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Panama court lifts Martinelli's immunity from prosecution
Headline News | 2015/04/15 11:41
Panama's Electoral Tribunal has lifted former President Ricardo Martinelli's immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for authorities to investigate him for alleged corruption.

The lifting of Martinelli's immunity as a member of the Central American parliament had been requested by Panama's Supreme Court and frees it to proceed with his prosecution. The decision was made Tuesday and announced the following day.

The billionaire supermarket magnate faces accusations that he inflated contracts worth $45 million to purchase dehydrated food for a government social program.

Martinelli has denied the charges and says he is the target of persecution by his successor, Juan Carlos Varela. He has left the country and his whereabouts are unknown.

Martinelli governed Panama from 2009-2014, a period of high economic growth but also of corruption, his critics say.


Supreme Court rejects North Carolina appeal on election law
Lawyer News | 2015/04/07 12:46
The Supreme Court has passed up an early chance to review a contested North Carolina election law that opponents say limits the ability of African-Americans to cast ballots.

The high court intervened in October to order that the law remain in effect for the fall elections after a lower court ruling blocking part of the law.

But the justices on Monday wiped away their earlier order by rejecting the state's appeal of that lower court ruling. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia had blocked a part of the law that eliminated same-day registration during early voting in North Carolina.

A trial is set for July in the lawsuit filed by civil rights groups, and the issue of voting restrictions could return to the Supreme Court before the 2016 elections.

North Carolina is among several Republican-led states that have passed election laws imposing photo identification requirements and reducing the number of days set aside for early voting, among other provisions. Officials have said the measures are needed to prevent voter fraud. But critics have called the laws thinly veiled efforts to make it harder for Democratic-leaning minorities to vote.


Protesters inside Supreme Court face harsher charges
Headline News | 2015/04/07 12:46
Protesters who demonstrated inside the U.S. Supreme Court are facing the threat of a year in jail and stiff fines, a sign that prosecutors and the justices themselves are losing patience over the courtroom interruptions after the third protest in just over a year.

Five people arrested last week after voicing displeasure with court decisions that removed limits on political campaign contributions now face charges including one that carries a maximum jail term of a year and up to a $100,000 fine — a sharp escalation from the possible penalties sought after two earlier protests.

A leader of the group behind the protests would not rule out future demonstrations, despite what he called an effort to crack down on the courtroom disturbances. "We are not going to be silenced," said Kai Newkirk, whose group 99Rise opposes the influence of big money in elections.

While protests on the sidewalk outside the U.S. Supreme Court are common, until last year demonstrators had rarely broken the decorum of oral arguments inside the courtroom. In February 2014, however, Newkirk was removed from the courtroom after he stood and called on the court to overturn its 2010 Citizens United decision, which freed corporations and labor unions from some limits on campaign spending. It was the first protest to disrupt an argument session in more than seven years.


Court rejects Duncan's death sentence appeal
Law Firm News | 2015/03/31 13:12
A federal appellate court has dismissed the appeal of a man who was sentenced to death for kidnapping, torturing and killing a young northern Idaho boy after killing several members of his family.

Joseph Edward Duncan III faces the death penalty for the 2005 murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene. He also faces several life sentences for the murder of three family members and the kidnapping of his then-8-year-old sister.

Duncan represented himself at his sentencing hearing and later waived his right to appeal. But he has since changed his mind and his defense attorneys say he wasn't mentally competent to waive his rights.

On Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that claim. The court said a lower court had correctly found Duncan competent. The justices said it was too late for Duncan to change his mind.


Jury finds ex-San Francisco bank executive guilty of fraud
Headline News | 2015/03/31 13:12
A former executive of a San Francisco-based bank that received federal bailout money has been convicted of fraud.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said Thursday a federal jury in Oakland found 66-year-old Ebrahim Shabudin guilty of conspiring with others within the bank to falsify key bank records as part of a scheme to conceal millions of dollars in losses and falsely inflate the bank's financial statements.

Shabudin was Chief Operating Officer for United Commercial Bank between 2008 and 2009.

United Commercial Bank received $298 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, in 2008 during the height of the nation's financial crisis. That money was lost when the bank was seized by regulators, shuttered and filed for bankruptcy the following year. Shabudin faces up to 25 years in prison.


Court upholds conviction of woman in Rwanda genocide case
Legal Focuses | 2015/03/27 16:36
A federal appeals court panel has upheld the conviction of a New Hampshire woman found guilty of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide so she could obtain U.S. citizenship.

Beatrice Munyenyezi is serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2013.

One of her lawyers, David Ruoff, said Friday they are still mulling their options after the ruling by the three-judge panel, including whether to ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston for a rehearing by the full court. He said they have been unable to reach Munyenyezi, who is in a federal prison in Alabama, to tell her about the ruling.

Munyenyezi's appeal said the trial judge should not have allowed prosecutors to use her testimony before an international war crimes tribunal to show she had a propensity to lie. Her lawyers accused a prosecutor of making false assertions while cross-examining a defense witness and said there was insufficient evidence to convict her.

Munyenyezi also said her sentence was too harsh. But the appeals court rejected all those arguments Wednesday and said the case record makes for "a bone-chilling read."

Munyenyezi was convicted in February 2013 in the Concord, New Hampshire, federal courthouse where she had been granted U.S. citizenship a decade earlier. Her citizenship was stripped upon her conviction.

The jury found she lied about being affiliated with a political party that orchestrated much of the genocide. Witnesses say she helped patrol one of the notorious checkpoints at which those bearing a card identifying them as Tutsis were singled out for rape and murder.



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