court orders to end the harassment and stop posting online about a longstanding dispute he had with the condo’s management.
Villi long claimed in videos posted on social media and in court documents that vibrations, noises and emissions from the building’s electrical room under his unit were making him sick, and that board members and the building’s developer were to blame.
According to court documents, at least two condominium managers quit because of him, and security guards quit or changed shifts to avoid him. Residents also said Villi would swear at them and film them.
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Court rejects appeal to give American Samoans citizenship
Criminal Law Updates |
2022/10/17 18:19
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal seeking to give people born in American Samoa U.S. citizenship.
In leaving in place an appeals court decision, the court also passed up an invitation to overturn a series of decisions dating back to 1901 known as the Insular Cases, replete with racist and anti-foreign rhetoric. Justice Neil Gorsuch had called for the cases to be overturned in April.
But the justices refused to take up an appeal from people born in American Samoa, and living in Utah, who argued that a federal law declaring that they are “nationals, but not citizens, of the United States at birth” is unconstitutional.
A trial judge in Utah ruled in their favor, but the federal appeals court in Denver said Congress, not courts, should decide the citizenship issue. The appeals court also noted that American Samoa’s elected leaders opposed the lawsuit for fear that it might disrupt their cultural traditions.
American Samoa is the only unincorporated territory of the United States where the inhabitants are not American citizens at birth.
Instead, those born in the cluster of islands some 2,600 miles (4,184 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii are granted “U.S. national” status, meaning they can’t vote for U.S. president, run for office outside American Samoa or apply for certain jobs. The only federal election they can cast a vote in is the race for American Samoa’s nonvoting U.S. House seat.
The Insular Cases, which arose following the Spanish-American War, dealt with the administration of overseas territories.
In their conclusion that residents of territories had some, but not all, rights under the Constitution, justices wrote in stark racial and xenophobic terms. Citizenship could not be automatically given to “those absolutely unfit to receive it,” one justice wrote.
That history prompted Gorsuch to comment in a case involving benefits denied to people who live in Puerto Rico, decided in April. He wrote that the Insular Cases were wrongly decided because they deprived residents of U.S. territories of some constitutional rights.
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