|
|
|
China rights lawyer resurfaces after detention
Court News |
2011/04/27 09:20
|
pChina has released a crusading rights lawyer who was detained more than two months ago in a massive security crackdown aimed at preventing any Middle East-inspired unrest./ppTeng Biao returned home Friday afternoon but it was not convenient for him to speak with the media, his wife Wang Ling said. She declined to comment on his physical or mental well-being./ppOther lawyers and activists released after similar detentions have also declined to speak to the media, perhaps as a condition of their release./ppChina Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong rights advocacy group, said earlier that Teng disappeared Feb. 19 and that officers searched his home and seized two computers, a printer, articles, books, DVDs and photos of another rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng./ppA law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, Teng was among dozens of well-known lawyers and activists across China who have vanished, been interrogated or criminally detained for subversion as China's authoritarian government, apparently unnerved by events in the Middle East and North Africa, has moved to squelch dissent./p |
|
|
|
|
|
Court denies appeal over inmate's long sentence
Court News |
2011/04/19 09:02
|
div class=entrydiv class=articleThe Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a convicted insurance swindler who is protesting his 835-year prison term.
The court did not comment Monday in turning away a plea from Sholam Weiss for his release from prison and return to Austria, where he was arrested after he fled the United States during his criminal trial in Orlando, Fla. Weiss is in prison for his role in the collapse of a life insurance company in the 1990s that cost thousands of people their life savings.
He still may be able to appeal his conviction and sentence, even though an appeals court had earlier ruled that he forfeited his appeal rights when he became a fugitive.
A judge cut 10 years from Weiss' sentence when Austria returned him to the U.S.
/div
/div |
|
|
|
|
|
Utah court rejects appeal from polygamous sect
Court News |
2010/08/30 03:01
|
pUtah's Supreme Court has rejected a petition from members of a southern Utah-based polygamous sect seeking a reversal of changes made to its communal land trust./ppIn a ruling issued Friday, justices say members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints waited too long to challenge the state's intervention in the United Effort Plan Trust./ppValued at $110 million, the trust holds the property in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., the twin border towns where most church members live./ppUtah seized the trust in 2005 after allegations of mismanagement by church leaders. A court-appointed accountant has since converted the trust into a secular entity./ppFLDS members consider state control of the UEP a violation of their religious rights.
/p |
|
|
|
|
|
NY man gets 19 years to life in wife's poisoning
Court News |
2010/07/20 08:51
|
A New York man who admitted killing his wife by lacing her coffee with cyanide has been sentenced to 19 years to life in prison.pDavid Steeves of Center Moriches pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder in the death of 41-year-old Maureen Steeves./ppAn autopsy found the woman was killed by potassium cyanide poisoning. Prosecutors say her husband had laced her coffee with the lethal substance./ppDefense attorney Craig McElwee said the 45-year-old Steeves bought the cyanide to kill himself but chickened out and gave it to his wife instead./ppSteeves pleaded guilty after prosecutors assured him that his sons would not be in court for the sentencing. The boys, ages 17 and 15, wrote letters to the judge, saying their father deserved no mercy./p |
|
|
|
|