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Info sought from NY firm ripped for Halloween bash
Legal Career News |
2011/11/06 19:49
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A New York foreclosure law firm criticized for a 2010 Halloween party in which employees dressed as homeless people is attracting attention in Washington.
The ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote Friday to the Steven J. Baum firm near Buffalo requesting records and documents relating to its foreclosure practices — and its Halloween party.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings tells Baum pictures from the party published by The New York Times last week "demonstrate a culture of disdain for families suffering foreclosure and a disregard for the rule of law."
A Baum spokesman says he doesn't believe Baum has seen the letter. Baum has apologized for the party. |
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Texas woman on death row gets new sentencing trial
Legal Career News |
2011/11/03 09:08
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Texas woman on death row gets new sentencing trial
A Texas appeals court says one of 10 women on the state's death row should get a new punishment hearing after her attorneys said prosecutors withheld evidence at her 2005 trial.
Chelsea Richardson was convicted of masterminding the slayings of her boyfriend's parents so her boyfriend could inherit their $1.56 million estate. She was 19 at the time of the December 2003 killings.
The now 27-year-old's attorneys argued she deserves a new punishment hearing because prosecutors withheld a psychologist's notes suggesting another woman, who took a plea deal in the case, masterminded the murder plot.
Richardson's trial judge and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed. The appeals court returned her case to Tarrant County on Wednesday. |
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Court reluctant on plea bargains after sentencing
Legal Career News |
2011/11/01 16:59
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The Supreme Court seemed reluctant Monday to allow criminals to ask for a previously offered plea bargain after they've been sentenced, despite the inmates' claim of misconduct by their lawyers including neglecting to tell their clients that a deal had been offered.
Asking judges to go back and figure out on appeal whether a suspect would have taken a plea deal before a trial, whether a judge would have accepted it, whether a prosecutor would have withdrawn it or whether the negotiations would have fallen apart "is simply unworkable," said Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often a tiebreaker votes on divisive issues.
The high court heard appeals from two different sets of prosecutors who had their cases overturned by appeals courts that said criminals were denied their Sixth Amendment effective "assistance of counsel" because of mistakes during plea negotiations. The Supreme Court has amplified that by saying that "counsel's representation must not fall below an objective standard of reasonableness" and that there must not be "a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceedings would have been different."
In the first case, Anthony Cooper's conviction for shooting a woman in the thigh and buttocks after missing a shot to her head was overturned by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati because his lawyer gave him bad advice. His lawyer told him not to take a plea offer that could have had him out of prison in four years, thinking that there could not be a finding that Cooper intended to murder his victim. |
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High court reinstates 'shaken baby' conviction
Legal Career News |
2011/10/31 13:52
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The Supreme Court has again reinstated the conviction of a California woman for shaking her 7-week-old grandson to death, a final ruling that ends a protracted dispute with the federal appeals court in San Francisco.
The justices voted 6-3 Monday to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Shirley Ree Smith. The appeals court had three times set aside Smith's conviction, saying the case likely was "a miscarriage of justice." The appeals court said there was "no demonstrable support" for the prosecution's theory of the case.
But the high court said that even though doubts about Smith's guilt are "understandable," the appeals court should have deferred to state courts that upheld Smith's conviction.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, said the court should have passed up the chance to "teach the 9th Circuit a lesson" in a tragic case.
"What is now known about shaken baby syndrome casts grave doubt on the charge leveled against Smith; and uncontradicted evidence shows that she poses no danger whatever to her family or anyone else in society," Ginsburg said. |
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Appeals court overturns key Cape Wind clearance
Legal Career News |
2011/10/28 16:45
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A federal appeals court has rejected the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling that the Cape Wind project's turbines present "no hazard" to aviation, overturning a vital clearance for the nation's first offshore wind farm.
A decision Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FAA didn't adequately determine whether the planned 130 turbines, each 440 feet tall, would pose a danger to pilots flying by visual flight rules.
The court ordered the "no hazard" determinations vacated and remanded back to the FAA.
It also ruled that if the FAA found the project posed aviation risks, the U.S. Interior Department would likely revoke or modify the lease granted Cape Wind — the first granted to a U.S. offshore wind project.
The decision signals further delays for the project, which has struggled to find financing. |
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Hunger-striking prisoner fights force-feedings
Legal Career News |
2011/10/25 12:55
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Attorneys for a British prisoner who lost more than 100 pounds during a hunger strike have asked Connecticut's Supreme Court to prevent prison officials from force-feeding him. The prisoner, William Coleman, stopped eating in September 2007 over claims he was convicted on a fabricated rape charge. Authorities began feeding him by a tube inserted through his nose a year later when he stopped accepting fluids. Coleman has since begun voluntarily accepting liquid nutrition but he argues that the force-feedings violate his right to free speech. His lawyers argued before the seven-judge panel on Tuesday that a lower court was wrong to rule last year that the feedings by the state Department of Correction can be permitted. Assistant Attorney General Lynn Wittenbrink says prison officials are obliged to protect inmates' lives. |
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