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Egypt court orders prominent blogger freed
Legal Focuses |
2011/12/24 00:35
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An Egyptian investigative judge ordered the release Sunday of a prominent blogger detained nearly two months ago by the ruling military, which had accused him of attacking soldiers during deadly clashes in October.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah's father, Ahmed Seif, told The Associated Press his son would remain in custody for several more hours until the paperwork has been completed. He said his son has been banned from travel abroad.
Abdel-Fattah's sister, activist Mona Seif, told the AP her brother was on his way to the Egyptian capital's security headquarters where he would be freed later in the day.
Military prosecutors detained Abdel-Fattah on Oct. 30 after he refused to answer questions about their allegations that he played a role in the clashes.
The violence on Oct. 9 began when groups of stone-throwers attacked a crowd of Coptic Christians protesting an attack on a church in southern Egypt. TV footage showed the military moving in with force, including using armored vehicles to run over the crowds. |
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Pa.'s rhyming justice pens insurance fraud opinion
Court Line |
2011/12/22 19:05
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A state Supreme Court justice known for opinions written in rhyme has done it again, producing six pages of verse Thursday in the case of whether the maker of a forged check also had committed insurance fraud.
Justice J. Michael Eakin, writing for a 4-2 majority, concluded in six-line stanzas that a man's attempt to deposit a forged check appearing to be from State Farm didn't constitute insurance fraud.
"Sentenced on the other crimes, he surely won't go free, but we find he can't be guilty of this final felony," Eakin wrote. "Convictions for the forgery and theft are approbated -- the sentence for insurance fraud, however, is vacated. The case must be remanded for resentencing, we find, so the trial judge may impose the result he originally had in mind."
A dissenting three-page opinion by Justice Thomas G. Saylor didn't rhyme.
Eakin was first elected to the high court in 2001 after earning a reputation as the "rhyming judge" by issuing some opinions entirely in verse while sitting on an intermediate state appellate court in the late 1990s. Two former state Supreme Court justices, Stephen A. Zappala and the late Ralph J. Cappy, had expressed concern in the past that the practice could reflect poorly on the court. |
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France ponders removing risky breast implants
Legal News |
2011/12/21 19:05
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Emmanuelle Maria's breasts were burning and globules of silicone gel were protruding into her armpits. Her implants had exploded inside her. Yet her doctors, she says, told her nothing was wrong.
Now, she wants the French government to tell 30,000 women to get their implants removed — at the state's expense — to call attention to their risks and save others from potential pain and indignity.
Prompted by calls from implant wearers and leading doctors, French health authorities are considering a drastic and unprecedented move: recommending mass surgery to rid the country of a type of breast implant that investigators say was secretly made with cheap industrial silicone whose medical dangers remain unclear.
Governments around Europe are hanging on France's decision Friday. Tens of thousands more women in Britain, Italy, Spain and other European nations are walking around with the same pre-filled implants, made by the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, or PIP.
Health officials from several European countries held a conference call Wednesday to discuss the implants, Portugal's Director-General of Health, Dr. Francisco Jorge, told The Associated Press. European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said no decisions were made, but France informed the others of the situation. |
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Court schedules week of health care arguments
Legal News |
2011/12/19 19:31
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The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will use an unprecedented week's worth of argument time in late March to decide the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul before the 2012 presidential elections.
The high court scheduled arguments for March 26th, 27th and 28th over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which aims to provide health insurance to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans. The arguments fill the entire court calendar that week with nothing but debate over Obama's signature domestic health care achievement.
With the March dates set, it means a final decision on the massive health care overhaul will likely come before Independence Day in the middle of Obama's re-election campaign. The new law has been vigorously opposed by all of Obama's prospective GOP opponents. Republicans have branded the law unconstitutional since before Obama signed it in a March 2010 ceremony.
In an extraordinary move, the justices are hearing more than five hours of arguments over the health care overhaul. In the modern era, the last time the court increased that time anywhere near this much was in 2003 for consideration of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul. That case consumed four hours of argument.
The Supreme Court will start the week of arguments that Monday with one hour on whether court action is premature because no one yet has paid a fine for not participating in the overhaul. |
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Operative gets prison for bilking NYC mayor
Legal Focuses |
2011/12/19 19:31
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A political operative convicted of bamboozling Mayor Michael Bloomberg out of hundreds of thousands of dollars was sentenced to prison Monday un a case that brought the billionaire politician to the witness stand and gave the public a behind-the-scenes look at his campaign and City Hall.
John Haggerty agreed to pay $750,000 in restitution to Bloomberg in addition to his prison term of 1 1/3 to 4 years.
Haggerty, a veteran Republican campaign consultant, was convicted in October after a trial that jurors called a crash course in the workings of politics. Besides the business-mogul-turned-mayor, the case drew in the state's third-largest political party and featured a coterie of Bloomberg insiders sketching their roles in his political, philanthropic and business affairs.
"Since starting my career, I've worked hard to make a reputation in the world of politics and government as a dedicated, honorable individual. Today, my reputation is destroyed," Haggerty told the judge in a strong voice. "If I could do it all over again, I would certainly do it much differently than I did."
He walked out of court briskly, without handcuffs, after state Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel pronounced a sentence he said he felt necessary "to restore the public's confidence in the electoral process and to serve as a deterrent." Haggerty's lawyers said they planned to ask an appeals court to let him out on bail during a planned appeal. |
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