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Milan court convicts 3 Americans in CIA kidnapping
Court Watch |
2013/02/08 21:05
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A Milan appeals court on Friday vacated acquittals for a former CIA station chief and two other Americans, and instead convicted them in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.
The decision means that all 26 Americans tried in absentia for the abduction now have been found guilty.
The ongoing trials, which have dragged on for years, brought the first convictions anywhere in the world against CIA agents involved in a practice alleged to have led to torture. The case has been the source of diplomatic tensions, although three successive Italian leaders, including the technical government of Premier Mario Monti, have invoked state secrets, which has had the impact of limiting evidence in the successive trials and led to the acquittals of five Italians, including two spy chiefs.
An appeals court sentenced former CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey Castelli to seven years, and handed sentences of six years each to Americans Betnie Medero and Ralph Russomando. A lower court, while convicting 23 other Americans in November 2009, had acquitted the three, citing diplomatic immunity. |
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Iowa Tax Service Owner Pleads Guilty
Legal News |
2013/02/05 05:38
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An eastern Iowa woman has pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns.
Authorities say 60-year-old Regina Jimenez faces up to three years in federal prison. She entered her pleas on Friday in U.S. District Court in Davenport.
Federal prosecutors say Jimenez used her Clinton business from 2007 through 2011 to steal more than $200,000 from a client who believed that Jimenez would use the money to pay the client's taxes. Prosecutors say Jimenez instead used the money for her own expenditures and did not report the stolen funds on her tax returns. |
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Court says EPA overestimates biofuels production
Court Watch |
2013/01/30 06:59
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A federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency is overestimating the amount of fuel that can be produced from grasses, wood and other nonfood plants in an effort to promote a fledgling biofuels industry.
At issue is a 2007 renewable fuels law that requires a certain amount of those types of fuels, called cellulosic biofuels, to be mixed in with gasoline each year. Despite annual EPA projections that the industry would produce small amounts of the biofuels, none of that production materialized.
There have been high hopes in Washington that the cellulosic industry would take off as farmers, food manufacturers and others blamed the skyrocketing production of corn ethanol fuel for higher food prices. Those groups said the diversion of corn crops for fuel production raised prices for animal feed and eventually for consumers at the grocery store. Lawmakers hoped that nonfood sources like switchgrass or corn husks could be used instead, though the industry hadn't yet gotten off the ground.
The 2007 law mandated that billions of gallons of annual production of corn ethanol be mixed with gasoline, eventually transitioning those annual requirements to include more of the nonfood, cellulosic materials to produce the biofuels. As criticism of ethanol has increased, lawmakers and even Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have talked of the cellulosic materials as the future of biofuels. |
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San Francisco nudity ban upheld in federal court
Court Line |
2013/01/22 22:28
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A federal judge cleared the way Tuesday for the city of San Francisco to ban most displays of public nudity, ruling that an ordinance set to take effect on Feb. 1 does not violate the free speech rights of residents and visitors who like going out in the buff.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen refused to block the ban temporarily or to allow a lawsuit challenging it to proceed.
"In spite of what plaintiffs argue, nudity in and of itself is not inherently expressive," Chen wrote in an 18-page opinion.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 last month to prohibit residents and visitors over age 5 from exposing their genitals on public streets, in parks or plazas or while using public transit.
The measure was introduced in response to a group of nudists that regularly gathers in the city's predominantly gay Castro District. The threat of seeing outlawed a right that many people associate with free-spirited San Francisco prompted public protests and disrobing at supervisors meetings.
The activists who challenged the measure in court also had argued that the ordinance was unfair because it grants exceptions for public nudity at permitted public events such as the city's gay pride parade and the annual Bay-to-Breakers foot race.
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Lawyers from LGBT group to join Supreme Court bar
Legal News |
2013/01/18 07:43
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An organization of gay and lesbian lawyers says 30 of its members will be sworn into the Supreme Court bar in a courtroom ceremony next week.
The National LGBT Bar Association says it's the first time it will take part in the mass swearing-in that occurs on most days the court is in session.
Association executive director D'Arcy Kemnitz said many members already will be in Washington for President Barack Obama's inauguration on Monday. They'll be sworn in Tuesday.
By custom, a Supreme Court lawyer vouches for prospective members, and Chief Justice John Roberts welcomes them before they swear to support the Constitution.
Openly gay lawyers already practice before the Supreme Court, but Tuesday will mark the first time lawyers will be identified at the ceremony as LGBT Bar members. |
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