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Evidence challenged: Miss. court blocks execution
Headline News |
2013/05/08 23:31
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The Mississippi Supreme Court has indefinitely delayed Tuesday's scheduled execution of Willie Jerome Manning amid questions involving evidence in the case, intervening hours before he was set to die for the slayings of two college students.
Manning, who had challenged errors involving evidence analysis, was originally set to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. CDT at the state prison in Parchman. But with mere hours remaining, the high court blocked the execution until it rules further in the case.
Manning was convicted in 1994 in the shooting deaths of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller. Their bodies were found in a rural area in December 1992.
The FBI has said in recent days that there were errors in agents' testimony about ballistics tests and hair analysis in the case.
Manning's lawyers had argued in recent filings before the Mississippi Supreme Court that the execution should be blocked based on the U.S. Justice Department's disclosures about testimony that it says exceeded the limits of science.
The court ruled 8-1 on Tuesday for a stay. The court had previously split 5-4 in decisions in the case. |
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Court: California cities can ban pot shops
Headline News |
2013/05/08 23:30
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Local governments in California's have legal authority to ban storefront pot shops within their borders, California's highest court ruled on Monday in an opinion likely to further diminish the state's once-robust medical marijuana industry.
Nearly 17 years after voters in the state legalized medical marijuana, the court ruled unanimously in a legal challenge to a ban the city of Riverside enacted in 2010.
The advocacy group Americans for Safe Access estimates that another 200 jurisdictions statewide have similar prohibitions on retail pot sales. Many were enacted after the number of retail medical marijuana outlets boomed in Southern California after a 2009 memo from the U.S. Justice Department said prosecuting pot sales would be a low priority.
However, the rush to outlaw pot shops has slowed in the 21 months since the four federal prosecutors in California launched a coordinated crackdown on dispensaries by threatening to seize the property of landlords who lease space to the shops. Hundreds of dispensary operators have since been evicted or closed voluntarily.
Marijuana advocates have argued that allowing local government to bar dispensaries thwarts the intent of the state's medical marijuana law - the nation's first - to make the drug accessible to residents with doctor's recommendations to use it. |
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Top prosecutor in Del Norte County suspended
Court Watch |
2013/04/12 15:25
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The top prosecutor in Northern California's remote Del Norte County has been suspended without pay after a judge recommended he be disbarred.
The Del Norte Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in a closed session Friday to suspend District Attorney Jon Alexander.
The suspension comes after State Bar Judge Lucy Armendariz recommended that Alexander be disbarred after concluding Alexander had violated three rules of prosecutorial conduct - communication with a represented party, moral turpitude and suppression of evidence.
The judge ordered Alexander placed on inactive status, meaning he will not be able to practice law in California as of Sunday, pending a possible appeal. |
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Court: EPA can stop some power plant modifications
Court Watch |
2013/04/02 10:54
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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 backs student in textbook copyright case
Topics |
2013/03/25 15:07
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The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that textbooks and other goods made and sold abroad can be re-sold online and in discount stores without violating U.S. copyright law. The outcome was a huge relief to eBay, Costco and other businesses that trade in products made outside the U.S.
In a 6-3 opinion, the court threw out a copyright infringement award to publisher John Wiley & Sons against Thai graduate student Supap Kirtsaeng, who used eBay to resell copies of the publisher's copyrighted books that his relatives first bought abroad at cut-rate prices.
Justice Stephen Breyer said in his opinion for the court that once goods are sold lawfully, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, publishers and manufacturers lose the protection of U.S. copyright law. |
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Proposal would charge $10 to search court records
Court Watch |
2013/03/25 15:06
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In a move that is raising concern about limiting access to public documents, California courts could charge $10 for each record search under a proposal included in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget.
The governor included the search fee as one of the ways the courts can raise $30 million a year to offset budget cuts.
The judicial budget has been reduced by more than $1 billion through cuts and transfers over the past five fiscal years, which has resulted in fewer courtrooms, construction delays and an array of higher fees.
Media organizations and good-government advocates worry that such a fee would restrict access to files the public has a right to view. Democratic lawmakers also expressed distaste for restricting information to those who can afford it.
"Justice that suddenly comes with a big price tag so that not all newspaper reporters or members of the public may be able to get access to court records, for example, can mean justice denied," said Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley. "We know that, for instance, higher fees for investigative reporting could have prevented those young journalists decades ago who exposed the Watergate scandal." |
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