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Spain court rejects handing pedophile to Morocco
Court Line News |
2013/11/18 16:24
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Spain's National Court has ruled against extraditing back to Morocco a convicted Spanish pedophile whose release triggered protests in the North African country.
A court statement Monday said Daniel Galvan Vina would not be handed back because under a bilateral agreement Spain and Morocco do not extradite their citizens to each other. The court said, however, it would begin a process to ensure that Galvan serves out his sentence in a Spanish jail, something the convict had originally asked for.
Galvan was convicted of raping 11 children in Morocco and sentenced to 30 years prison in 2011. He was mistakenly pardoned by Morocco's King Mohammed VI in July but was arrested in Spain days later after the king rescinded his pardon following the protests. |
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Court-martial date set in Naval Academy case
Court Line News |
2013/11/04 13:18
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A court-martial has been scheduled for February for a U.S. Naval Academy student accused of aggravated sexual assault.
Midshipman Josh Tate appeared at an arraignment Monday at the Washington Navy Yard.
The court-martial is scheduled to begin Feb. 10. The case stems from an April 2012 party at an off-campus house in Annapolis. The alleged victim had been drinking heavily and has testified that she cannot remember having sex with Tate.
Another student also faces a separate court-martial in the case. It is scheduled for Jan. 27. Midshipman Eric Graham is charged with abusive sexual contact.
If you are facing trial by court-martial, you also have the right to hire an experienced civilian defense attorney to represent and defend you. It is your career and future that is at stake and it is important that you have an experienced attorney who will advocate aggressively on your behalf. Please contact Las Vegas Military Defense Attorneys.
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High court to look at death row inmate with low IQ
Court Line News |
2013/10/23 11:32
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The Supreme Court will take up a Florida case over how judges should determine if a death row inmate is mentally disabled, and thus ineligible for execution.
The justices said Monday they will review a Florida Supreme Court ruling that upheld the death sentence for a man who scored just above the state's cutoff for mental disability as measured by IQ tests.
Freddie Lee Hall was sentenced to death for killing Karol Hurst, a 21-year-old, pregnant woman who was abducted leaving a grocery store in 1978.
Florida law prohibits anyone with an IQ of 70 or higher from being classified as mentally disabled, regardless of other evidence to the contrary. Hall's scores on three IQ tests ranged from 71 to 80.
In 2002, the Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally disabled inmates. But the 6-3 decision in Atkins v. Virginia essentially left it to the states to determine how to measure mental disability.
Florida is one of nine death penalty states with a strict IQ limit, said Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente. The others are: Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.
Pariente voted with the majority to uphold Hall's sentence, but noted there is no national consensus on how to determine mental disability.
Hall's case is legally complicated. In 1989, the Florida Supreme Court threw out Hall's original death penalty and ordered a new sentencing hearing. A judge then resentenced Hall to death, but declared he was mentally disabled. That took place before the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and before Florida passed a law setting the IQ limit.
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Judge denies motions in WVU media rights laws
Court Line News |
2013/08/27 00:15
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A judge has denied several motions to dismiss West Virginia Radio Corp.'s lawsuit over how West Virginia University awarded a media rights contract for sporting events.
Judge Thomas Evans on Monday rejected requests by WVU Board of Governors, the WVU Foundation and other parties to dismiss the lawsuit in Monongalia County Circuit Court. The motions were based on arguments that West Virginia Radio had failed to make a case for fraud and a violation of public procurement laws. Evans ruled these are important public policy matters and need to be heard.
The network wants Evans to stop WVU from finalizing a 12-year contract with North Carolina-based IMG College.
The judge also is hearing arguments on West Virginia Radio's motion to block the deal and reset the clock to June. |
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Court: Right-to-work law applies to state workers
Court Line News |
2013/08/19 14:07
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Michigan's right-to-work law applies to 35,000 state employees, a divided state appeals court ruled Thursday in the first major legal decision on the much-debated measure eight months after it passed.
Judges voted 2-1 to reject a lawsuit filed by unionized workers who make up more than two-thirds of all state employees. In a state with a heavier presence of organized labor than most, thousands of protesters came to the Capitol late last year as the Republican-backed measure won quick approval in a lame-duck session.
The law prohibits forcing public and private workers in Michigan to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, and applies to labor contracts extended or renewed after late March. It went to court after questions were raised whether it can affect state employees, since the Michigan Civil Service Commission, which sets compensation for state employees, has separate powers under the state constitution.
The court's majority said legislators have broad authority to pass laws dealing with conditions of "all" employment while the panel has narrow power to regulate conditions of civil service employment.
"In light of the First Amendment rights at stake, the Michigan Legislature has made the policy decision to settle the matter by giving all employees the right to choose," Judges Henry Saad and Pat Donofrio wrote, adding that legislators decided to "remove politics from public employment and to end all inquiry or debate about how public sector union fees are spent."
Dissenting Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said the court's decision strips the civil service panel of its "regulatory supremacy" clearly laid out in the constitution, which allows the four-member commission to regulate "all conditions of employment" for civil service workers. |
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Pitt schools segregation lawsuit in federal court
Court Line News |
2013/07/23 10:43
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Nearly 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in public schools, lawyers are set to square off in a federal courtroom in eastern North Carolina over whether the effects of that Jim Crow past still persist.
A trial was to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenville in the case of Everett v. Pitt County Board of Education.
A group of black parents represented by the UNC Center for Civil Rights will ask the court to reverse a 2011 student assignment plan they say effectively resegregated several schools in the district.
Lawyers for the Pitt schools will ask a judge to rule that the district has achieved "unitary status," meaning the "vestiges of past discrimination have been eliminated to the extent practicable." The designation would end federal oversight of the Pitt schools, in place since the 1960s.
This case is the first of its kind brought in North Carolina since 1999. More than 100 school districts across the South are still under federal court supervision. The decision in the Pitt case is expected to be widely followed by those other school systems.
Mark Dorosin, the managing attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights, said the case is a critical test of the continued viability of one of the most fundamental principles of school desegregation: That school districts still under court order must remedy the lasting vestiges of racial discrimination.
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