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Court sentences Congo warlord to 30 years for atrocities
Attorney News |
2019/11/10 02:15
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The International Criminal Court passed its highest ever sentence Thursday, sending a Congolese warlord known as "The Terminator" to prison for 30 years for crimes including murder, rape and sexual slavery.
Bosco Ntaganda was found guilty in July of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role as a military commander in atrocities during a bloody ethnic conflict in a mineral-rich region of Congo in 2002-2003.
Ntaganda showed no emotion as Presiding Judge Robert Fremr passed sentences ranging from eight years to 30 years for individual crimes and an overarching sentence of 30 years.
The court's maximum sentence is 30 years, although judges also have the discretion to impose a life sentence. Lawyers representing victims in the case had called for a life term.
Fremr said despite the gravity of the crimes and Ntaganda's culpability, his convictions "do not warrant a sentence of life imprisonment."
Ida Sawyer, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division, welcomed the ruling. "Bosco Ntaganda's 30-year sentence sends a strong message that even people considered untouchable may one day be held to account," Sawyer said.
Jolino Makelele, a spokesman for the government in Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, said: "We think that justice was done for the victims."
Ntaganda, who has insisted he is innocent, became a symbol of widespread impunity in Africa in the seven-odd years between first being indicted by the global court and finally turning himself in in 2013 as his powerbase fell apart. |
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Supreme Court considering whether Trump must open tax returns
Legal PR |
2019/11/06 10:14
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California’s Supreme Court is considering Wednesday whether President Donald Trump must disclose his tax returns if he wants to be a candidate in the state’s primary election next spring.
The high court is hearing arguments even though a federal judge already temporarily blocked the state law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be included in the state’s primary.
The justices’ consideration comes the same week that a federal appeals court in New York ruled that Trump’s tax returns can be turned over to state criminal investigators there, although that ruling is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The California Republican Party and chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson filed the state lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing in July of the law aimed at the Republican president.
It’s a clear violation of the California Constitution, opponents argued, citing a 1972 voter-approved amendment they said guarantees that all recognized candidates must be on the ballot.
Previously, “California politicians rigged the primary election, putting up ‘favorite son’ nominees for partisan political advantage,” they wrote, suggesting that Democratic lawmakers are doing the same thing now by different means. |
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Woman accused of disorderly conduct outside Maricopa court
Legal PR |
2019/11/04 14:59
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Authorities say a woman has been arrested for disorderly conduct after creating a messy situation in the courthouse parking lot in the town of Maricopa.
Police say Tally Leto allegedly poured alcohol into the vehicle of a court client, let the air out of the man's tires and spat on the windows before wiping them off.
The owner of the vehicle didn't want to prosecute Leto. But the court chose to press charges because Leto was on court property in the parking lot.
As a result of being arrested last Monday, Leto failed to appear for her two criminal cases scheduled for later that day at Western Pinal Justice Court.
The Maricopa Monitor reports that the two charges Leto was attending court for were criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct.
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Appeals court agrees Trump tax returns can be turned over
Legal PR |
2019/11/04 10:13
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President Donald Trump’s tax returns can be turned over to New York prosecutors by his personal accountant, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, leaving the last word to the Supreme Court
The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upholds a lower court decision in the ongoing fight over Trump’s financial records. Trump has refused to release his tax returns since he was a presidential candidate, and is the only modern president who hasn’t made that financial information public.
In a written decision, three appeals judges said they only decided whether a state prosecutor can demand Trump’s personal financial records from a third party while the president is in office.
The appeals court said it did not consider whether the president is immune from indictment and prosecution while in office or whether the president himself may be ordered to produce documents in a state criminal proceeding.
According to the decision, a subpoena seeking Trump’s private tax returns and financial information relating to businesses he owns as a private citizen “do not implicate, in any way, the performance of his official duties.”
Several weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan tossed out Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block his accountant from letting a grand jury see his tax records from 2011.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. sought the records in a broader probe that includes payments made to buy the silence of two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal, who claim they had affairs with the president before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied them. |
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Georgia high court affirms dismissal of election challenge
Court Line |
2019/11/02 03:49
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Georgia's highest court on Thursday affirmed a lower court dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the outcome of last year's race for lieutenant governor in a case that put a spotlight on the outdated voting machines the state is in the process of replacing.
The lawsuit alleged that an undercount of tens of thousands of votes in the lieutenant governor's race was likely caused by problems with the state's paperless touchscreen voting machines that either caused voters not to vote in that race or those votes to go uncounted.
That assertion is "wholly unsupported" by the record in the case, so the trial court wasn't wrong to conclude that the plaintiffs "failed to meet their burden of showing an irregularity in Georgia's electronic voting system sufficient to cast doubt on the 2018 election," Georgia Supreme Court Justice Sarah Warren wrote in the unanimous opinion.
Republican Geoff Duncan beat Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico by 123,172 votes to become lieutenant governor. Amico is not a party to the lawsuit, which was filed in November by the Coalition for Good Governance, an election integrity advocacy organization; Smythe Duval, who ran for secretary of state as a Libertarian; and two Georgia voters. It was filed against Duncan and election officials.
Senior Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs dismissed the lawsuit in January. In their appeal to the high court, the plaintiffs argued that Grubbs erred by not allowing discovery prior to trial.
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