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Italian court hears final rebuttals in Knox trial
Topics in Legal News |
2014/01/20 13:44
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A prosecutor urged a court on Monday to take steps to make sure that American Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend would serve their sentences, if they are convicted of murdering British student Meredith Kercher.
Prosecutor Alessandro Crini preceded his request by noting that Knox has remained in the United States for this trial, while co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito has traveled abroad during it.
The defense and prosecution were both making their final rebuttals on Monday before the court begins deliberations on Jan. 30. A verdict is expected later that day.
Crini has requested guilty verdicts and jail sentences of 26 years for both defendants, and that the court increase to four years Knox's three-year sentence for a slander conviction, which has been upheld.
In the case of Sollecito, who told reporters Monday that he intends to remain in Italy for the verdict, the precautionary measures could include immediate arrest, house arrest or the confiscation of his passport.
The court's reach in Knox's case is limited by her presence in the United States, where she returned a free woman after the 2009 guilty verdicts against her and Sollecito were thrown out by a Perugia appeals court in 2011. Italy's highest court ordered a second appellate trial after blasting the acquittal. |
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High court OKs Miss. lawsuit on LCD price fixing
Topics in Legal News |
2014/01/16 14:24
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The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that Mississippi can pursue claims of price-fixing against a manufacturer of LCD screens in state court.
The justices on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling that blocked the state-court suit against AU Optronics Corp.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court, said the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to order that the case be tried in federal court.
The issue was whether the federal Class Action Fairness Act, aimed at taking class-action lawsuits from consumer-friendly state courts to more business-friendly federal courts, also applied to cases filed by a state on behalf of its residents.
Taiwan-based AU Optronics is one of several Asian companies sued for fixing prices for thin film transistor liquid-crystal display panels from 1999 to 2006.
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Court refuses to reopen oyster farm case
Court Line News |
2014/01/16 14:24
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A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision that shutters a popular Northern California oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday said it wouldn't appoint a special 11-judge panel to reconsider the ruling of a three-judge panel.
The three-judge panel ruled in September that the federal government had legal authority to deny Drakes Bay Oyster Co. a new lease so the waters of the Drakes Estero could be returned to wilderness.
The small oyster farm's last remaining legal option is to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawyer for Drakes Bay didn't immediately return a phone call. |
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Court weighs president's recess appointments power
Headline Legal News |
2014/01/13 14:29
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The Supreme Court is refereeing a politically charged dispute between President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans over the president's power to temporarily fill high-level positions.
The case being argued at the high court Monday is the first in the nation's history to consider the meaning of the provision of the Constitution that allows the president to make temporary appointments to positions that otherwise require Senate confirmation, but only when the Senate is in recess.
The court battle is an outgrowth of increasing partisanship and the political stalemate that's been a hallmark of Washington for years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009.
Senate Republicans' refusal to allow votes for nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau led Obama to make the temporary, or recess, appointments in January 2012.
Three federal appeals courts have said Obama overstepped his authority because the Senate was not in recess when he acted.
The Supreme Court case involves a dispute between a Washington state bottling company and a local Teamsters union in which the NLRB sided with the union. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the board's ruling. Hundreds more NLRB rulings could be voided if the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court decision. |
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Odds against Alex Rodriguez in federal court
Court Line News |
2014/01/13 14:28
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The odds are against Alex Rodriguez in federal court as he tries to overturn his season-long drug suspension.
For the past five decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has set narrow grounds for judges to consider when evaluating lawsuits to overturn arbitration decisions. That position was reaffirmed in 2001 when it ruled against Steve Garvey in his suit against the Major League Baseball Players Association stemming from the collusion cases of the 1980s.
"I don't think he has very much of a chance," said Stanford Law School professor emeritus William B. Gould IV, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. "There are many cases that are appealed from arbitration awards, but the case law at the Supreme Court level makes success very much a long shot."
The Joint Drug Agreement between Major League Baseball and the players' association gives the sport's three-person arbitration panel — the independent arbitrator plus one representative of management and the union — jurisdiction to review discipline resulting from violations. |
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Court denies execution stay for Fla. killer.
Legal News |
2014/01/10 15:08
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The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block Tuesday's scheduled execution of an inmate convicted of fatally stabbing a prison guard while already on Florida's death row.
Askari Abdullah Muhammad, previously known as Thomas Knight, was set to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening.
The 62-year-old Muhammad was first condemned to die for the 1974 abduction and killings of Sydney and Lillian Gans, a Miami couple. He was sentenced to die again for killing corrections officer Richard Burke in 1980 using a sharpened spoon.
His execution has been delayed for so long because of numerous appeals and rulings, including a 1987 federal appeals court tossing out his death sentence because he hadn't been allowed to put character and background witnesses on the stand during the penalty phase. |
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