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Connecticut court stands by decision eliminating execution
Law Firm Blog News |
2015/10/11 10:53
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The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday stood by its decision to eliminate the state's death penalty, but the fate of capital punishment in the Constitution State technically remains unsettled.
The state's highest court rejected a request by prosecutors to reconsider its landmark August ruling, but prosecutors have filed a motion in another case to make the arguments they would have made if the court had granted the reconsideration motion.
Lawyers who have argued before the court say it would be highly unusual and surprising for the court to reverse itself on such an important issue in a short period of time, but they say it is possible because the makeup of the court is different. Justice Flemming Norcott Jr., who was in the 4-3 majority to abolish the death penalty, reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 and was succeeded by Justice Richard Robinson.
In the August decision, the court ruled that a 2012 state law abolishing capital punishment for future crimes must be applied to the 11 men who still faced execution for killings committed before the law took effect. The decision came in the case of Eduardo Santiago, who was facing the possibility of lethal injection for a 2000 murder-for-hire killing in West Hartford.
The 2012 ban had been passed prospectively because many lawmakers refused to vote for a bill that would spare the death penalty for Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, who were convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters in a highly publicized 2007 home invasion in Cheshire.
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Court documents quantify impact of gay marriage in Kansas
Law Firm Blog News |
2015/09/21 22:51
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Court documents are offering a glimpse at the early impact of the gay marriage ruling in Kansas.
The latest filing Tuesday from state officials comes in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Kansas ban on same-sex marriages. A federal judge has ruled the state’s ban is unconstitutional in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized such unions nationwide.
But he gave the parties extra time to make written filings on whether Kansas has made good on its assurances that it will comply.
One affidavit shows that the Kansas State Employee Health Benefits Plan has granted health insurance coverage to 48 same-sex spouses.
Another document shows Sedgwick County has issued at least 160 marriage licenses to same-sex couples, while Douglas County issued about 60 such licenses.
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OJ Simpson appeal rejected by Nevada Supreme Court
Law Firm Blog News |
2015/09/12 22:55
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Imprisoned former football star O.J. Simpson lost his latest appeal of his 2008 kidnapping and armed robbery conviction in Las Vegas.
A three-member Nevada Supreme Court panel rejected Simpson's request for a new trial, ruling in a 16-page order Thursday that there was no reason to overturn a lower court judge's decisions in the case.
"We ... conclude the district court did not err in denying these claims," justices Ron Parraguire, Michael Douglas and Michael Cherry said.
Simpson lawyers filed the appeal last October, arguing that Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell was wrong to deny Simpson a new trial on charges that got Simpson sentenced to 9 to 33 years in a botched hotel room heist.
Simpson lawyers Patricia Palm, Ozzie Fumo and Tom Pitaro argued that his trial attorney mishandled his case and had conflicts of interests. The three attorneys didn't immediately respond to messages late Thursday, and it wasn't immediately known if Simpson was aware of the ruling.
Simpson, 68, is serving his sentence in a northern Nevada prison after a jury found him guilty of multiple felonies for leading five other men in a September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas hotel. Two of the men with Simpson testified they brought guns, at Simpson's request.
The Heisman Trophy winner, NFL Hall of Fame member and former television and movie star didn't testify at his robbery trial in Las Vegas. His attorneys, Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso, claimed Simpson was just trying to retrieve items stolen from him after his 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The Supreme Court in September 2010 rejected a previous Simpson appeal, filed by Galanter.
Simpson's appeal argued that his multiple convictions and sentences for assault with a deadly weapon and robbery with use of a deadly weapon constitute double-jeopardy; that Galanter should have challenged his multiple convictions and punishments; and that the jury should have been given a chance to consider lesser kidnapping and theft offenses.
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Court rejects inmate's challenge in 5 Ohio prison slayings
Law Firm Blog News |
2015/08/18 13:13
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A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge by an inmate convicted and sentenced to be executed for the slayings of five fellow inmates during a 1993 prison riot in Ohio.
Death row inmate Keith LaMar was convicted of aggravated murder in 1995 in the deaths of five inmates during the riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. A jury recommended the death penalty in four of the slayings.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a lower court's decision keeping the 46-year-old LaMar's convictions and death sentences in place.
LaMar argues he was denied a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to withhold evidence from the defense.
A three-judge panel ruled the evidence would not have changed the outcome of LaMar's trial.
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Court: New health law doesn't infringe on religious freedom
Law Firm Blog News |
2015/07/12 08:55
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The federal health care law doesn't infringe on the religious freedom of faith-based nonprofit organizations that object to covering birth control in employee health plans, a federal appeals court in Denver ruled Tuesday.
The case involves a group of Colorado nuns and four Christian colleges in Oklahoma.
Religious groups are already exempt from covering contraceptives. But the plaintiffs argued that the exemption doesn't go far enough because they must sign away the coverage to another party, making them feel complicit in providing the contraceptives.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The judges wrote that the law with the exemption does not burden the exercise of religion.
"Although we recognize and respect the sincerity of plaintiffs' beliefs and arguments, we conclude the accommodation scheme ... does not substantially burden their religious exercise," the three-judge panel wrote.
The same court ruled in 2013 that for-profit companies can join the exempted religious organizations and not provide the contraceptives. The U.S. Supreme Court later agreed with the 10th Circuit in the case brought by the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain. |
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