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Supreme Court rejects states' challenge to Colorado pot law
Court Line News |
2016/03/20 16:56
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The Supreme Court has rejected an effort by Nebraska and Oklahoma to have Colorado's pot legalization declared unconstitutional.
The justices are not commenting Monday in dismissing the lawsuit the states filed directly at the Supreme Court against their neighbor.
They argued that Colorado's law allowing recreational marijuana use by adults runs afoul of federal anti-drug laws. The states also said that legalized pot in Colorado is spilling across the borders into Nebraska and Oklahoma, complicating their anti-drug efforts and draining state resources.
The Obama administration had sided with Colorado, despite the administration's opposition to making marijuana use legal.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have heard the states' lawsuit.
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RNC launches campaign to oppose Obama's Supreme Court pick
Court Line News |
2016/03/16 16:57
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The Republican Party is launching a campaign to try to derail President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, teaming up with a conservative opposition research group to target vulnerable Democrats and impugn whomever Obama picks.
A task force housed within the Republican National Committee will orchestrate attack ads, petitions and media outreach to bolster a strategy that Senate Republicans adopted as soon as Justice Antonin Scalia died last month: refusing to consider an Obama nominee out of hopes that the next president will be a Republican.
The RNC will contract with America Rising Squared, an outside group targeting Democrats that's run by a longtime aide to GOP Sen. John McCain. GOP chairman Reince Priebus said it would be the most comprehensive judicial response effort in the party's history.
Priebus said the RNC would "make sure Democrats have to answer to the American people for why they don't want voters to have a say in this process."
Obama is expected to announce his pick as early as this week, touching off a heated election-year battle as Obama and Democrats try to pressure Republicans into relenting and allowing hearings and a vote. Advocacy groups on both sides are primed to unleash an onslaught of activity aimed at rallying public support, and a number of former top Obama advisers have been drafted to run the Democratic effort.
RNC officials said that in addition to scouring the nominee's history for anything that can be used against him or her, the party will also work to portray Democrats as hypocritical, dredging up comments that Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats made in previous years suggesting presidents shouldn't ram through nominees to the high court in the midst of an election.
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Man accused of terrorism charge with fiancee pleads guilty
Court Line News |
2016/03/15 16:57
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In fresh details provided as a young Mississippi man pleaded guilty to a terrorism-related charge, federal prosecutors said his fiancee led him toward a plan to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.
Muhammad Dakhlalla, 23, pleaded guilty Friday in Aberdeen to providing material support to terrorism and faces up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 fines and lifetime probation. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock hasn't set his sentencing date yet.
His fiancee, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, is set for trial June 6 before Aycock. Plea agreements typically require cooperation with federal prosecutors, so Dakhlalla's plea makes it likely that he would testify against Young if a trial proceeds.
Both remain jailed without bail in Oxford.
A five-page statement of facts added new details about Young's conversion to Islam and her influence on Dakhlalla, who had been raised as a Muslim. The pair at one point planned to claim they were going on their honeymoon while traveling to Syria.
Young, a sophomore chemistry major at Mississippi State University at the time of her arrest, is the daughter of a school administrator and a police officer who served in the Navy reserve. She was a former honor student, cheerleader and homecoming maid at Vicksburg's Warren Central High School.
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Teen changes plea to guilty in deaths of mother, stepfather
Court Line News |
2016/03/14 16:58
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A northern Wisconsin woman changed her plea to guilty Friday in the slaying of her mother and stepfather in a deal that has prosecutors recommending a 40-year prison sentence.
Ashlee Martinson, who was 17 at the time of the March 2015 killings, faces two counts of second-degree homicide, USA Today Network-Wisconsin reported. She had earlier pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the killings at the family's home near Three Lakes.
According to court records filed Friday, Martinson told police she shot her stepfather, 37-year-old Thomas Ayers, in the neck and head. She then went to her mother, 40-year-old Jennifer Ayers, for solace, but her mother first tried to aid her husband, then armed herself with a knife to confront Martinson.
Martinson wrestled the knife from her mother and stabbed her more than 30 times. She then went downstairs and turned the family TV to show cartoons to her three sisters, ages 2 to 9. After showering, Martinson confined the younger girls in a room before fleeing to Indiana with her boyfriend, documents show.
Court documents say the Ayerses were killed the same day they warned Martinson's 22-year-old boyfriend to stay away from her because she was a minor.
Martinson told authorities she had been mentally and verbally abused by her stepfather and had seen him physically abuse her mother and siblings, according to court records.
The assessment also said Martinson had suffered from depression on and off since age 8, gaining in intensity at age 15. Martinson's sentencing is set for June 17.
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Connecticut's top court hears Kennedy cousin murder case
Court Line News |
2016/02/17 11:04
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Connecticut's highest court was hearing arguments Wednesday on whether Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel should get a new trial or be sent back to prison for a 1975 murder.
State prosecutors asked the state Supreme Court to reinstate the 2002 murder conviction against Skakel in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley when they were teenage neighbors in wealthy Greenwich.
Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel, was freed on $1.2 million bail in 2013 when a lower court judge ordered a new trial after finding that Skakel's trial attorney failed to adequately represent him. He had been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Skakel, 55, was seated in the gallery of the courtroom for the hearing, as was his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Judge Thomas Bishop ruled that Skakel likely would have been acquitted if his trial lawyer, Michael Sherman, had focused more on his brother Thomas Skakel. Sherman has defended his work on the case.
Prosecutors are appealing Bishop's decision to the Supreme Court.
Thomas Skakel was an early suspect in the case, because he was the last person seen with Moxley and admitted he had a sexual encounter with her.
But prosecutors have said that highlighting Thomas Skakel's relationship with Moxley would have bolstered their argument that Michael Skakel killed her in a jealous rage.
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Court to weigh cocaine cases, could alter sentencing in Ohio
Court Line News |
2016/02/10 14:12
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Prosecutors across Ohio are concerned that a ruling under review by Ohio's top court could delay and shorten sentences for suspects caught with cocaine and force costly changes upon law enforcement.
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether to uphold an appeals court decision calling into question how prosecutors have handled cocaine cases for years. It all comes eastdown to weight.
A state appeals court in Toledo ruled last year prosecutors should have determined how much pure cocaine a suspect arrested in a drug sting had with him or her instead of sentencing him based on the weight of the entire amount.
The appeals court ruled that Ohio's drug laws say that what matters is the weight of the cocaine only ? not filler material such as baking soda that's often added by drug dealers to stretch out their supply and increase profits.
Prosecutors along with the state Attorney General's office argue that such a narrow interpretation creates a new distinction for cocaine that isn't applied to any other illegal drugs.
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