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Conn. high court hears death penalty appeal
State Law Issues |
2011/04/29 05:22
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div class=entrydiv class=articleA lawyer told the state Supreme Court yesterday that his client’s death penalty case was the weakest one ever to go before the high court, alleging that the jury was biased and that key evidence was improperly withheld from the trial.
Justices heard the appeal of former Torrington resident Eduardo Santiago, 31, who prosecutors say agreed in 2000 to kill a West Hartford man in exchange for a pink-striped snowmobile with a broken clutch. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2005 after a jury convicted him, despite no clear evidence that he was the one who pulled the rifle trigger.
Two other men are serving life prison sentences for the killing of Joseph Niwinski, 45, who was shot in the head while sleeping in his home.
Santiago’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher, told the Supreme Court that there was no way a reasonable jury could have condemned Santiago. The defense presented 25 mitigating factors, including Santiago’s troubled childhood, for jurors to consider against the death penalty, while the state based its argument for execution on one aggravating factor, that Niwinski was killed in a murder-for-hire plot.
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Kan. House debates forcing lawsuit over casino
State Law Issues |
2011/04/28 09:23
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div class=entrydiv class=articleThe Kansas House is debating whether it should force the attorney general to file a lawsuit over a proposed state-owned casino south of Wichita.
A resolution being discussed Thursday would require Attorney General Derek Schmidt to sue the state Racing and Gaming Commission's over its decision to allow a casino near Mulvane.
Iowa-based Peninsula Gaming plans to build a $260 million casino complex 18 miles south of Wichita.
Critics question whether the commission's decision in January was premature.
They cite misdemeanor campaign finance charges pending against the company and two top executives in Iowa. Company officials have said they're confident the case will be resolved in their favor, and they've started work on the casino.
Kansas law allows one legislative chamber to direct the attorney general to file a lawsuit.
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Media ask court to unseal gay marriage trial tapes
State Law Issues |
2011/04/19 09:04
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Media organizations are joining lawyers for two-same-sex couples in urging a federal appeals court to release videotapes of a lower court trial on California's gay marriage ban.
The 13 organizations, which include The Associated Press, argued in a motion filed Monday with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals that the videos are court records that the First Amendment requires to be open to the public.
Sponsors of voter-approved Proposition 8 asked the 9th Circuit last week to keep the tapes sealed and to order the trial's presiding judge to return his personal copies.
The move came after now-retired Judge Vaughn Walker, who declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional, used a brief segment of the video in several public talks. |
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Law firms may be forced to publish diversity figures
State Law Issues |
2010/09/05 07:28
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| pJustice may be blind, but the legal profession isn't, and from next year the public may get to see just what kind of people they are buying their legal services from./pp sizset=65 sizcache=0The a title= href=http://www.legalservicesboard.org.uk/font color=#005689Legal Services Board (LSB)/font/a, the body responsible for overseeing the regulation of lawyers in England and Wales, is mulling over a title= href=http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/firms-and-chambers-face-obligation-to-publish-staff-diversity-and-class-data-from-next-yearfont color=#005689plans that would require law firms and chambers to compile and publish comprehensive diversity information about their staff/font/a . This would include the seven diversity strands – age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation and working patterns – plus social mobility./ppThe work is the latest in a string of initiatives aimed at changing the profile of the profession. However, the headline statistics are pretty good. Women have made huge strides over the last 40 years and it will not be long before they make up the majority of solicitors, while black and minority ethnic (BME) lawyers are over-represented in the profession in proportion to the population as a whole./ppBut this only tells part of the story. The LSB notes that much of the work has focused, successfully, on entry level. For example, only a quarter of law firm partners are women, and a mere 3.5% of partners in the biggest 150 firms are BME. The anticipated 'trickle up' effect has not materialised, it says. There is also evidence of significant pay differentials, as well as concern that the impressive BME statistics mask significant under-representation for some groups, such as African-Caribbean men and Bangladeshi women./p |
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