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Mississippi court upholds Democratic primary ballot change
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2016/02/24 22:48
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The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld its ruling Friday that another candidate must be added to the March 8 Democratic presidential primary ballot.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann doesn’t have to reissue already-sent absentee ballots to include Chicago businessman Willie Wilson’s name.
The ruling rejected Hosemann’s request that the court overturn its Thursday ruling, or at least allow him to resend absentee ballots including Wilson to roughly 200 military and other voters outside the country, so they would get the same ballot as voters at the polls. Absentee voting started Jan. 23 for those voters.
Hosemann said about 7,000 absentee ballots have also been sent to people in Mississippi.
“I am diametrically opposed to having different ballots,” Hosemann said.
Most counties vote electronically, but some use paper ballots that must be reprinted, and Hosemann’s office told the court changes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More than 7,000 voting machines have already been tested with a previously set ballot that lists five candidates in the Democratic presidential primary: Hillary Clinton, Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. The ballot was prepared before O’Malley dropped out.
Mississippi law says the secretary of state puts nationally recognized presidential candidates on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots. Other presidential candidates can get on the ballot by submitting a petition with at least 500 signatures.
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German court ends fight over estate of Iran shah's 2nd wife
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2016/02/23 23:01
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A German court has ruled that the estate of the former shah of Iran's second wife, Soraya Esfandiari-Bakhtiari, belongs to her late brother's ex-chauffeur.
The ruling announced Tuesday by the Cologne state court comes nearly 15 years after Soraya's death. She named as heir her brother, Bijan Esfandiari, who lived in Cologne and died days after her. The court ruled that a short will the brother wrote in a notebook, naming his former chauffeur and private secretary as his heir, is valid.
The man had spent several years disputing part of the inheritance with relatives of Soraya. The court didn't specify its value.
Soraya married Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1951. Seven years later, the shah repudiated her in an Islamic divorce after they failed to have children.
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High court takes up challenges to drunken-driving test
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2016/02/01 21:04
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The Supreme Court will decide whether states can criminalize a driver's refusal to take an alcohol test even if police have not obtained a search warrant.
The justices on Friday agreed to hear three cases challenging laws in Minnesota and North Dakota that make it a crime for people arrested for drunken driving to refuse to take a test that can detect alcohol in blood, breath or urine.
At least a dozen states make it a crime to refuse to consent to warrantless alcohol testing. State supreme courts in Minnesota and North Dakota have ruled the laws don't violate constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that police usually must try to obtain a search warrant before ordering blood tests for drunken-driving suspects. The high court said circumstances justifying an exception to the warrant requirement should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
In the case from Minnesota, police arrested William Bernard after his truck got stuck while trying to pull a boat out of a river in South Saint Paul. Police officers smelled alcohol on his breath and said his eyes were bloodshot. After Bernard refused to take a breath test, police took him into custody.
Bernard was charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and a first-degree count of refusal to take a breath test, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in prison.
He argued that the refusal law violated his Fourth Amendment rights by criminalizing his refusal to submit to a search. A divided Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the law, finding that officers could have ordered a breath test without a warrant as a search incident to a valid arrest.
The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld similar challenges to its test refusal law, ruling that motorists are deemed to consent to alcohol testing. The court called the law a reasonable tool in discouraging drunk driving.
One of the two North Dakota cases the high court will hear involves Danny Birchfield, who was arrested after he drove his car into a ditch and failed a field sobriety test and a breath test. He declined to take to additional tests and was convicted under the state's refusal law, which counts as a misdemeanor for a first offense.
A second appeal from North Dakota comes from Steve Beylund, a driver who was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving and consented to a chemical alcohol test. Beylund later tried to suppress the evidence from that test, but lower courts declined.
In all three cases, the challengers argue that warrantless searches are justified only in "extraordinary circumstances." They say routine drunk driving investigations are among the most ordinary of law enforcement functions in which traditional privacy rights apply. |
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Rome court acquits ex-Vatican accountant of corruption
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2016/01/12 21:04
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A lawyer for an Italian monsignor who was fired from his Vatican accountant's job says a Rome court has acquitted his client of corruption.
Prosecutors alleged Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was involved in a purported plot to use a private plane to try to smuggle 20 million euros (about $22 million) from Switzerland into Italy to evade taxes. They suspected the money was deposited in Switzerland to avoid Italian taxes.
Defense lawyer Silverio Sica says Scarano was acquitted of the corruption charge on Monday. According to Sica, the court convicted Scarano of slander and gave him a suspended two-year sentence.
Separately, Scarano is on trial in Salerno, Italy, for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money. Italian prosecutors said the once highly-secretive Vatican bank amply cooperated in that case.
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