The Michigan appeals court has overturned a Washtenaw County judge and said a young man who committed sexual misconduct at school must be on the state's sex-offender list.

Judge Darlene O'Brien said registration in the case was cruel punishment that violated the Michigan Constitution, but the appeals court disagreed.

A man identified in court papers as T.D. was 15 in 2006 when he was accused of putting a chokehold on a girl and exposing her breast while another boy tugged on her belt. T.D. was placed in a youth home and completed therapy.

AdvertisementHe was required to register when he turned 18. The appeals court says it's not punishment but a way to inform the public even if the risk of another offense is low.

A federal appeals court has affirmed a judge's decision to let stand Minnesota's law requiring the disclosure of corporate political donations, saying the state's rules are similar to laws upheld by the Supreme Court and the groups who want them blocked are unlikely to prevail.

In an opinion filed Monday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with claims that Minnesota's disclosure requirements effectively prohibit corporate independent expenditures and impose burdensome regulations that ban free speech.

"The burden on corporations appears light, and the reporting requirement greatly facilitates the government's informational interest in monitoring corporate independent expenditures," the appeals court found. The judges wrote that rather than banning contributions, the law provides a way to disclose certain information.

Minnesota law requires that in election years, businesses and independent groups must submit five reports and disclose large donations within 24 hours for the three weeks leading up to the primary and the last two weeks before the general election. In off years, one report is required. The registration requirement is triggered when businesses or independent funds spend more than $100. Penalties for violations can be up to $25,000.

One member of the three-judge panel disagreed with the majority in part, saying the state's reporting requirements chill political speech.

Scott Johnson calls himself a crusader for the disabled. The hundreds of small businesses he routinely sues call him a legal extortionist.
Welcome to the rough and tumble world of providing access to the disabled. At the heart of the matter is the American with Disabilities Act, the controversial federal law requiring a minimum level of access in all public places.

Disabled advocates say since no government agency enforces the law, that task has fallen to private attorneys who file lawsuits to compel the noncompliant to provide equal access to all. Because of a quirk in California law, the state stands out as a magnet for disabled-access lawsuits and several lawyers have made a name for themselves as frequent filers.

Few, though, are as prolific as Johnson.

Since 2004, Johnson has filed more than 1,000 boiler plate lawsuits in Sacramento federal court, slightly tweaking the documents to fit the target: a restaurant's service counter is too high or an apartment complex doesn't have enough disabled parking. Just last week, the Carmichael lawyer filed more than two dozen lawsuits, mostly aimed at apartment complexes.

Federal prosecutors have been turning up the heat on a Florida woman accused of arranging the 2009 killings of her millionaire husband and mother-in-law.

Narcy Novack of Fort Lauderdale and her brother, Cristobal Veliz of Brooklyn, N.Y., are due in court Friday morning for a status conference.

Novack and Veliz are accused of hiring others to kill Ben Novack in his New York hotel room and Bernice Novack in her Florida home.

Last month, the government added the mother-in-law's killing to the charges against Novack and Veliz. And a prosecutor said another charge — which carries the possibility of the death penalty — may be in store.

Defense attorneys suggested the prosecution was trying to force a guilty plea.

Ben Novack's father built the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, Fla.

A Georgia insurance company that paid a wrongful death claim on behalf of a former Utah State University fraternity has settled the lawsuit it brought against four of the fraternity's members.

The Herald Journal of Logan reports that attorneys for RSUI Inc. told a 1st District Court judge the company had resolved a dispute with the four men. Court records show attorneys met with the judge April 20 — one day before a planned hearing.

RSUI sought $50,000 each from Sigma Nu pledge Chad Burton and chapter officers Cody Littlewood, Colton Hansen and Mitchell Alm as compensation for a settlement payment to the parents of Michael Starks.

Starks died Nov. 21, 2008, from alcohol poisoning after a fraternity event.

At the time, RSUI was the insurer for the fraternity and its members, including pledges. RSUI attorneys have acknowledged that both the company and the four defendants would have been jointly liable to Starks' parents, George and Jane Starks of Salt Lake City. The company claims it paid the full amount of a settlement with the Starks, although those terms have not been made public.

A 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.