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Court: Police executing 'no-knock' warrant before shooting
Legal Business |
2017/02/14 00:45
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was shot in the arm by a suspect who was shot and killed.
WSOC-TV in Charlotte reports documents showed that police were concerned that one of their officers might be hurt while carrying out the warrant. Hickory Police Chief Thurman Whisnant said that as soon as officers came through the door, they identified themselves and announced they were executing the warrant.
The search warrant listed more than a decade of convictions against 33-year-old William David Whetstone for assaults and drug charges.
Police said Whetstone disobeyed orders not to move, pulled a gun and shot an officer in the arm on Feb. 3. Two other officers then shot Whetstone, who died at the scene. |
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Partisan struggle over NC governor's authority back in court
Legal Business |
2017/02/12 00:46
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Judges are hearing more arguments about North Carolina Republican lawmakers' efforts to reduce Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's authority in choosing his Cabinet.
A three-judge panel scheduled arguments Friday on whether to extend their recent temporary block of a law requiring Senate confirmation of Cooper's Cabinet secretaries.
The GOP-controlled legislature passed the law shortly before Cooper took office, one of several provisions designed to limit Cooper's powers.
Cooper's attorneys say confirmation usurps his authority to carry out core executive functions. Republicans respond that the state Constitution gives senators "advice and consent" powers with gubernatorial appointees.
The governor wants the law blocked at least until a hearing scheduled for March.
In another gubernatorial power issue, a state appeals court on Thursday temporarily reinstated a law stripping Cooper of his oversight of elections.
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Dylann Roof's mental state revealed in court records
Legal Business |
2017/02/04 00:47
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Documents unsealed in federal court reveal new details about the mental health of convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, including a psychiatrist's finding that his disorders make it hard for him to focus, interact with others or express emotion.
Quoting from a psychiatrist's testimony during one of those hearings, his lawyers wrote "the defendant suffers from 'Social Anxiety Disorder, a Mixed Substance Abuse Disorder, a Schizoid Personality Disorder, depression by history, and a possible Autistic Spectrum Disorder.'"
Some of the other trademarks of those disorders, according to the filings, are anxiety about unknown outcomes, a tendency to become overwhelmed and trouble retaining information. Roof's "high IQ," his attorneys wrote, is "compromised by a significant discrepancy between his ability to comprehend and to process information and a poor working memory."
Because of this, his attorneys asked that the judge allow for frequent courtroom breaks, longer times for lunch recess and perhaps even a day or two off from court per week. The motion also noted that U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel had "denied a defense request for an independent competency evaluation focused on autism."
The judge ultimately denied the motion, taking breaks at regular intervals and holding court for about eight hours a day. The information on Roof's diagnoses emerges from the hundreds of pages of court documents originally filed under seal and opened this week by Gergel. |
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Supreme Court to hear case about party in vacant DC house
Legal Business |
2017/01/22 20:28
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The Supreme Court will hear a case in which people arrested for having a party in a vacant house sued police for violating their constitutional rights and won.
The justices said Thursday they will review lower court rulings in favor of 16 people who gathered in a house in Washington about three miles east of the nation's Capitol for a party.
Police arrested the group after no one could identify whose house it was, some said it was a birthday party and others said it was a bachelor party. No one could identify the guest of honor. Several women were scantily clad, with money hanging out of their garter belts. The officers said that the scene resembled a strip club, according to court papers.
Several of the partygoers said someone named "Peaches" gave them permission to have the party.
But when an officer later contacted the purported owner of the home, he denied having given anyone permission to have a party.
The group was arrested for trespassing, a charge later changed to disorderly conduct and then dropped altogether. But the 16 people sued for false arrest and were awarded $680,000.
The issue for the court is whether the officers had sufficient reason to arrest the group for trespassing. The court also will determine whether the officers should be shielded from liability even if their actions are found to violate the law.
A panel of the federal appeals court in Washington upheld the judgment, but four other judges on the court said that the officers should have been protected, citing a string of Supreme Court decisions.
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Court ponders mass murderer Breivik's prison conditions
Legal Business |
2017/01/19 20:28
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An appeals court in Norway is considering whether the prison conditions under which mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is being held amount to a violation of his human rights.
The six-day trial ended Wednesday in a makeshift courtroom inside Skien prison in southern Norway where Breivik, 37, is serving a 21-year sentence for killing 77 people in a 2011 bomb-and-shooting rampage.
Breivik's lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, spent most of the last day seeking to show that restrictions on his client's visitors and the strict control over Breivik's mail and phone calls have led to a lack of human interaction and privacy, which amounts to a violation of his rights.
The case is "really about a person that is sitting very, very alone in a small prison within a prison" since 2012, explained Storrvik.
He dismissed the benefits of the weekly visits by a state-appointed prison confidante for Breivik, saying "it's a paid job."
Addressing the court last week, Breivik said his solitary confinement had deeply damaged him and made him even more radical in his neo-Nazi beliefs.
The Norwegian state rejected the criticism and said efforts to find a prison confidante show the authorities have "gone out of their way" to remedy the situation.
In a surprise verdict last year, the Oslo District Court sided with Breivik, finding that his isolation was "inhuman (and) degrading" and breached the European Convention on Human Rights. It ordered the government to pay his legal costs.
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