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High court: Israel must explain lack of access to holy site
Law Firm News |
2017/01/12 23:57
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Israel's Supreme Court has given the government a month to explain why it prevents women from praying from a Torah scroll at a key Jewish holy site.
In the court's ruling Wednesday, it also suggested that an alternative site for women to pray at Jerusalem's Western Wall was insufficient and ordered that searches of visiting women be halted.
Israel's government agreed in January to create an equal prayer site after three years of negotiations between Jewish liberal groups, ultra-Orthodox leaders and the government.
But the site was never established, with liberal groups accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of caving to pressure from two ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition.
The groups accuse the government of violating the right to equality and freedom of worship by not implementing its decision.
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Kansas Supreme Court to hear death row inmate's appeal
Law Firm News |
2016/12/19 16:56
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Attorneys for a Kansas death row inmate convicted of killing his estranged wife, their two daughters and his wife's grandmother in 2009 will get to make their case to the state's highest court about why he should be spared.
James Kraig Kahler argues in his appeal that the court where he stood trial made mistakes, and he questions whether his death sentence was warranted.
Friday's hearing will be the Kansas Supreme Court's first death penalty case since Election Day, when voters retained four of its justices who were targeted for ouster partly because the court overturned other death sentences.
Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994 but hasn't executed anyone in more than half a century. The state Supreme Court has overturned death sentences seven times in 20 years, with five of those decisions later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kahler was convicted in 2011 of fatally shooting Karen Kahler, 44, her 89-year-old grandmother, Dorothy Wight, and the Kahlers' two daughters, 18-year-old Emily and 16-year-old Lauren, at Wight's home in Burlingame, about 65 miles southwest of Kansas City. Authorities said he went from room to room shooting his victims. The couple's 10-year-old son survived unharmed.
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Philippine court urged to order Marcos' remains exhumed
Law Firm News |
2016/12/06 23:51
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Human rights victims who suffered during the rule of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos filed petitions Monday asking the Supreme Court to order the exhumation of his remains that were buried last week at the country's Heroes' Cemetery.
They also want the court to hold officials and his heirs in contempt for carrying out the burial before the court heard final appeals against it.
Former President Fidel Ramos, who played a key role in the peaceful army-backed revolt that ousted Marcos in 1986, called the former leader's burial at the military-run cemetery "an insult" to the sacrifices of soldiers and veterans.
Left-wing former lawmaker Saturnino Ocampo and other activists urged the court to hold Marcos' widow Imelda, their three children, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and two military officials in contempt for "the hasty, shady and tricky" burial on Friday of the long-dead president at the Heroes' Cemetery.
The petition said they should be fined and detained for mocking the legal process that gave petitioners 15 days to appeal the court's Nov. 8 ruling allowing the burial.
Opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman, who represents another group of petitioners, sought a court order to have the remains exhumed "because the hasty and surreptitious interment was premature, void and irregular."
He asked that the remains be examined to determine if they are not a wax replica. The secrecy-shrouded burial at the cemetery reserved for presidents, soldiers and national artists shocked democracy advocates and human rights victims, prompting street protests in Manila and other cities.
Marcos's rule was marked by massive rights violations and plunder. After being ousted in 1986, he flew to Hawaii, where he lived with his wife and children until he died in 1989.
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Appeals court: Week of early voting shouldn't return to Ohio
Law Firm News |
2016/08/24 09:59
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld an Ohio law that trims a week of early voting in the swing state, reversing a judge's decision that had restored the time.
Democrats had challenged a series of Republican-backed voting changes they claimed disproportionately burdened black voters and those who lean Democratic. Among the policies was the elimination of early voting days in which Ohioans could also register to vote, a period known as golden week.
The state's attorneys argued that scrapping the days helped alleviate administrative burdens for local elections officials while reducing costs and the potential of fraud. But plaintiffs, who include the state's Democratic Party, said the burden on voters outweighed any benefit to the state.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled the golden-week cut still allows for "abundant" opportunities to vote within a 29-day window. Prior to the law, Ohioans had a 35-day period.
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Oldest death row inmate in Georgia, age 72, is executed
Law Firm News |
2016/02/03 16:20
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Georgia executed a 72-year-old man, its oldest death row inmate, early Wednesday for the killing of a convenience store manager during a robbery decades ago.
The state Department of Corrections says Brandon Astor Jones was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m. Wednesday after a lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the shooting death of suburban Atlanta store manager Roger Tackett.
The punishment was delayed for several hours while the U.S. Supreme Court considered late appeals from Jones' attorneys. They asked the justices to block the execution for either of two reasons: because Jones was challenging Georgia's lethal injection secrecy law or because he said his death sentence was disproportionate to his crime.
Around 11 p.m. Tuesday, the court denied the requests for a stay.
According to evidence at his trial, Jones and another man, Van Roosevelt Solomon, were arrested at a Cobb County store by a policeman who had driven a stranded motorist there to use a pay phone about 1:45 a.m. on June 17, 1979. The officer knew the store usually closed at midnight and was suspicious when he saw a car out front with the driver's door open and lights still on in the store.
The officer saw Jones inside the store, prosecutors have said. He entered and drew his weapon after hearing four shots. He found Jones and Solomon just inside a storeroom door and took them into custody. Tackett's body was found inside the storeroom.
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