Inmate pleads guilty in prison guard's stabbing

Topics in Legal News 2014/03/14 14:47   Bookmark and Share
An inmate has pleaded guilty to murder in the stabbing death of a guard at a federal prison in Central California.

The U.S Attorney's Office says 48-year-old James Ninete Leon Guerrero, of Guam, entered the plea on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Guerrero held Officer Jose Rivera down at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atwater in 2008 as another inmate, Jose Cabrera Sablan, stabbed him more than 20 times with an eight-inch shank. The 22-year-old Rivera - a U.S. Navy veteran - was doing a daily headcount when he was attacked.

Guerrero was serving a life prison sentence at the time in connection with an armed bank robbery. Prosecutors say under a plea agreement, he will receive another life term. Sablan is scheduled to go on trial in April.
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Coast Guardsman guilty in sexual misconduct case

Topics in Legal News 2014/03/10 13:51   Bookmark and Share
Coast Guard officials in New Orleans say a petty officer has been convicted and sentenced on charges involving sexual assault and possession of child pornography.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher C. Bush's court martial was held in Norfolk, Va.

A Coast Guard news release said the 28-year-old Bush was convicted Friday on four violations of a Uniform Code of Military Justice article dealing with rape and sexual assault and one involving child pornography.

The crimes involved a junior Coast Guard woman and a civilian woman. They happened between January 2010 and May 2013 while Bush was stationed at a unit in New Orleans. The Coast Guard said it was not releasing the name of the unit to protect the privacy of the victims.
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Court: Broad protection for whistleblowers

Topics in Legal News 2014/03/05 13:53   Bookmark and Share
The Supreme Court says whistleblower protections in a federal law passed in response to the Enron financial scandal apply broadly to employees of publicly traded companies and contractors hired by the companies.

The justices ruled 6-3 Tuesday in favor of two former employees of companies that administer the Fidelity family of mutual funds. The workers claimed they faced retaliation after they reported allegations of fraud affecting Fidelity funds.

The case involved the reach of a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 in response to the Enron scandal, that protects whistleblower activity. The measure was intended to protect people who expose the kind of corporate misdeeds that arose at Enron.
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Moscow court sends 7 to prison for protest rally

Topics in Legal News 2014/02/24 14:39   Bookmark and Share
A Russian court handed down prison sentences Monday of up to four years for seven people who took part in a 2012 protest against Vladimir Putin. An eighth defendant received a suspended sentence.

Hundreds of their supporters gathered outside the courthouse to condemn the trial and the Kremlin's crackdown on opposition. Police detained about 200 of them, accusing them of violating public order.

Among those detained were members of the punk band Pussy Riot who had spent nearly two years in prison as punishment for their own anti-Putin protest.

The defendants sentenced Monday were among 28 people rounded up after the May 6, 2012, protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration for a third presidential term. The rally turned violent after police restricted access to Bolotnaya Square, across the river from the Kremlin, where the protesters had permission to gather.

The eight defendants were found guilty last week, but sentencing was postponed until Monday. All have been in custody for nearly two years except for Anastasia Dukhanina, 20, who was under house arrest. She was given a suspended sentence.
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Maine's high court to hear environmental dispute

Topics in Legal News 2014/02/13 14:57   Bookmark and Share
Maine's highest court is scheduled to hear arguments in a legal dispute over the environmental cleanup of the former HoltraChem Manufacturing Co. plant in Orrington.

The Portland Press Herald reports that the Supreme Judicial Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday on an appeal by Mallinckrodt LLC, a St. Louis-based pharmaceutical company that inherited responsibility for the site after HoltraChem went bankrupt. Mallinckrodt is seeking to overturn an order that it must complete an environmental cleanup that could cost $250 million.

The chemical plant used mercury in its manufacturing processes and dumped waste directly into the Penobscot River. The plant later deposited waste in five landfills on its 235-acre campus.

Mallinckrodt contends in its appeal that the Maine Board of Environmental Protection overstepped its legal authority in ordering the cleanup.
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Pakistan court dismisses Musharraf medical request

Topics in Legal News 2014/02/03 15:20   Bookmark and Share
A Pakistani court hearing the case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on charges of high treason rejected Friday a request that he be allowed to go abroad for treatment, his lawyer and a court official said.

Instead, they said, it issued an arrest warrant for the retired general. But the warrant is "bailable" — meaning he can avoid jail by applying for bail and depositing a bond of 2.5 million rupees (about $20,000). The court said it didn't have the authority to remove his name from the exit control list which restricts him from going abroad.

While Musharraf can't leave the country, it's unlikely he would actually end up in handcuffs immediately and still unclear whether he will ever appear in court — a scene that could be humiliating not just to Musharraf, but to the country's politically powerful military.

The judges' decision is the latest in the legal battles that Musharraf has faced ever since returning to his homeland in March 2013 to take part in the country's elections. Instead of returning to a hero's welcome, he was almost immediately hit with a barrage of cases, threats from the Pakistani Taliban and was disbarred from running in the election.

A lawyer for Musharraf, Mohammed Ali Saif, said the judges ruled that Musharraf must appear in court on Feb. 7.

"We are of the view that no reasonable excuse has been offered to justify the failure of the accused to appear before the court, there is no alternate except to issue a bailable warrant of arrest for the accused," said the court registrar Abdul Ghani Soomro, reading from the court's decision.

Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, but became deeply unpopular and was forced to step down in 2008. He later left the country. The high treason case stems from his 2007 decision to impose a state of emergency and detain judges.
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