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Mexican president lashes out at Supreme Court chief justice
Law Firm Blog News |
2023/03/01 09:49
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Mexico’s president lashed out Wednesday at the chief justice of the country’s Supreme Court, accusing her of promoting rulings favorable to criminal suspects.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s comments opened a new debate over the separation of powers in Mexico, at a time when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the president’s controversial cuts to election agency funding.
López Obrador has already attacked independent regulatory agencies, slammed the judiciary and cut funding for the National Electoral Institute.
The electoral dispute has led the president to feud with the press, demonstrators and the U.S. State Department. Opponents say the electoral cuts threaten Mexico’s democracy, and have appealed them to the Supreme Court.
López Obrador’s comments Wednesday opened a head-on conflict between the administration and Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña, the first woman to hold that post.
The president was angered after a judge issued an injunction striking down an arrest warrant against Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, a former governor of the northern border state of Tamaulipas, who had been accused of corruption.
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Belarus hands 8-year term to journalist for top Polish paper
Law Firm Blog News |
2023/02/08 10:48
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A Belarusian court on Wednesday sentenced a journalist and prominent member of the country’s sizable Polish minority to eight years in prison, amid an ongoing crackdown on critics of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Andrzej Poczobut, 49, was found guilty of harming Belarus’ national security and “inciting discord” in a closed trial held in the western city of Grodno. Poczobut, a journalist for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a top figure in the Union of Poles in Belarus, has been behind bars since his detention in March 2021.
He reported extensively on the mass protests that gripped Belarus for weeks in 2020 following a presidential election that gave Lukashenko, in power since 1994, a new term in office, but that was widely regarded by the opposition and Western countries as fraudulent.
The indictment against Poczobut referenced his coverage of the protests, along with his statements in defense of ethnic Poles in Belarus and reference to the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland as an act of “aggression,” as evidence that he was guilty of the charges.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a Tweet Wednesday condemned the “inhumane decision by the Belarusian regime” and vowed to “do everything to help the Polish journalist bravely fighting for the truth.”
Poland’s foreign ministry summoned the top Belarusian diplomat in Warsaw, Alexander Tshasnouskyy, to protest the verdict.
Poland demands the release of Poczobut and of all political prisoners in Belarus and urges Minsk to respect international laws and put an end to actions against the Polish minority, the ministry said in a statement. |
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Oregon launches abortion hotline offering free legal advice
Law Firm Blog News |
2023/01/26 13:34
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Oregon is launching a new abortion hotline offering free legal advice to callers, moving to further defend abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer and eliminated federal protections for the procedure.
The state’s Department of Justice announced the initiative Monday. It is modeled on similar hotlines launched by the attorneys general of New York and Delaware, as states where abortion remains legal have seen an increase in the number of patients traveling from areas where the procedure has been banned or restricted.
“The Hotline will fill an important need in our state for callers to understand the status of our reproductive health laws, including issues related to abortion access,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a news release. “This is especially important because we share a border with Idaho, which has a near-total abortion ban.”
Abortion remains legal at all stages of pregnancy in Oregon, which has worked with California and Washington to promote the West Coast as a safe haven for the procedure.
People can call the anonymous hotline from any state for free legal advice and receive a call back from a lawyer within 48 hours.
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Ex-Louisiana lawmaker gets 22-month sentence for wire fraud
Law Firm Blog News |
2023/01/11 14:16
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Former Louisiana Democratic Party leader Karen Carter Peterson, who resigned from the state Senate last year year citing depression and a gambling addiction — and later pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud — was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 months in prison.
Peterson, who served in the Louisiana Legislature for more than 22 years, admitted in August to taking more than $140,000 in funds from her reelection campaign and from the state Democratic Party. The ex-lawmaker spent a “substantial amount” of that money on casino gambling, according to court documents.
Although the felony charge of federal wire fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance sentenced Peterson to significantly less, The Advocate reported.
“People trusted me and I breached that trust,” Peterson said in court, WDSU-TV reported.
At the sentencing, Peterson cried at the podium and repented for her criminal wrongdoing — apologizing to her constituents, family and friends.
Ahead of the sentencing, Peterson’s lawyers implored U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance to consider an alternative to prison — such as probation or home confinement.
They said her gambling addiction resulted in “diminished mental capacity,” which can qualify a defendant for a reduced sentence, according to court filings obtained by The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. In addition, they pointed to her Christian faith, her acceptance of responsibility for the crimes and her participation in Gamblers Anonymous.
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State seeks long prison term for accused NYC subway gunman
Law Firm Blog News |
2023/01/03 11:06
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Prosecutors plan to seek a decades-long prison sentence for a man who is expected to plead guilty this week to opening fire in a subway car and wounding 10 riders in an attack that shocked New York City.
Frank James, 63, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court, admitting that he was responsible for the April 12 attack. It set off a massive 30-hour manhunt that ended when he called the police on himself.
Prosecutors told Judge William F. Kuntz II in a letter late last week that they plan to ask him to go beyond the roughly 32-year to 39-year sentence that federal sentencing guidelines would recommend. James planned the attack for years and endangered the lives of dozens of people, prosecutors said in the letter.
Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, when courts were closed to observe the New Year’s holiday.
James had been scheduled to stand trial in late February.
His lawyers informed the judge on Dec. 21 that James wanted to plead guilty. Prosecutors say he plans to plead guilty to 11 charges without a plea agreement.
Ten of those charges — each one corresponding to a specific victim — accuse him of committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system carrying passengers and employees.
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