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Japan court OK's Nissan ex-Chairman Ghosn's release on bail
Law Firm Press Release |
2019/03/04 11:35
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A Tokyo court approved the release of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn on 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) bail on Tuesday, rejecting an appeal by prosecutors to keep him jailed, a lawyer for the auto executive said.
He could be freed as soon as Wednesday morning, according to Japan's Kyodo News.
Jean-Yves Le Borgne, Ghosn's French lawyer, said a court issued a late-night ruling rejecting prosecutors' appeal of the initial ruling. Le Borgne cautioned that prosecutors still had leeway to file new charges as they had done once before.
Ghosn said in a written statement that he is grateful for his family and friends who had stood by him "throughout this terrible ordeal."
He said he is "innocent and totally committed to vigorously defending myself in a fair trial against these meritless and unsubstantiated accusations."
The former head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors alliance has been detained since he was arrested on Nov. 19. He says he is innocent of charges of falsifying financial information and of breach of trust.
His Japanese lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, is famous for winning acquittals in Japan, a nation where the conviction rate is 99 percent.
Hironaka said the legal team "proposed concrete ways showing how he would not tamper with evidence or try to flee."
Hironaka said Monday that he had offered new ways to monitor Ghosn after his release, such as camera surveillance. Hironaka also questioned the grounds for Ghosn's arrest, calling the case "very peculiar," and suggesting it could have been dealt with as an internal company matter.
In Japan, suspects are routinely detained for months, often until their trials start. That's especially true of those who insist on their innocence.
The 1 billion yen bail set by the court was relatively high but not the highest ever in Japan.
Among the conditions for Ghosn's release were restrictions on where he can live, his mobile phone use, as well as a ban on foreign travel and contact with Nissan executives, according to Kyodo News. |
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High court won't review award to Calif. couple deputies shot
Law Firm Press Release |
2019/03/02 11:36
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The Supreme Court is leaving in place a roughly $4 million judgment for an innocent couple shot while California deputies searched for a wanted man.
The high court on Monday declined to again take up the case involving Angel and Jennifer Mendez. Their case had previously been before the justices in 2017. At that time, the high court unanimously overturned the $4 million award and ordered a lower court to revisit the case. On second look, the appeals court again sided with the couple.
The pair were shot in 2010 when deputies searching for a parolee entered a backyard shack in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles, where the couple was living. Deputies fired shots after seeing Angel Mendez pick up what looked like a gun. It was a BB gun. |
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Governor says 'no executions' without court-backed drugs
Law Firm Press Release |
2019/02/26 09:35
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Recent statements and actions by Gov. Mike DeWine suggest Ohio could go years without executing another death row inmate.
Last month, the Republican governor ordered the prison system to come up with a new lethal drug protocol after a federal judge's scathing critique of the first drug in Ohio's method.
Last week, DeWine said Ohio "certainly could have no executions" during that search and the court challenges that would follow adopting a new system.
After Ohio started looking for new drugs in 2014, it took the state more than three years to establish its current three-drug lethal injection protocol. Since then, it has become even more difficult for states to find drugs, meaning a new search could easily last as long.
The first drug in Ohio's new system, the sedative midazolam, has been subject to lawsuits that argue it exposes inmates to the possibility of severe pain because it doesn't render them deeply enough unconscious.
Because of Ohio's use of midazolam, federal Judge Michael Merz called the constitutionality of the state's system into question in a Jan. 14 ruling and said inmates could suffer an experience similar to waterboarding.
But because attorneys for death row inmate Keith Henness didn't prove a viable alternative exists, Merz declined to stop the execution. But DeWine did, postponing Henness' execution from Feb. 13 until Sept. 12, although that would be contingent on the state having a new, court-approved lethal injection system in place, which is unlikely in that time frame.
Ohio is also scheduled to execute Cleveland Jackson on May 29, a timeline Merz questioned last week, given the governor's order. |
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Court records reveal a Mueller report right in plain view
Law Firm Press Release |
2019/02/23 09:37
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The Democrats had blamed Russia for the hacking and release of damaging material on his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump wasn’t buying it. But on July 27, 2016, midway through a news conference in Florida, Trump decided to entertain the thought for a moment.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” said Trump, looking directly into a television camera, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” — messages Clinton was reported to have deleted from her private email server.
Actually, Russia was doing more than listening: It had been trying to help Republican Trump for months. That very day, hackers working with Russia’s military intelligence tried to break into email accounts associated with Clinton’s personal office.
It was just one small part of a sophisticated election interference operation carried out by the Kremlin — and meticulously chronicled by special counsel Robert Mueller.
We know this, though Mueller has made not a single public comment since his appointment in May 2017. We know this, though the full, final report on the investigation, believed to be in its final stages, may never be made public. It’s up to Attorney General William Barr.
We know this because Mueller has spoken loudly, if indirectly, in court — indictment by indictment, guilty plea by guilty plea. In doing so, he tracked an elaborate Russian operation that injected chaos into a U.S. presidential election and tried to help Trump win the White House. He followed a GOP campaign that embraced the Kremlin’s help and championed stolen material to hurt a political foe. And ultimately, he revealed layers of lies, deception, self-enrichment and hubris that followed. |
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