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Court won't get involved in inmate tug-of-war
Law Firm News |
2013/01/15 06:52
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The Supreme Court on Monday said it won't stop the federal government from claiming a Rhode Island inmate who will face the possibility of execution if convicted of murder, despite arguments that it violates the rights of a state without the death penalty.
The high court refused to hear an appeal from Jason Pleau and the state of Rhode Island. Pleau is currently awaiting trial in federal court in the killing of a gas station manager who was shot as he approached a Woonsocket bank to deposit money.
Pleau initially had been in state custody. After federal prosecutors charged him, Gov. Lincoln Chafee refused to turn over Pleau, citing the state's rejection of the death penalty.
But an appeals court ruled last year the state must surrender Pleau to federal officials, despite the state's insistence that the federal government is violating a legal agreement that authorizes the state to deny a request to transfer a prisoner.
U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha said he was pleased by the decision and that his office was prepared to move ahead with the case immediately.
Pleau's lawyer did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment.
Chafee was visibly shaken when he learned of the decision from a reporter Monday morning. He said he was disappointed but acknowledged the state's case was at an end. |
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BBC broadcaster pleads not guilty on abuse charges
Law Firm News |
2013/01/09 05:24
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A BBC broadcaster has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually abusing three girls.
The charges against the well-known 82-year-old sports broadcaster Stuart Hall relate to events alleged to have occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.
Police say the alleged indecent assaults were carried out on girls between the ages of 9 and 16.
Hall said in court Monday that he understood the charges against him and that he was not guilty.
He has been a broadcaster for more than 50 years. |
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Italian court overturns Google convictions
Topics |
2012/12/26 07:13
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An Italian appeals court on Friday overturned the convictions of three Google executives who had been held criminally responsible for a video on a Google site that showed a disabled teen being bullied.
Google said it was "delighted" with the appellate ruling that cleared global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, its senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond and retired chief financial officer George Reyes of any wrongdoing.
The original verdict raised concerns that Internet platforms could be forced to police their content in Italy, and beyond, while putting European privacy concerns at odds with the freewheeling nature of the Internet.
A lower court in 2010 convicted the three of privacy violations for a 2006 video posted on Google Video, a video-sharing service Google ran before the company acquired YouTube later that year.
None of the executives charged in the case were in any way involved in the posting of the video and Google said they took it down within two hours of being notified by authorities.
Google, in its final arguments before the court, noted 72 hours-worth of video is posted on YouTube every minute — which would be impossible to preview. That is up from 20 hours of video a minute at the time of the initial verdict. |
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Appeals court sides with newspaper in labor fight
Law Firm News |
2012/12/19 08:04
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with the publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press in a long-running labor dispute between the newspaper and reporters who were fired after they complained about its editorial practices.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the newspaper's publisher was protected by the First Amendment when it dismissed eight reporters and disciplined others who claimed the owner was interfering with news coverage.
The reporters claimed they were illegally fired for union activity and legitimate complaints about their terms of employment. But the court found the dispute was all about editorial control.
"The First Amendment affords a publisher — not a reporter — absolute authority to shape a newspaper's content," Judge Stephen Williams wrote for a three-judge panel.
The ruling stems from a dispute between Ampersand Publishing LLC and employees that began in 2006. Nearly every top editor at the paper quit in protest over what they said was owner Wendy McCaw's meddling in news coverage.
Newsroom employees later voted to form a union, and they have been fighting with the newspaper since then over bargaining rights. |
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