Headline Legal News 2012/08/24 14:16
A Washington state man accused of making an email threat against President Barack Obama and brandishing a shotgun at officers who came to his door is scheduled to appear in federal court.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary says 31-year-old Anton Caluori was arrested Tuesday at an apartment in Federal Way for investigation of making threats against the president and assault on a federal officer.
U.S. attorney's spokeswoman Emily Langlie says the threat was sent to a general purpose FBI email address.
A Secret Service agent and a Federal Way police officer went to an apartment, knocked and announced themselves for about three minutes, then found themselves facing a man armed with a shotgun when the door opened.
Leary says Caluori is set to appear at 2 p.m. Wednesday in court.
Headline Legal News 2012/08/01 16:54
A federal court has given Chevron Corp. and driller Transocean Ltd. 30 days to suspend all petroleum drilling and transportation operations in Brazil until the conclusion of investigations into two oil spills off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
The court says in a statement posted Wednesday on its web site each company will be fined 500 million reals ($244 million) for each day they fail to comply with the suspension.
About 155, 000 gallons of oil crude began seeping from cracks in the ocean floor at the site of a Chevron appraisal well in November. Two weeks later, the National Petroleum Agency said the seepage was under control. But in March, oil again started leaking and Chevron voluntarily suspended production in the field.
Headline Legal News 2012/07/25 14:26
The first legal test for Pennsylvania's tough new voter identification law is arriving.
A state Commonwealth Court judge will begin a hearing Wednesday on whether to block the law from taking effect in this year's election while the court considers a challenge to its constitutionality.
The hearing could last a week.
The law is the subject of a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest in the Nov. 6 election.
Republicans say it's necessary to prevent fraud. But Democrats say it's an election-year scheme to steal the White House and contend that there's no track record of fraud that it would prevent.
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed the law in March without a single Democratic lawmaker supporting it.
Headline Legal News 2012/07/09 15:17
The FBI is investigating the apparent theft of $17 million from Northern California trust fund accounts.
The San Jose Mercury News says the money has vanished from the trust funds of dozens of Santa Clara County residents who relied on a money manager to oversee their life savings.
Probate court records show the investigation centers on accounts administered by Christine Backhouse. She handles more than $104 million in assets.
Court records show she doesn't have enough insurance to cover the missing funds.
Backhouse says a boyfriend secretly wired millions of dollars out of the trusts.
The Campbell money manager mostly handled private trusts with no judicial oversight of her fees for service.
Headline Legal News 2012/06/29 09:55
The Supreme Court has turned down media companies' plea to lift a prohibition on owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same market.
The justices on Friday denied the companies' appeal without comment. The media outlets say the restrictions no longer make sense in the Internet era.
The appeal also sought to get rid of other ownership limits including how many local television stations one company can control.
The companies say the rules make it harder for broadcasters and newspapers to do business and respond to competitors on the Internet, satellite and cable — entities which don't face the same restrictions.
Critics of media consolidation have warned of the dangers of too many media outlets falling under the ownership of a handful of large corporations.
Headline Legal News 2012/06/18 12:36
The Supreme Court says the government must fully reimburse Native American tribes for money they spent on federal programs.
The federal government had agreed to fully reimburse money tribes spent on programs like law enforcement, environmental protection and agricultural assistance, but Congress capped the amount of money earmarked for that reimbursement. The tribes sued, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver said the money must be fully reimbursed.
The high court on Monday said the Ramah Navajo Chapter and other Native American tribes must get their money back.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion for Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito dissented.