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High court turns down daughter in pension dispute
Court Watch |
2009/01/26 14:24
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| The Supreme Court says the daughter of a DuPont Co. worker is out of luck in her effort to collect his retirement benefits. The justices, in a unanimous decision Monday, said Kari Kennedy can collect nothing from DuPont because companies are bound by what a worker puts down on forms designating who is to receive retirement and other benefits after his death. In this case, William Kennedy divorced his wife of 22 years and she waived her rights to the retirement money in their divorce decree. Kari Kennedy said her father wanted her to have the money after his death. But Kennedy never changed his beneficiary on the retirement account, and DuPont properly paid $402,000 to Liv Kennedy, his ex-wife, Justice David Souter said. The case is Kennedy v. Plan Administrator, 07-636. |
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Guilty Pleas in U.S. Death Plot
Court Watch |
2009/01/20 09:20
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Two cousins from Chicago pleaded guilty in Toledo, Ohio Federal Court for their roles in a plot to recruit and train people to kill U.S. soldiers. Zubair Ahmed and Khaleel Ahmed face up to 15 years in prison after admitting they conspired to provide material support to terrorists.
Federal prosecutors say the two cousins were recruited by three Toledo men who were organizing the plot, and that the Ahmeds were training and planning to go overseas to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. The three organizers have already been convicted and are awaiting sentencing, The Associated Press reported.
Both Ahmeds pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information. They were arrested in February 2007. |
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Judge Upholds Detention of Two Gitmo Detainees
Court Watch |
2009/01/02 09:27
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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the U.S. government is properly imprisoning two people as enemy combatants in Guantanamo - the first legal victory for the Bush administration in the issue for a long time, and the first of an expected 200 or more similar cases.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., was the jurist who ruled about a month ago that the Bush administration had illegally imprisoned five Algerians at Guantanamo for nearly 7 years. He ordered the administration to release them.
The recent case involved a Yemeni, Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi, and a Tunisian, Hisham Sliti.
Judge Leon found that Sliti was an al Qaeda recruit who attended a military training camp in Afghanistan.
Judge Leon ruled that though there was no proof that al Alwi had made war upon U.S. forces, his ties to the Taliban were sufficient to justify his imprisonment as an enemy combatant. |
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Alamo seeks removal of religious language in suit
Court Watch |
2008/12/23 09:16
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| A lawyer for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo asked a federal court Tuesday to remove religious references from a lawsuit against his client, saying they have the potential to draw the court into theological debate to decide the case. John Hall of Little Rock said in a court filing that claims made by two former members of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries were based on religious beliefs and not matters for argument in a court of law. Hall gave as examples claims that Alamo engaged in practices to intimidate church members by withholding food, marrying young girls and performing severe beatings. Hall said Alamo's defense to each of these allegations was based largely on the Bible, and the filing cites numerous biblical passages. "All of these fall within the ambit of defendant's religious beliefs," the filing says. The suit, filed Nov. 25 in federal district court at Texarkana, claims that Seth Calagna and Spencer Ondrisek were beaten and subjected to abuse as teenagers in the church. The suit says the former church members, now adults, suffered physical pain, emotional distress, scarring and disfigurement. It seeks more than $75,000 in damages. |
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Justices chide California-based appeals court
Court Watch |
2008/12/03 18:53
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| The Supreme Court took aim at one of its favorite targets Tuesday, criticizing a California-based federal appeals court for its ruling in favor of a criminal defendant. The justices threw out a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Michael Robert Pulido, who was convicted for his role in robbing a gas station and killing the defendant. A U.S. District Court judge set aside Pulido's conviction because the trial judge in the case gave the jury improper instructions. The high court said in an unsigned opinion that the appeals court ruling affirming the federal judge's action used faulty reasoning. The justices did not reinstate Pulido's conviction. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter agreed that the appeals court made a mistake, but would have affirmed its ruling anyway because the underlying decision in favor of Pulido was correct. Last month, the court overruled the 9th Circuit in an environmental case involving the Navy's use of sonar and its potential harm to whales. The case is Hedgpeth v. Pulido, 07-544. |
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