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Court considers Calif. prison mental health care
Law & Court News |
2013/04/02 14:05
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A federal judge in Sacramento is set to hear arguments Wednesday over Gov. Jerry Brown's push to regain state control of inmate mental health care after 18 years of federal oversight and billions of dollars spent to improve treatment.
Lawyers representing the state argue that California is now providing a constitutional level of care to its prison inmates, while attorneys for the inmates say more improvement is needed.
California has spent more than $1 billion in construction for mental health facilities and increased salaries to hire more and better mental health workers. It now has more than 1,700 psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, social workers and nurses to treat more than 32,000 mentally ill inmates, or about one specialist for every 19 patients.
"California has invested tremendous amounts of money, resources and effort to transform its prison mental health care system into one of the best in the country," the state said in one of its recent court filings.
Inmates' attorneys say the efforts so far are not enough and that more mental health facilities must be built and staffed. They also say more must be done to reduce a suicide rate that exceeds the national average for state and federal prisons.
California's prison suicide rate was 24 per 100,000 inmates in 2012. That compares to 16 per 100,000 inmates in other state prisons and the historical average of nine suicides per 100,000 inmates in federal prisons. |
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Court: EPA can stop some power plant modifications
Law & Court News |
2013/03/29 22:54
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A federal appeals court says government regulators can try to halt construction projects at power plants if they think the companies didn't properly calculate whether the changes would increase air pollution.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued DTE Energy in 2010 because the company replaced key boiler parts at its Monroe Unit 2 without installing pollution controls that are required whenever a utility performs a major overhaul. DTE said the project was only routine maintenance.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman threw out the suit, saying EPA went to court too soon.
But the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision Thursday. In a 2-1 ruling, the court says the law doesn't block EPA from challenging suspected violations of its regulations until long after power plants are modified. |
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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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High court to hear appeal in case of jilted woman
Law & Court News |
2013/01/19 11:17
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The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a jilted woman who was convicted under an anti-terrorism law for spreading deadly chemicals around the home of her husband's mistress. The justices said in an order Friday that they will revisit the case of Carol Anne Bond, a Pennsylvania woman who was given a six-year prison term for violating a federal law involving the use of chemical weapons. In 2011, the court unanimously sided with Bond to allow her to challenge her conviction despite arguments from federal prosecutors and judges that she shouldn't even be allowed to appeal the verdict. Lower courts subsequently rejected the appeal. Bond, from Lansdale, Pa., near Philadelphia, says she is in prison over a domestic dispute that resulted in a thumb burn for a onetime friend who became her husband's lover. Bond was convicted in federal court of trying to poison the woman by spreading toxic chemicals around her house and car and on her mailbox. Her argument is that the case should have been dealt with by local authorities, as most crimes are. Instead, a federal grand jury indicted her on two counts of possessing and using a chemical weapon. The charges were based on a federal anti-terrorism law passed to fulfill the United States' international treaty obligations under the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. |
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Court date postponed in Hines Ward extortion case
Law & Court News |
2012/10/25 14:09
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A preliminary hearing for a man charged with trying to extort $15,000 from former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward was postponed Tuesday until Dec. 3 at the request of his attorney.
Defense attorney David Shrager said he needed more time to investigate the charges against Joshua Van Auker, 26, of Pittsburgh, along with the evidence. He struck a conciliatory tone when he addressed reporters after a brief court appearance, describing his client as naive and inexperienced.
"This is surreal for him, this is a nice young man," Shrager said of his client, who is accused of contacting Ward's personal assistant last week and threatening to go public with information that Ward had paid prostitutes for sex. |
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