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Ex-soldiers acquitted of 1972 murder of Official IRA leader
Law Firm News |
2021/05/02 14:19
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Two former British paratroopers accused of the 1972 murder of an Official IRA leader in Belfast were formally acquitted Tuesday after the veterans’ trial collapsed.
Joe McCann, 24, was allegedly evading arrest when he was shot dead by paratroopers in the Markets area of Belfast in April 1972.
The trial of the two veterans, now in their 70s and identified only as A and C, opened last week at Belfast Crown Court. It was the first in years that involved charges against former military personnel who served in Northern Ireland’s bloody conflict, known as the Troubles.
But a judge ruled that evidence implicating the former soldiers was not admissible and prosecutors said Tuesday they would not offer further evidence at the trial.
McCann’s family lawyer Niall Murphy said outside the court Tuesday that the ruling “does not acquit the state of murder” and that the family plans to apply to the Attorney General for an inquest into the killing.
“This ruling does not mean that Joe McCann was not murdered by the British Army,” he told reporters. “He was shot in the back whilst unarmed, from a distance of 40 metres, posing no threat. It was easier to arrest him than to murder him.”
Joe McCann’s daughter, Aine, criticized the state for failing “at all levels” in her father’s case as well as for many other families.
McCann was wanted by the British Army and was involved in many shootings, including the 1972 attempted assassination of then-unionist official John Taylor.
Statements made by the defendants to the Royal Military Police in 1972 could not be accepted because of problems, including that the defendants were ordered to make them and they were not conducted under caution.
A second source of evidence ? statements the two men gave to a police legacy unit in 2010 ? was ruled not legitimate. The judge sided with defense lawyers on Friday, ruling that this evidence was just the 1972 evidence “dressed up and freshened up with a 2010 cover.”
Philip Barden, senior partner at the law firm representing soldiers A and C, said prosecutors should never have proceeded on the case. He said a senior judge should investigate the decision-making process “to ensure that the decision to prosecute these veterans was not political.”
Supporters of the veterans have said authorities should protect former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland from prosecutions. Former Defense Minister Johnny Mercer has called for legislation to end the “relentless pursuit of those who served their country.”
Four other cases involving the prosecution of British veterans are ongoing.
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Slain girl’s grandmother wants caseworkers deemed ‘reckless’
Court News |
2021/04/28 14:05
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The grandmother of a 2-year-old girl who was beaten and starved to death wants to file a wrongful death lawsuit against three caseworkers who oversaw the girl’s care, and has taken her case to the Ohio Supreme Court.
During oral arguments Wednesday, justices questioned the responsibility the state’s children’s service agency has for protecting children as its caseworkers investigate allegations of abuse.
The child prompting the case, Glenara Bates, weighed under 14 pounds ? almost half the recommended weight for a 2-year-old girl?when she died in March 2015, and Hamilton County authorities said she was beaten by her parents, with visible belt and bite marks among other injuries.
Her father, Glen Bates, was sentenced to death the following year, but his conviction and sentence were later overturned after the state high court said a juror who made racially biased comments on a jury questionnaire should not have been seated in the trial of Bates, who is Black. A new trial is scheduled for January.
The girl’s mother was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
After Glenara’s death, the girl’s maternal grandmother, Desena Bradley, sued three Hamilton County caseworkers, saying they missed obvious signs of abuse. Three weeks after caseworkers declared the girl “happy and healthy” during a March 2015 visit, she was dead, according to Desena Bradley’s complaint in the Ohio Supreme Court.
“According to the coroner, Glenara had been brutalized for months on end before her death,” Rachel Bloomekatz, an attorney representing the grandmother, said in a November court filing. “But somehow, Glenara’s bruises, scars, bite marks, whip marks, and gaunt, under-fed body completely eluded the caseworkers.”
State law provides case workers immunity from such lawsuits unless they were found to have acted “in a wanton or reckless manner.” Lower courts rejected the grandmother’s claims, saying she hadn’t provided enough evidence that the immunity should be lifted.
Desena Bradley appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which held oral arguments Wednesday. A decision isn’t expected for months. It’s unclear from court records whether Desena Bradley stepped in on behalf of her granddaughter when she was alive.
Hamilton County officials wants the high court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the girl was killed by her parents and not by county workers. There’s no evidence the caseworkers acted maliciously or in bad faith, county attorneys said.
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Nevada inmate fighting on several fronts to avoid execution
Law Firm News |
2021/04/24 14:17
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A convicted Nevada mass murderer is mounting a range of legal challenges to a bid to schedule his execution in early June, including questioning whether the district attorney in Las Vegas really wants the lethal injection carried out at a decommissioned prison in Carson City.
Prosecutor Alexander Chen on Friday said that’s a mistake that will be corrected in court filings next week.
Attorneys for Zane Michael Floyd filed new documents this week asking a state court judge to halt the process at least long enough to determine if the state’s lethal injection procedure would be unconstitutionally cruel and inhumane, and to force prisons officials to show they have the three drugs they would use.
“We would add to that the opportunity to present clemency on behalf of our client,” Floyd’s attorney, Brad Levenson, said in an email. “We are indeed litigating in state and federal court on many serious issues.”
District Attorney Steve Wolfson didn’t immediately respond to messages about documents that Levenson filed Wednesday.
One seeks a stay of execution. The other opposes Wolfson’s request for Clark County District Judge Michael Villani to issue a warrant to set Floyd’s execution date the week beginning June 7.
The prosecutor’s April 15 application for a death warrant specifies that the execution should be “within the limits of the State Prison, located at or near Carson City.”
Villani has scheduled court hearings on May 14. Floyd, 45, was sentenced in 2000 to die for killing four people with a shotgun and badly wounding a fifth in a Las Vegas supermarket in 1999.
He is one of 65 inmates housed on death row at Ely State Prison, a facility 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of Las Vegas and some 260 miles (418 kilometers) east of Carson City where a new lethal injection chamber was built in 2016 at a cost of about $860,000. It has never been used.
Floyd’s attorneys want a judge to force state Department of Corrections officials to say if they’ve changed a procedure posted in July 2018 for a lethal injection that was later called off; to prove they have the drugs they would use; and to demonstrate that witnesses would not be exposed to COVID-19. |
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Supreme Court rejects defendant’s appeal in 2015 slaying
Court News |
2021/04/20 14:36
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The South Dakota Supreme Court has upheld the life prison sentence given to a man who plotted the slaying of his ex-girlfriend, a 22-year-old Rapid City woman.
Jonathan Klinetobe pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Klinetobe was originally facing the death penalty in connection with the fatal stabbing of Jessica Rehfeld in 2015.
Prosecutors said Klinetobe was upset that Rehfeld broke up with him and convinced two other men to kidnap and kill her.
In his appeal, Klinetobe argued the judge who sentenced him abused her discretion and that the life term violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the Rapid City Journal reported.
The justices unanimously rejected both arguments. Klinetobe convinced Richard Hirth and David Schneider to kill Rehfeld after he made up a story that the Hell’s Angels would pay an $80,000 bounty since she had information on the motorcycle gang, according to prosecutors.
After Hirth and Schneider kidnapped and stabbed her to death while pretending to give her a ride to work, Klinetobe helped them bury her body in the woods near Rockerville, officials said.
Two weeks later, he hired Garland Brown and Michael Frye to help him dig up Rehfeld’s body from the shallow grave and bury her farther into the woods and deeper underground. Everyone but Hirth has pleaded guilty and been sentenced. |
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