|
|
|
Appeals court to take up Missouri execution case
Court Watch |
2014/07/17 18:49
|
A last-minute stay from a federal judge has put a Missouri inmate's execution temporarily on hold.
John Middleton was scheduled to die one minute after midnight Wednesday for killing three people in rural northern Missouri in 1995. With less than two hours to go before the execution, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry granted a stay, ruling there was enough evidence of mental illness that a new hearing should be held.
Courts have established that executing the mentally ill is unconstitutional.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but that court adjourned for the night without a ruling.
It was a confusing end to a day that saw a flurry of court actions. Perry first granted a stay early Tuesday, but that was overturned by the appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn the appeals court ruling and declined to halt the execution on several other grounds, including the contention by Middleton's attorneys that he was innocent of the crimes.
Middleton's attorneys then went back to Perry, who once again granted a stay.
However the appeals court eventually rules, the case is likely to end up again in the U.S. Supreme Court.
If the stay is lifted, the state could execute Middleton at any time Wednesday. The death warrant expires at midnight Thursday and if Middleton is not executed by then, the Missouri Supreme Court would have to set a new date. State witnesses and media were told to report back to the prison by 10:30 a.m.
Middleton, 54, would be the sixth man put to death in Missouri this year — only Florida and Texas have performed more executions in 2014 with seven each.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
House Committee ordered to court in insider probe
Court Watch |
2014/06/23 19:26
|
A powerful U.S. House of Representatives committee was ordered on Friday to appear before a judge next month to explain why it should not be required to turn over documents in an insider-trading probe.
U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan set a July 1 hearing for the Ways and Means Committee to appear. He also required a committee staffer, Brian Sutter, to appear. He said the committee must show why it should not be ordered to produce documents demanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission in May.
In court papers, the SEC said its probe relates to whether secrets were passed to certain members of the public surrounding an April 2013 announcement by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about a Medicare program.
Sutter, the health subcommittee's staff director, disclosed on May 9 to House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that he had received a subpoena from the SEC for documents and testimony along with a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to the congressional record of that day.
The SEC said in its court papers that the committee and Sutter had refused to comply with the subpoenas. It said they had asserted "numerous objections, arguing, among other things, that the subpoenas are 'repugnant to public policy;' that they are vague and overbroad" and that the speech or debate clause of the Constitution entitled them to avoid producing the documents or testimony. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Condemned Texas inmate loses Supreme Court appeal
Court Watch |
2014/05/30 20:00
|
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review an appeal from condemned Texas inmate Duane Buck, whose supporters contend his death sentence decided by a Houston jury 17 years ago unfairly was based on race.
"His death sentence is the product of pervasive racial discrimination," attorneys Christina Swarns, Kathryn Kase and Kate Black said in a statement Wednesday.
Without comment, the high court Tuesday rejected Buck's appeal. The ruling was an appeal of a similar rejection in November from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court.
Buck, 50, was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row for the slaying of his ex-girlfriend and a man at her Houston apartment in July 1995. During the punishment phase of Buck's 1997 trial, psychologist Walter Quijano testified under cross-examination by a Harris County prosecutor that black people were more likely to commit violence.
Advocates for Buck, who is black, say that unfairly influenced jurors, who in Texas capital cases must decide when deliberating a death sentence whether an offender would be a continuing threat. Quijano, called as a defense witness, had testified earlier that Buck's personality and the nature of his crime, committed during rage, indicated he would be less of a future danger.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SC high court blocks ruling during Harrell appeal
Court Watch |
2014/05/23 19:55
|
South Carolina's high court has blocked a judge's dismissal of an investigation into one of the state's top lawmakers while prosecutors appeal.
The state Supreme Court said Thursday it would block the ruling by Circuit Judge Casey Manning earlier this month.
The new order allows prosecutors to continue their investigation into corruption allegations against House Speaker Bobby Harrell. Manning had said Attorney General Alan Wilson improperly empaneled a State Grand Jury in the case.
Manning said courts cannot consider such a case against a lawmaker until a legislative ethics panel has reviewed it. Harrell's attorneys agree, but Wilson says the ruling infringes on his role as the state's top prosecutor.
Wilson is appealing that decision. Both sides are to make their case before the Supreme Court on June 24. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Lawyer & Law Firm Websites |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
