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Arias seeks death penalty stay, court rejects
Legal Opinions |
2013/03/04 15:40
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Jodi Arias' effort to get the death penalty option in her murder case temporarily set aside was met Friday with a swift rejection from the Arizona Supreme Court in a one-sentence response denying the motion filed just hours earlier.
Arias is charged in the June 2008 stabbing and shooting death of her lover in his suburban Phoenix home. She claims self-defense, while authorities say she planned the attack in a jealous rage. Testimony has been ongoing since early January.
After failing to win a mistrial or stay of the death penalty option in the lower court earlier this year, her defense attorneys sought relief Friday from the state's highest court, which quickly rejected it. Her trial is set to continue Monday with the death penalty still on the table if prosecutors can secure a first-degree murder conviction.
Arias' attorneys argued in early January before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens, who is overseeing the trial, that the lead detective on the case perjured himself during a pretrial hearing aimed at determining whether the death penalty should be considered an option for jurors.
Mesa police Detective Esteban Flores testified at the hearing that based on his own review of the scene, and a discussion with the medical examiner, it was apparent that Alexander had been shot in the forehead first. Arias then repeatedly stabbed and slashed him 27 times and slit his throat, he said. |
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Court-appointed receiver recovers $312 million
Law & Court News |
2013/03/03 14:41
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Hundreds of millions of dollars have been recovered so far in a massive North Carolina-based Ponzi scheme that authorities say attracted more than 1 million investors. The case involves Rex Venture Group, which operated several online projects. The Securities and Exchange Commission froze the company's assets in August. Court-appointed receiver Kenneth Bell has filed a document in federal court in Charlotte detailing his expenses. As of Dec. 31, Bell says he has recovered $312 million and has incurred $1.6 million in fees and services for the investigation. The SEC says the company, operated by Paul Burks of Lexington, ran a $600 million Ponzi scam, where money from new investors is used to pay out old ones. Burks is paying a $4 million penalty and cooperating with the SEC. |
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Court won't allow challenge to surveillance law
Top Court Watch |
2013/02/28 23:43
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A sharply-divided Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out an attempt by U.S. citizens to challenge the expansion of a surveillance law used to monitor conversations of foreign spies and terrorist suspects.
With a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that a group of American lawyers, journalists and organizations can't sue to challenge the 2008 expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they can't prove that the government will monitor their conversations along with those of potential foreign terrorist and intelligence targets.
Justices "have been reluctant to endorse standing theories that require guesswork," said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the court's majority.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted in 1978. It allows the government to monitor conversations of foreign spies and terrorist suspects abroad for intelligence purposes. The 2008 FISA amendments allow the government to obtain from a secret court broad, yearlong intercept orders, raising the prospect that phone calls and emails between those foreign targets and innocent Americans in this country would be swept under the umbrella of surveillance.
Without proof that the law would directly affect them, Americans can't sue, Alito said in the ruling.
Despite their documented fears and the expense of activities that some Americans have taken to be sure they don't get caught up in government monitoring, they "have set forth no specific facts demonstrating that the communications of their foreign contacts will be targeted," he added. |
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Accused UK police killer changes plea to guilty
Legal Blog News |
2013/02/15 14:54
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A 29-year-old man accused of murdering two unarmed British police officers in a gun and grenade attack dramatically changed his plea to guilty Tuesday, midway through his trial.
Dale Cregan had denied killing Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, but on Tuesday admitted the murders, replying "guilty" as a court clerk read out the charges.
The two officers were killed as they responded to a burglary call near Manchester, northwest England, in September.
Prosecutors said Cregan — who had made the false emergency call — waited for police to arrive, then opened fire with a Glock pistol.
He fired 24 shots at Bone, hitting her between five and eight times. Hughes was shot eight times, including three times in the head as she lay on the ground.
As he fled, Cregan lobbed a military fragmentation grenade into the yard of the house where the police officers lay, prosecutors said. |
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Labor lawyer: Kansas union bill will silence workers
Topics in Legal News |
2013/02/12 10:43
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A labor attorney and the Kansas Senate president sparred Tuesday over whether public employees have a right to have money deducted from their paychecks for union-backed political activities.
Rebecca Proctor and Senate President Susan Wagle clashed during a Senate Commerce Committee meeting over a bill that would bar automatic, voluntary deductions from teachers and government workers' paychecks to support union-backed political activities, such as campaign contributions. The measure passed the House on Thursday.
Wagle said many Kansas residents don't agree with public unions' or teachers' positions on issues and the state should not be involved in channeling money to support those views. Supporters of the bill say union members often feel bullied or coerced to make the automatic contributions for fear of alienation or retribution in the workplace.
Proctor said public workers have a right to use their pay as they wish. She also said she believed the bill could go so far as to prevent unions from advocating for particular values or issues that are not partisan but are ideological, such as testifying before the Legislature on worker safety or education. |
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