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Suspect in some Phoenix freeway shootings pleads not guilty
Court Watch |
2015/10/08 20:16
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A man accused in some of the freeway shootings that put Phoenix drivers on edge for weeks pleaded not guilty Thursday as his defense lawyers questioned the strength of the evidence against him.
Attorneys for Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, who was arraigned on 15 felony counts, including aggravated assault and carrying out a drive-by shooting, said outside court that the investigation by state police does not place him at the shooting scenes.
"We're going to work diligently to make sure that we investigate this fully, and we believe in his innocence," said Ulises Ferragut, one of Merritt's two attorneys.
Ferragut and attorney Jason Lamm also cited investigators' evolving timeline of the shootings. They plan to do their own investigation, looking into another person possibly admitting responsibility for any of the 11 shootings, Lamm said. They didn't identify that person or provide details.
"It's very, very early in the game to get hard confirmation on that," Lamm said.
Department of Public Safety investigators used ballistics tests to tie Merritt to four of the 11 shootings that occurred on Phoenix-area freeways between Aug. 22 and Sept. 10.
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Virginia executes serial killer who claimed to be disabled
Court Watch |
2015/10/07 20:17
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A twice-condemned serial killer who claimed he was intellectually disabled was executed in Virginia on Thursday after a series of last-minute appeals failed.
Alfredo Prieto was pronounced dead at 9:17 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. The 49-year-old was injected with a lethal three-drug combination, including the sedative pentobarbital, which Virginia received from the Texas prison system.
Prieto, wearing glasses, jeans and a light blue shirt, did not resist and showed no emotion as he was strapped to the gurney.
"I would like to say thanks to all my lawyers, all my supporters and all my family members," he said, before mumbling, "Get this over with."
The El Salvador native was sentenced to death in Virginia in 2010 for the murder of a young couple more than two decades earlier. Rachael Raver and her boyfriend, Warren Fulton III, both 22, were found shot to death in a wooded area a few days after being seen at a Washington, D.C., nightspot.
Prieto was on death row in California at the time for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl and was linked to the Virginia slayings through DNA evidence. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution.
He has been connected to as many as six other killings in California and Virginia, authorities have said, but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death.
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Court rejects ex-NY Fed employee's retaliation claim lawsuit
Court Watch |
2015/09/24 06:20
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A New York-based federal appeals court has rejected claims of a former employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who says she was fired for her probe into the banking firm Goldman Sachs.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday upheld a lower-court ruling dismissing Carmen Segarra's lawsuit.
She claimed the New York Fed interfered with her examination of Goldman Sachs' legal and compliance divisions and directed her to change findings.
The appeals court was particularly dismissive of Segarra's effort to hold three New York Fed employees responsible. It said the effort was "speculative, meritless, and frankly quite silly."
The Federal Reserve oversees Wall Street's biggest financial institutions.
Last year, Senate Democrats accused the Fed of being too close to big banks it regulates.
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German court rules against Lufthansa pilot strike
Court Watch |
2015/09/12 06:13
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A German court issued an injunction Wednesday ordering a halt to a strike by pilots at Lufthansa, Germany’s biggest airline, that caused the cancelation of 1,000 flights.
Lufthansa welcomed the ruling by the state labor court in Frankfurt but said that a special, reduced timetable it had drawn up for the day would remain in place. It said that largely normal services would be resumed on Thursday.
The pilots’ union, Vereinigung Cockpit, has been calling regular short-term strikes in the long-running labor dispute, which comes as Lufthansa restructures to meet increasing competition from Gulf airlines. The pilots want the airline to keep making transition payments for those seeking early retirement.
The court found that the union’s aims went beyond that demand, to exerting more influence on Lufthansa’s new low-cost operation, making the strike illegal, news agency dpa reported.
Vereinigung Cockpit began its strike on long-haul flights Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of 90 flights, and extended the walk-out to medium-and short-haul flights Wednesday.
Union spokesman Markus Wahl told n-tv television after the ruling that it had told pilots to be available for work immediately. Wednesday’s ruling overturned one by a lower court on Tuesday that went in the union’s favor.
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