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Parties in Va. Tech suit seek high court hearing -
Legal News Digest |
2013/02/15 14:51
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Attorneys for the parents of two students who were killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre want a state Supreme Court hearing on their request to put Tech's president on trial for negligence. Meanwhile, the state wants to reverse a jury's conclusion that the university was negligent for failing to alert students right away when the shootings began.
Attorneys for both sides asked a panel of three Supreme Court justices Tuesday to decide if the full court will hear the appeals. A decision is expected in four to six weeks.
The dueling appeals stem from a jury's findings in March 2012 that the university botched its response to the massacre, which left the gunman and 32 students and faculty dead in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. |
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Former Fla. GOP chief pleads guilty before trial
Court Press News |
2013/02/12 10:35
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Former Republican Party of Florida chairman Jim Greer pleaded guilty to theft and money laundering charges Monday just before jury selection in his criminal trial was to begin.
Greer pleaded guilty to four counts of theft and a single count of money laundering for funneling money from the Republican Party of Florida to a company he set up with his right-hand man. He could be sentenced to a minimum of 3 ½ years and a maximum of 35 years in prison at his March 27 sentencing.
The plea deal avoids would could have been an embarrassing trial for the state GOP. Some of Florida's most powerful politicians were scheduled as witnesses, including former Gov. Charlie Crist, former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and several state House and state Senate leaders.
"There were a number of people who did not want this trial to go forward and the trial isn't going forward," said Damon Chase, Greer's attorney. "Once again, Jim Greer is falling on his sword for a lot of other folks."
Topics that were covered in pretrial depositions included allegations of prostitutes at a state GOP fundraiser in the Bahamas, lavish spending on fancy restaurants and luxury hotels by state GOP leaders, the drinking habits of Crist and party leaders stabbing each other in the back.
"He has acknowledged he is guilty. That is what the party has wanted since the case started," said Stephen Dobson, an attorney for the Republican Party of Florida. |
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Pakistan court summons anti-corruption boss
Legal World News |
2013/02/01 15:04
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Pakistan's top court has summoned the government's anti-corruption chief over a letter he wrote criticizing the tribunal's judges.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Thursday issued a court order for the anti-corruption chief, Fasih Bokhari, to appear before the tribunal on February 4.
Bokhari has been ordered to explain a letter he wrote earlier this week to President Asif Ali Zardari, accusing Supreme Court judges of trying to influence upcoming parliamentary elections.
Chaudhry says the letter amounted to interference in court matters and was an effort to incite against the judiciary.
The development is an indication Bokhari could be charged with contempt of court.
Bokhari's clash with the judiciary stems from his refusal in mid-January to arrest the prime minister over a corruption case involving kickbacks allegedly taken by the premier. |
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Appeals court in NYC hears nuclear plant arguments
Law News |
2013/01/16 22:30
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A dispute between the state of Vermont and a Louisiana-based power company moved to a federal appeals court Monday, when a panel of judges questioned lawyers but did not signal who they'll side with in the tussle over the future of Vermont's only nuclear plant.
David C. Frederick, a lawyer for Vermont officials, urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court judge who said last year that the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant can continue to operate after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave it a 20-year extension to operate. The judge, J. Garvan Murtha in Brattleboro, Vt., had ruled that the federal government controlled the plant's fate as it relates to safety issues. Vermont so far has refused to license the plant after a state permit expired last March.
Frederick insisted that the state had important non-safety reasons for seeking a fresh evaluation of the plant, including the "substantial costs" that would be incurred by taxpayers if the plant was decommissioned. Murtha had cited comments about safety that were made by legislators to show the state was primarily concerned with plant safety issues, which he found are solely the responsibility of federal regulators. |
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Boston mobster's lawyer seeks to have judge tossed
Legal News Digest |
2013/01/11 01:08
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A lawyer for mobster James "Whitey" Bulger on Tuesday framed an attempt to get the presiding judge kicked off his client's murder case as an effort to protect the court's integrity.
"I'm not really representing James Bulger," J.W. Carney Jr. told a 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel. "I'm representing us, the people who care about the perception of the federal prosecution system in Boston."
Bulger is the former head of the Winter Hill Gang who faces charges that he participated in 19 murders.
He fled Boston in late 1994 and was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list when authorities captured him in June 2011 in California. The 83-year-old has pleaded not guilty and faces a June trial.
The defense claims U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns can't be impartial during the trial because he was a federal prosecutor in charge of the U.S. attorney's office criminal division during some of the time Bulger was an FBI informant.
But a government lawyer countered Tuesday that Stearns, who has rejected recusal appeals, didn't participate in and didn't know of any investigations involving Bulger while serving as a federal prosecutor. |
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