The US Supreme Court's Sanctions Injustice

Legal Business 2011/04/10 08:01   Bookmark and Share
The INSIDER EXCLUSIVE will produce a Network TV Special on this tragic story of Injustice... detailing the "illegal activities" of the New Orleans DA's Office, and examine the "mindset" of the five Justices who sanction prosecutorial misconduct in America today.... putting innocent people in jail.

"Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere"  - as John Thompson personally tells his own "nightmare story of injustice".

Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case John had won against Harry Connick Sr's New Orleans DA Office who oversaw his case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t John Thompson's.

The prosecutors involved in his two cases, from the office of the Orleans Parish district attorney, Harry Connick Sr., helped to cover up 10 separate pieces of evidence. And most of them are still able to practice law today.

In addition, of the six men one of John's prosecutors got sentenced to death, five eventually had their convictions reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct.

In America today......This could happen to you 

Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today.


Read John's personal NY Times Opinion essay "The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t".... and remember "Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.html?pagewanted=2&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Please visit John's website:  Resurrection After Exoneration   http://www.r-a-e.org/home
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Louisiana to get $12M in Health Net case

Topics in Legal News 2011/04/06 09:43   Bookmark and Share

The Louisiana Supreme Court has ordered Health Net Inc., a major health maintenance organization, to cover more than $180 million in claims by consumers, health care providers and creditors in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon told The Advocate that Louisiana will get the smallest portion of the payout.

"We have about $12 million coming to us to policyholders, providers and general creditors, meaning companies who sold them supplies or that rented them space," Donelon said.

Donelon said the unanimous ruling, issued Friday, will reimburse all of AmCare Louisiana HMO's members, providers, and creditors for any losses caused by Health Net's conduct.

Health Net sold health plans in the three states to AmCareco Inc. in 1999. In 2002, the troubled health plans were placed under state supervision. Each of the state's insurance departments sued AmCareco and Health Net, alleging fraud, negligence, conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duty.

In 2005, a state district court jury awarded the Texas plaintiffs around $100 million in damages. In 2005, a state judge in Baton Rouge issued similar verdicts against Health Net and awarded $30 million to the Louisiana and Oklahoma plaintiffs.

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2 charged with insider trading involving law firms

Court Watch 2011/04/05 09:43   Bookmark and Share

Federal authorities have charged two men with running an insider trading scheme that netted more than $30 million with information stolen from law firms.

Garrett Bauer is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., on Wednesday afternoon. Matthew Kluger will make his first appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

They're accused of trading on inside information stolen from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Authorities also allege the decades-long scheme used information stolen from prominent New York law firms Cravath Swaine & Moore and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

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Wal-Mart women's class action before Supreme Court‎

Topics in Legal News 2011/04/03 09:44   Bookmark and Share

A sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of at least 500,000 past and present female employees appeared to be on the verge of unraveling at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, as conservative justices questioned the rationale for holding the retail giant accountable for store-level decisions.

In particular, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often casts the deciding vote in close cases, said the women's claims seemed contradictory. The plaintiffs said on the one hand that Wal-Mart was infused with sex bias, Kennedy said, and on the other hand that the company provided no standards to store managers who made the personnel decisions.

"It seems to me there's an inconsistency there, and I'm just not sure what the unlawful policy is," Kennedy said during the one-hour argument.

The women's lawyer, Joseph Sellers, replied that the only contradiction was between Wal-Mart's professed policy of nondiscrimination and its practice of paying women less than men and promoting them less often.

The Wal-Mart suit was filed in San Francisco by six women nearly a decade ago. Lower courts have certified it as a class action on behalf of female employees who have worked at the chain's retail stores and Sam's Club warehouses since December 1998.

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Texas death row inmate gets reprieve

Court News 2011/04/02 09:42   Bookmark and Share

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the first scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate using a new drug cocktail on Tuesday, although the proposed lethal mix was not mentioned in the court's decision to reconsider the merits of the condemned man's appeal.

Cleve Foster was to have been executed hours later for the 2002 slaying of a Sudanese woman in Fort Worth — the first Texas execution since the state switched to pentobarbital in its three-drug mixture. The sedative has already been used for executions in Oklahoma and Ohio.

On Tuesday morning, the high court agreed to reconsider its January order denying Foster's appeal that raised claims of innocence and poor legal help during his trial and early stages of his appeals.

Foster's lawyers also have argued that Texas prison officials violated administrative procedures last month when they announced the switch to pentobarbital from sodium thiopental, which is in short supply nationwide. Foster's lawyers contend that the rules change in Texas required more time for public comment and review. Lower courts have rejected their appeals and attorneys had planned to take their case to the Texas Supreme Court.

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NY court to hear case of missed police evidence

Court News 2011/03/23 10:07   Bookmark and Share

New York's top court will hear arguments whether a New York Police Department sergeant's failure to get statements from two witnesses to a stabbing in a Times Square theater means a man's assault conviction should be overturned.

The trial judge refused to let defense lawyers cross-examine the sergeant about the unknown bystanders, who he overheard saying the injured man pulled the knife — not suspect Kenneth Hayes — but did not question because he was busy securing the scene.

The judge also ruled the police failure to get their contact information didn't violate the Brady requirement that prosecutors disclose information to the defense that could prove their client innocent.

A midlevel court divided 3-2 in rejecting Hayes' appeal.

He was also found guilty of weapon possession in the scuffle with Charles Shell, although Hayes claimed self-defense.

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