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Conn. court declines to address email warrants
Law & Court News |
2013/06/07 10:09
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The Connecticut Supreme Court has declined to address whether state judges can issue search warrants for email accounts maintained by out-of-state companies like Google.
The court took up the issue in the case of former Monroe youth minister David Esarey, who was sentenced in May 2010 to six years in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and trading nude photos with her.
Justices upheld Esarey's convictions Friday. But they decided not to address his appeal argument that a state judge had no authority to issue a search warrant for his Google Gmail account because Google is based in California.
The court ruled instead that the issuing of the search warrant didn't affect the jury's verdict.
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Intel chair says NSA court order is renewal
Attorney Blog News |
2013/06/06 21:42
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The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee says the top secret court order for telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon is a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California spoke to reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference on Thursday after the Obama administration defended the National Security Agency's need to collect the records.
Other lawmakers have said previously that the practice is legal under the Patriot Act although civil libertarians have complained about U.S. snooping on American citizens.
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Somali torture victim: Ohio court hearing a relief
Legal Blog News |
2013/06/05 08:54
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Torture victim Abukar Hassan Ahmed was living in London when he decided several years ago to search again for the man he says crippled him during interrogations in Somalia in the 1980s.
It took just a half-hour Internet search in 2005 to locate the former government official then living in Ohio. Ahmed finally got the chance to tell his story in court last week after a federal judge ruled in his favor in a lawsuit against the official, Abdi Aden Magan.
"Justice is universal," Ahmed told The Associated Press after the hearing. Those "who try to torture a human being will be brought to justice anywhere he is. That is my message."
Ahmed, a former human rights advocate in Somalia, alleged in a 2010 lawsuit that the beatings he endured at Magan's direction make it painful for him to sit and injured his bladder to the point that he is incontinent. He is seeking more than $12 million in damages, though he's unlikely to ever see the money. Magan is believed to be living in Kenya, where even if he had the funds, he would be out of reach of U.S. courts. |
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Court OKs Class-action Suit Over Apartment Leases
Law & Court News |
2013/06/05 08:53
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An appeals court has certified a class-action lawsuit that seeks to invalidate provisions that are routinely included in apartment leases signed by University of Iowa students.
The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that tenants of landlord Tracy Barkalow can have a trial to challenge lease provisions that critics say are illegal and unfairly shift costs and liability from landlords to tenants.
The provisions being challenged include fees that are deducted from security deposits for cleaning regardless of an apartment's condition and requirements that tenants pay for damage in common areas and routine repairs.
The Iowa City Tenants Project, which is representing the plaintiffs, has said the class could include 240 tenants but the case will have a broader reach since those provisions are the ``industry standard.''
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US Supreme Court orders 6 death row cases reviewed
Attorney Blog News |
2013/06/04 09:00
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sent the cases of six Texas death row inmates, including one of the infamous "Texas 7" gang of escapees, back to a lower court for reviews of whether attorneys in earlier stages of appeals let the men down.
The decisions are in line with last week's ruling in another Texas case where the justices, in a 5-4 vote, said a condemned prisoner had deficient legal help early because appeals lawyers didn't raise challenges that his trial lawyers were ineffective.
The high court returned the cases to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for review. None of the six has a pending execution date, although some had come close to being put to death in the past before their punishment was delayed by the courts.
Among the condemned prisoners is Donald Newbury, 51, one of seven inmates who broke out of a South Texas prison in 2000. One fugitive killed himself as Colorado authorities closed in on the gang. The remaining six were convicted of killing a suburban Dallas police officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery in Irving in 2000. Two of the six already have been executed. |
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