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Supreme Court to swear in large group of deaf lawyers
Topics in Legal News |
2016/04/12 01:17
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Mobile phones ordinarily are strictly forbidden in the marble courtroom of the nation's highest court, but the justices are making an exception next week when roughly a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers will be admitted to the Supreme Court bar.
The lawyers will use their phones to see a real-time transcript as they take part in an April 19 swearing-in ceremony featuring the largest group of hearing-impaired attorneys ever admitted at one time to practice before the high court.
Advocates for deaf lawyers say they hope the event will encourage others with disabilities to pursue legal careers.
"We wanted to do an event that would help break down stereotypes and demonstrate clearly that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals can achieve anything they set their minds to," said Anat Maytal, a New York lawyer and president of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Bar Association.
Nearly 4,000 lawyers join the Supreme Court bar each year, though the vast majority will never actually represent a client there. Membership requires a $200 fee, membership in a state bar for three years and sponsorship by two current Supreme Court bar members.
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Chief justice remembers Scalia's 'irrepressible spirit'
Topics in Legal News |
2016/02/15 11:05
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Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday remembered the late Justice Antonin Scalia as a friend and colleague of "irrepressible spirit" as the Supreme Court resumed work for the first time since Scalia's death.
"He was our man for all seasons and we will miss him beyond measure," Roberts said in brief remarks after the court's eight remaining justices took the bench.
Roberts recounted Scalia's humble roots in New Jersey, his graduation at the top of his class at Georgetown University and his stellar performance at Harvard Law School. As a top attorney at the Justice Department, Roberts said Scalia argued his first and only case before the Supreme Court in 1976.
"He prevailed, establishing a perfect record before the court," Roberts said to laughter.
Scalia became the 103rd justice confirmed to the high court in 1986, Roberts noted, and wrote 292 majority opinions for the court.
"He was also known on occasion to dissent," Roberts said to more laughter.
The high court is resuming work just two days after the justices and thousands of dignitaries, friends and family mourned his loss at a funeral Mass in Washington.
The void created by Scalia's death was visible on Monday. His chair, in its usual place to the right of Roberts, was draped in black wool crepe, which will remain until next month.
Only in late March do the justices plan to switch seats in line with their seniority on the court. Justice Anthony Kennedy is now the longest-serving member of the court, with 28 years of experience.
President Barack Obama has vowed to nominate a candidate to take Scalia's seat, but Senate Republicans, backed by their party's presidential contenders, have pledged to block anyone Obama puts forward. Republicans have said the choice should await the next president.
Scalia's sharp questioning of lawyers transformed arguments into lively sessions in which the justices sometimes seemed to be talking to each other, rather than to the lawyers arguing before them. |
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Chile appeal court upholds convictions in Americans' killing
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/07 18:04
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A Chilean appeals court has upheld the conviction of a retired brigadier general and a former civilian air force employee in the killing of two Americans shortly after the 1973 military coup that overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
The Appeals Court of Santiago on Saturday confirmed the 7-year sentence given to retired Gen. Pedro Espinoza Bravo as the mastermind in the killings of documentary filmmaker Charles Horman, 31, and journalist Frank Teruggi, 24. The court also ratified the 2-year sentence for retired civilian air force employee Rafael Gonzalez Berdugo for his complicity in Horman's death.
The Americans' deaths were the subject of the 1982 film "Missing" by Constantin Costa-Garvas, with Jack Lemmon playing Horman's father.
Espinoza Bravo and Gonzalez Berdugo are currently behind bars in other criminal cases.
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Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane held for trial
Topics in Legal News |
2015/08/24 14:03
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The state's attorney general on Monday was ordered to trial on charges she leaked secret grand jury information to the press, lied under oath about it and ordered aides to illegally snoop through computer files to keep tabs on an investigation into it.
Kathleen Kane, the first woman and the first Democrat to be elected Pennsylvania attorney general, did not speak as she left a suburban Philadelphia courthouse flanked by bodyguards and a crush of reporters and photographers.
Defense lawyer Gerald Shargel lamented that the looser rules of evidence and lower burden of proof in preliminary hearings left them with low odds of getting some or all of the charges tossed.
Kane, 49, could face up to seven years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge, perjury. No trial date has been scheduled. Her next court appearance is Oct. 14.
Kane sat quietly at the defense table during the four-hour hearing Monday, occasionally flipping through documents and jotting notes.
Prosecutors called two witnesses - a top Kane aide and the lead investigator in the case against her - whose testimony paralleled a 42-page probable cause affidavit filed against her earlier this month.
Kane is accused of leaking a confidential grand jury memo and transcript to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter to embarrass rival prosecutors involved in the case. She then lied about her actions to a grand jury investigating the leak, prosecutors said.
Focusing on that charge, prosecutors contrasted remarks Kane made about the sanctity of grand jury proceedings as a county prosecutor in 1999 with her testimony to the leak grand jury last November. |
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Appeals court won't reinstate 1990 arson-murder conviction
Topics in Legal News |
2015/08/18 14:05
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An elderly man who spent 24 years in prison for his daughter's death in a fire will remain free after a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania on Wednesday refused to reinstate his murder conviction.
Han Tak Lee, 80, a native of South Korea who earned U.S. citizenship, was exonerated and freed last year after a judge concluded the case against him was based on since-discredited scientific theories about arson. Prosecutors appealed, saying that other evidence pointed to his guilt.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal, meaning Lee will stay out of prison.
The New York City shop owner had taken his 20-year-old, mentally ill daughter to a religious retreat in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains where, prosecutors say, he set fire to their cabin. Lee has long contended the 1989 fire was accidental.
Lee, who returned to Queens after his release from prison, did not answer his phone Wednesday. He told The Associated Press in an interview last month that he still loved America and "I expect America to make the right decision."
His attorney, Peter Goldberger, called on prosecutors to let the ruling stand.
"I hope, now, that they will finally see there is no basis for this conviction," Goldberger said. "They can say it's nobody's fault, that science changed, that this is over now, and the federal court has had the last word."
Monroe County District Attorney David Christine, who prosecuted Lee in 1990 and whose office lost the appeal, did not immediately return a text and email seeking comment. |
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Court: Lawsuit over Arkansas killing by cop may proceed
Topics in Legal News |
2015/08/06 00:18
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A federal appeals court said Thursday the family of a 67-year-old man shot to death after two off-duty police officers entered his Little Rock apartment without a warrant or an invitation can move forward with a lawsuit.
Eugene Ellison died Dec. 9, 2010. His family alleges Officer Donna Lesher and Detective Tabitha McCrillis, working as private security guards, unlawfully entered his home and that Lesher improperly used deadly force following an argument and scuffle.
Prosecutors declined to press charges, saying the officers' attempts to use non-lethal means to subdue Ellison had failed. The women remain on the force.
Thursday's decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis did not address the merits of the case, only whether the officers could be sued along with the apartment complex that hired them. The three-judge panel said that, at this stage, courts were obligated to consider the case only from the Ellison family's perspective.
The officers have said they noticed through an open door that Ellison's apartment was in disarray and that when they asked if he was OK, Ellison responded with an ambiguous "What does it look like?"
"The apartment was very disheveled. ... The glass-topped coffee table was shattered in an area in front of Mr. Ellison," said Bill Mann, a deputy city attorney for Little Rock. "The manner in which Mr. Ellison spoke led them to be suspicious and wonder if he really was OK."
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