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Suspect in fatal bakery stabbing heads to court
Law Firm News |
2018/05/08 00:22
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The man suspected of fatally stabbing the co-owner of a Massachusetts bakery is heading to court to face a murder charge.
Prosecutors say 47-year-old Franklin Conza is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.
The Springfield man was arrested after police responded to the Ludlow Central Bakery just before 7 p.m. Friday and found 70-year-old Carlos Santos suffering from multiple stab wounds. He died at the hospit
Conza, who was being restrained by a bystander, struggled with police before being taken into custody.
He was held over the weekend on $1 million bail. It could not immediately be determined if he has a lawyer.
Authorities have not disclosed a motive.
The bakery said on Facebook that staff are heartbroken by the loss of "our dear Carlos Santos" and will be temporarily closed.
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Supreme Court sends land dispute back to Wash. top court
Legal Information |
2018/05/02 00:22
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The Supreme Court is asking Washington state's highest court to take another look at a land dispute between a Native American tribe and its neighbors.
The dispute concerns a roughly 40-acre plot of land purchased by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe in 2013. A land survey convinced the tribe that a barbed wire fence between its land and land owned by Sharline and Ray Lundgren is in the wrong place. The tribe wanted to tear down the fence and build a new one in the right spot. The Lundgrens sued, but the tribe argued it was immune from suit.
The Washington Supreme Court sided with the Lundgrens. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday the court's reasoning was flawed and asked the court to take another look at the dispute. Native American tribe and its neighbors.
The dispute concerns a roughly 40-acre plot of land purchased by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe in 2013. A land survey convinced the tribe that a barbed wire fence between its land and land owned by Sharline and Ray Lundgren is in the wrong place. The tribe wanted to tear down the fence and build a new one in the right spot. The Lundgrens sued, but the tribe argued it was immune from suit.
The Washington Supreme Court sided with the Lundgrens. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday the court's reasoning was flawed and asked the court to take another look at the dispute. |
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Supreme Court greenlights driver rights in rental car case
Law Firm Press Release |
2018/04/30 00:21
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The Supreme Court said Monday that people who borrow rental cars from friends or family are generally entitled to the same protections against police searches as the authorized driver.
The justices ruled unanimously that as a general rule someone who is "in otherwise lawful possession and control of a rental car" has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car even if the rental agreement doesn't list the person as an authorized driver. That means police can't generally search the car unless they have a warrant or what's called "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, noted there "may be countless innocuous reasons why an unauthorized driver might get behind the wheel of a rental car and drive it," including that the renter is drowsy or drunk and that the renter and a friend "think it is safer for the friend to drive them to their destination."
The Trump administration had argued that anyone driving a rental car but not listed on a rental agreement does not have an expectation of privacy in the car. That would mean that police who pulled over a rental car with an unauthorized driver could search the car without the person's consent. The Supreme Court rejected the government's argument, saying it "rests on too restrictive a view" of protections in the Fourth Amendment.
Attorneys arguing for protections for unauthorized drivers had noted that 115 million car rentals take place annually in the United States. They said that if the government won, police would have an incentive to pull over a rental car driver who commits a traffic violation because police would know they could search the car if the driver isn't on the rental agreement.
The case the justices ruled in dates to 2014 and involves Terrence Byrd, who was driving a car rented by his fiance when a state trooper pulled him over on a Pennsylvania highway for an alleged minor traffic violation. He acted nervous during the stop and told troopers he had a marijuana cigarette in the car. Officers eventually decided to search the car.
Because the rental agreement didn't authorize Byrd to drive the car, troopers told him they didn't need his consent for the search. And when troopers opened the trunk, they found body armor and about 2,500 little bags of heroin. Byrd later acknowledged he planned to sell the drugs for roughly $7,000, and a court sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
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Bangladesh Supreme Court upholds bail for opposition leader
Legal World News |
2018/04/28 00:21
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Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a High Court’s decision to grant bail to opposition leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was jailed for five years on a corruption conviction.
Lawyers from both sides said the ruling does not necessarily mean Zia will be released from jail because she’s been arrested in connection with three other cases.
The government had appealed a March verdict by the High Court granting her bail for four months.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court also ordered authorities to make a final decision by July 31 involving a separate appeal by Zia seeking her release from jail.
Zia has been in jail for more than three months in the graft case for misusing power and embezzling about $250,000 involving a trust fund named after her late husband, former President Ziaur Rahman. The conviction means that Zia, the archrival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, can be barred from running in December elections.
Zia’s party says the February verdict was politically motivated, a charge the government has denied. Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party has threatened to boycott the next elections, saying they will not join the polls without Zia.
In February, a trial court convicted Zia and also sentenced her son, Tarique Rahman, and four others to 10 years in prison for involvement in the case. Rahman lives in London and was tried in absentia.
Bangladesh law says anyone imprisoned for more than two years cannot run for office for the next five years, but Law Minister Anisul Huq had said the final decision rests with the higher courts.
Bangladesh politics are deeply fractious, with rivals Hasina and Zia ruling the country alternately since 1991, when democracy was restored.
Both women came from political dynasties. Zia is the widow of Ziaur Rahman, a general-turned-president who was assassinated in 1981. Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader and first president, who was assassinated in 1975 along with most of his family members.
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