|
|
|
Priest guilty of killing nun will get funeral Mass
Topics in Legal News |
2014/07/07 14:36
|
A Roman Catholic priest convicted of stabbing and strangling a nun 34 years ago in a hospital chapel will receive a funeral Mass, a church official said Saturday.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson remained an ordained priest after his conviction and his services will follow the usual protocol for a diocesan priest's funeral, the Rev. Charles Ritter, administrator for the Diocese of Toledo, said in a statement.
Robinson, 76, died Friday. He had been serving a prison sentence of 15 years to life in what church historians have characterized as the only documented case of a Catholic priest killing a nun. He was arrested 24 years after the nun's death and found guilty in 2006 of stabbing and strangling Sister Margaret Ann Pahl at a Toledo hospital where they both worked.
Robinson had been in a hospice unit since the end of May after suffering a heart attack.
Robinson and Pahl, 71, had worked closely together at the hospital, where he was a chaplain and she was caretaker of the chapel. He presided at her funeral Mass.
Prosecutors blamed the murder on Robinson's simmering anger over Pahl's domineering ways, saying their relationship was strained and that Pahl was upset over the shortening of Good Friday services a day before she was killed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
California court charging for online access
Topics in Legal News |
2014/05/16 14:59
|
A Northern California county has begun charging people to look at civil court records online — part of a trend at cash-strapped courthouses around the state that is raising concerns among some lawyers and public access groups, a newspaper reported.
As of April 23, Alameda County Superior Court charges $1 for each of the first five pages of a civil court record downloaded online, the Oakland Tribune reported on Monday.
The per-page viewing cost drops to 50 cents after the fifth page, and there is a $40 maximum charge for any single document.
Sacramento County Superior Court is implementing a similar fee structure this summer, the Tribune reported. Fees in the Los Angeles County Superior Court system start at $4.75 for each record search. Santa Clara County plans to begin charging in two to four years, according to the Tribune.
Court officials say the fees help make up for cuts in state aid.
"There's a budget crisis in the courts," said Teresa Ruano, spokeswoman for the state's Administrative Office of the Courts. "Revenue is part of the solution, a small part of the solution."
Each court decides whether it wants to charge a fee for records, though the state sets the maximum amount that can be charged for both paper and online records. Some counties don't put records online, forcing people to come in and visit the clerk's office. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court revives lawsuit vs. state Medicaid expansion
Topics in Legal News |
2014/04/25 10:18
|
The Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday revived a lawsuit challenging Gov. Jan Brewer's expansion of the state's Medicaid insurance plan for the poor, ruling that Republican lawmakers have the right to sue over their contention that a hospital assessment that funds the expansion is a tax requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.
Republicans in the House and Senate sued last year, saying only a simple majority last June passed the expansion bill that included the assessment. A Maricopa County judge in February dismissed the case, saying lawmakers were suing over a lost political battle because the Legislature itself decides whether a supermajority vote is needed.
But the appeals court rejected that decision and sent the case back to Judge Katherine Cooper for more action. In an 11-page ruling, the unanimous three-judge panel said the 36 Republican lawmakers who sued could have defeated House Bill 2010 if the supermajority vote was required, so it was proper for Cooper to decide if the Arizona Constitution required that vote.
The ruling was a major loss for Brewer, who pushed the Medicaid bill through the Legislature by cobbling together a coalition of minority Democrats and 14 Republicans.
She is one of only a handful of Republican governors who embraced Medicaid expansion, a key part of President Barack Obama's health care law. In all, 25 states plus Washington, D.C., are moving ahead with the expansion, while 19 states have turned it down. An additional six states are weighing options. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court rejects early appeal of surveillance ruling
Topics in Legal News |
2014/04/08 10:49
|
The Supreme Court has declined an early look at a constitutional challenge to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records.
Conservative lawyer Larry Klayman persuaded a federal judge in December to rule that the agency's activities likely violate the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches. The justices on Monday rejected Klayman's unusual request to bypass the traditional appeals process and hear the case immediately.
Klayman says the case is too important to wait for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reach a decision. The district court judge granted an injunction against the NSA, but put it on hold pending a government appeal.
The Obama administration has defended the NSA program as a crucial tool against terrorism. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court takes up drug company dispute
Topics in Legal News |
2014/03/31 15:23
|
The Supreme Court is wading into a patent dispute between rival pharmaceutical companies over a multiple sclerosis treatment.
The justices agreed Monday to hear an appeal from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., which claims the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wrongly overturned five of its patents for the drug Copaxone.
The appeals court ruling would allow rivals Mylan Inc., Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Sandoz, Inc., to start selling generic versions of the drug later this year, after the remaining patents on the drug expire.
A federal district court had earlier ruled in Teva's favor and upheld the patents. Teva says the Federal Circuit should have deferred to factual findings made in the district court.
The justices will hear the case in the fall. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Arizona high court bars cuts to public pensions
Topics in Legal News |
2014/02/24 14:40
|
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Legislature can't cut cost-of-living increases promised to judges and state elected officials.
The court unanimously upheld a Superior Court judge's ruling in favor of retired judges who challenged the Legislature's 2011 decision to cut benefits increases for retirees in the state plan for judges and other elected officials.
The Legislature cut the cost-of-living increases after the judges' retirement system lost money in the Great Recession after gradually becoming underfunded in previous years.
Denying an appeal by state officials, the high court agreed the increases are part of a promised retirement benefit and are protected by the pension clause of the Arizona Constitution. That clause bars "diminishing or impairing" public retirement benefits.
Lawyers for the retired judges had argued that the clause protected both their retirement benefits and the increases to those benefits, while lawyers for the state argued that the protection only applied to benefits with increases calculated by current methods.
Arizona is not alone in grappling with the problem of underfunded public pensions. A proposed ballot initiative in California would allow cities to renegotiate public workers' future pension and retirement benefits. Oregon's Legislature passed a law similar to what Arizona passed in 2011 that cuts future cost-of-living adjustments. |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
