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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.



Amanda Knox murder conviction overturned by Italy high court
Headline News | 2015/03/27 16:35

Italy's highest court overturned the murder conviction against Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Friday over the 2007 slaying of Knox's roommate, bringing to a definitive end the high-profile case that captivated trial-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Finished!" Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova exulted after the decision was read out late Friday. "It couldn't be better than this."

In a rare decision, the supreme Court of Cassation overturned last year's convictions by a Florence appeals court and declined to order another trial. The judges declared that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding that there wasn't enough evidence to convict.

In a statement issued from her home in Seattle, Knox said she was "relieved and grateful" for the decision.

"The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal," she said, thanking her supporters for believing in her.

Experts have said such a complete exoneration is unusual for the high court, which could have upheld the conviction or ordered a new trial as it did in 2011 when the case first came up to its review on appeal.

The justices' reasoning will be released within 90 days.

The decision ends the long legal battle waged by Knox and Italian co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito to clear their names in the death of British student Meredith Kercher, after they spent nearly four years in prison immediately after the murder.



Ohio mother accused of decapitating baby due in court
Headline News | 2015/03/20 13:19
A judge has set bail for an Ohio mother accused of decapitating her 3-month-old baby at $500,000.

Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Melissa Powers set bail at a brief hearing Friday, where a handcuffed Deasia Watkins didn't speak. She will go before a grand jury March 26.

The 20-year-old Watkins was charged with aggravated murder after her daughter's body was found Monday on a kitchen counter in an aunt's home.

Authorities say 3-month-old Jayniah Watkins had been decapitated and stabbed multiple times with a large chef's knife. Police found Watkins in bed covered with blood.

Watkins was previously forbidden to have contact with her daughter after being hospitalized for psychiatric problems.

Watkins was released from a hospital Thursday where she was under guard and remains in the county jail.


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