Miss. judge suspended for misconduct

Legal Business 2011/08/12 10:32   Bookmark and Share
The Mississippi Supreme Court has suspended Alcorn County Justice Court Judge Jimmy McGee for misconduct.

The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance had accused McGee of interfering with a criminal case and making "statements in open court encouraging others to engage in vigilante justice."

The complaint involved a case in another court in which McGee's relative was a crime victim. He allegedly said in open court in 2008 that his relative's case should have been handled "down on the farm" instead of in the justice system.

The Supreme Court ordered a suspension without pay for 270 days, a public reprimand and assessed $100 in court costs.
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Dougherty siblings to appear in Colorado court

Legal Insight 2011/08/11 10:32   Bookmark and Share
A woman caught with her two brothers after a nationwide manhunt told Colorado authorities she "deserved to get shot" after pointing a gun at a police chief at the end of the siblings' run from the law, according to a court document.

Lee Grace Dougherty, 29, Dylan Dougherty Stanley, 26, and Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, are being held in Pueblo County, Colo., on bonds of $1.25 million each. The three made their first court appearance Thursday by video from jail, and none made any statement during the brief hearing.

They face charges of attempted murder of a peace officer and assault on a peace officer. The charges stem from allegations that they shot rounds from an AK-47 at four patrol cars during a chase Wednesday on Interstate 25 in Colorado. The chase ended when troopers deployed spike strips to puncture the tires of the trio's Subaru, and the vehicle rolled and crashed into a guardrail.


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Ariz. governor on deadline for immigration appeal

Headline Legal News 2011/08/10 08:57   Bookmark and Share
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer faces a Wednesday deadline for asking the U.S. Supreme Court to accept her appeal of a ruling that put on hold key parts of the state's immigration enforcement law.

The Republican governor lost her first attempt to throw out a district court's decision that blocks, among other portions of the law, a provision requiring police, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally, when a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her motion in April.

Brewer vowed three months ago to take her argument before the nation's highest court, which has discretion on whether to hear her case.

The 9th Circuit said the federal government is likely to be able to prove the law is unconstitutional and likely to succeed in its argument that Congress has given the federal government sole authority to enforce immigration laws.

Brewer's lawyers have argued that the federal government hasn't effectively enforced immigration law and that the state's intent in passing its own regulations was to assist federal authorities, as Congress has encouraged.

They also have argued the district court judge erred by accepting speculation by the federal government that the law might burden legal immigrants and by concluding the federal government would likely prevail.
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New hearings sought in Chicago police torture case

Legal Insight 2011/08/10 08:57   Bookmark and Share
Fifteen incarcerated men who claim they were sent to prison by confessions that were beaten, burned and tortured out of them by convicted Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers are getting some high-profile help — including from a former Illinois governor.

In a friend-of-the-court brief to be filed Wednesday with the Illinois Supreme Court, ex-Gov. Jim Thompson and more than 60 current and former prosecutors, judges and lawmakers are asking for new evidentiary hearings for inmates who say their convictions were based on coerced confessions.

The brief marks the first effort on behalf of alleged Burge victims as a group and not separate individual cases, attorneys said.

Burge's name has become synonymous with police abuse in the nation's third-largest city, and more than 100 men — most of them African-American and Latino— have alleged Burge and his men tortured them from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Burge was convicted last year of lying about whether he ever witnessed or participated in the torture of suspects. He's serving a 4 1/2-year sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.

Burge never has faced criminal charges for abuse. He was fired from the police department in 1993 over the 1982 beating and burning of Andrew Wilson, a suspect later convicted of killing two police officers.

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Court rules firing of NJ casino dealer unlawful

Headline Legal News 2011/08/09 09:24   Bookmark and Share
A federal appeals court has sided with an Atlantic City casino dealer who says he was targeted because he was involved in union organizing.

Bally's Park Place fired Jose Justiniano in 2007. The casino claimed he misused family medical leave time by attending a pro-union rally on a day he took time off to care for his daughter.

Justiniano had been active in casino unionizing efforts.

A judge upheld the firing, but the National Labor Relations Board disagreed and said it was unlawful.

Friday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., agreed with the NLRB. It noted that Justiniano attended the rally for 20 minutes. It also said Bally's policy on family leave didn't justify the firing.

A message was left seeking comment from an attorney representing Bally's.





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Pozen says Texas court upholds Treximet patents

Legal Business 2011/08/08 09:24   Bookmark and Share
Drug developer Pozen Inc. said Monday that a Texas court upheld three patents supporting its migraine drug Treximet.

Pozen said the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the patents were valid. The court also found that generic versions of Treximet developed by Par Pharmaceutical Co. and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. infringed on all three patents, while a version developed by Alphapharm Pty Ltd. infringed on two patents. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. had also challenged the patents, but was dismissed from Pozen's lawsuit in April 2010 after it agreed to abide by the court's decision.

The court said the Food and Drug Administration cannot approve the generics made by Dr. Reddy's and Par until Feb. 2, 2025, and that the agency can't approve the Alphapharm generic until Aug. 14, 2017.

Treximet is a combination of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's drug Imitrex and an anti-inflammatory drug developed by Pozen. GlaxoSmithKline markets the drug and pays royalties to Pozen. In the second quarter, those royalty payments accounted for $4 million of Pozen's $4.6 million in total revenue.

The FDA approved Treximet in April 2008 after years of delays, and Par filed for approval of its generic in October of that year.

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