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Brown appoints legal affairs aide to appeals court
Court Issues |
2014/07/28 19:24
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Gov. Jerry Brown has named a senior aide to become an associate justice on the Sacramento-based Third District Court of Appeal.
Brown announced the appointment of Jonathan Renner on Friday.
The 44-year-old Democrat from Sacramento has been Brown's legal affairs secretary since 2011.
He was senior assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice from 2009 to 2010, when Brown was the state's attorney general. Renner previously held other high-ranking positions within the attorney general's office.
The appointment requires confirmation by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. It includes the current attorney general, Kamala Harris, and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye ("TAWNY canTILL SOCK-a-OO-ay").
If confirmed, Renner will begin his term Jan. 5. He would fill the vacancy created when Cantil-Sakauye moved to the California Supreme Court. |
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Suspect in bodies-in-suitcases case due in court
Court Issues |
2014/07/17 18:49
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A former police officer charged with dumping two bodies in suitcases along a rural Wisconsin road is due to enter a plea.
Fifty-two-year-old Steven Zelich is scheduled to attend a plea hearing in Walworth County Circuit Court Thursday on two counts of hiding a corpse.
Zelich's attorney, Travis Schwantes, says the charges might not stand up because prosecutors need to show the former West Allis officer tried to conceal a crime. Schwantes says Zelich claims he killed the two women in the suitcases accidentally during sexual encounters.
Authorities say homicide charges are expected to be filed in the counties where the women died. The bodies of 19-year-old Jenny Gamez, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, and 37-year-old Laura Simonson, of Farmington, Minnesota, were found in the suitcases by highway workers June 5. |
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Court issues partial win to bin Laden assistant
Court Issues |
2014/07/15 19:29
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A federal appeals court on Monday set aside two of three convictions against a former personal assistant to Osama bin Laden.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the case of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who produced propaganda videos for al-Qaida and assisted with preparations for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes.
A military commission had convicted him of conspiracy to commit war crimes, providing material support for terrorism and soliciting others to commit war crimes. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The appeals court rejected al-Bahlul's challenge to his conspiracy conviction but overturned his material support and solicitation convictions.
The court, in an opinion by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, said the government had offered little backup for the notion that a military commission could try defendants on the charges for which the convictions were overturned — material support for terrorism and solicitation to commit war crimes.
On the conspiracy conviction, the appeals court said Congress has positively identified conspiracy as a war crime. |
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Court: No blanket exemption for police dashcams
Court Issues |
2014/06/13 17:47
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The state Supreme Court has ruled that state dashboard cameras can't be withheld from public disclosure unless they relate to pending litigation.
Five of the high court's members said Thursday that the Seattle Police Department wrongly used a state statute as a blanket exemption to the state's public records act when it denied providing dashboard camera videos to a reporter with KOMO-TV. Their ruling overturns a 2012 King County Superior Court judge's ruling that said the department could withhold the videos for three years.
The majority awarded KOMO attorney fees and sent the case back to the lower court.
Four justices argued that the statute was clear that that the recordings should not be released to the public until completion of any criminal or civil litigation. |
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