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Arizona prosecutors ordered to send fake elector case back to grand jury
Press Releases |
2025/05/21 07:52
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Arizona prosecutors pressing the case against Republicans who are accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in President Donald Trump’s favor were dealt a setback when a judge ordered the case be sent back to a grand jury.
Arizona’s fake elector case remains alive after Friday’s ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers, but it’s being sent back to the grand jurors to determine whether there’s probable cause that the defendants committed the crimes.
The decision, first reported by the Washington Post, centered on the Electoral Count Act, a law that governs the certification of a presidential contest and was part of the defendants’ claims they were acting lawfully.
While the law was discussed when the case was presented to the grand jury and the panel asked a witness about the law’s requirements, prosecutors didn’t show the statute’s language to the grand jury, Myers wrote. The judge said a prosecutor has a duty to tell grand jurors all the applicable law and concluded the defendants were denied “a substantial procedural right as guaranteed by Arizona law.”
Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat whose office is pressing the case in court, said in a statement that prosecutors will appeal the decision. “We vehemently disagree with the court,” Taylor said.
Mel McDonald, a former county judge in metro Phoenix and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said courts send cases back to grand juries when prosecutors present misleading or incomplete evidence or didn’t properly instruct panel members on the law.
“They get granted at times. It’s not often,” said McDonald, who isn’t involved in the case.
In all, 18 Republicans were charged with forgery, fraud and conspiracy. The defendants consist of 11 Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to the former president, including Rudy Giuliani.
Two defendants have already resolved their cases, while the others have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.
Most of the defendants in the case also are trying to get a court to dismiss their charges under an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics.
They argued Mayes tried to use the charges to silence them for their constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to the race’s outcome. Prosecutors said the defendants didn’t have evidence to back up their retaliation claim and that they crossed the line from protected speech to fraud.
Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state in the 2020 election.
President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document later was sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
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Justice Dept moves to cancel police reform settlements reached with Minneapolis
Lawyer News |
2025/05/19 07:52
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The Justice Department moved Wednesday to cancel a settlement with Minneapolis that called for an overhaul of its police department following the murder of George Floyd, as well as a similar agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, saying it doesn’t want to pursue the cases.
Following a scathing report by the Justice Department in 2023, Minneapolis in January approved a consent decree with the federal government in the final days of the Biden administration to overhaul its training and use-of-force policies under court supervision.
The agreement required approval from a federal court in Minnesota. But the Trump administration was granted a delay soon after taking office while it considered its options, and on Wednesday told the court it does not intend to proceed. It planned to file a similar motion in federal court in Kentucky.
“After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest,” said the Minnesota motion, signed by Andrew Darlington, acting chief of the special litigation section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The United States will no longer prosecute this matter.”
The Justice Department announced its decision just before the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Then-officer Derek Chauvin used his knee on May 25, 2020, to pin the Black man to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes in a case that sparked protests around the world and a national reckoning with racism and police brutality.
However, no immediate changes are expected to affect the Minneapolis Police Department, which is operating under a similar consent decree with the Minnesota Human Rights Department.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara reiterated at a news conference Tuesday that his department would abide by the terms of the federal agreement as it was signed, regardless of what the Trump administration decided.
The city in 2023 reached a settlement agreement with the state Human Rights Department to remake policing, under court supervision, after the agency issued a blistering report in 2022 that found that police had long engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination. |
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What to know about the Supreme Court arguments in the birthright citizenship case
Legal Center |
2025/05/16 07:54
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The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Thursday in its first case stemming from the blitz of actions that have marked the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Before the court are the Trump administration’s emergency appeals of lower court orders putting nationwide holds on the Republican president’s push to deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally.
Birthright citizenship is among several issues, many related to immigration, that the administration has asked the court to address on an emergency basis, after lower courts acted to slow the president’s agenda.
The justices are also considering the administration’s pleas to end humanitarian parole for more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and to strip other temporary legal protections from another 350,000 Venezuelans. The administration remains locked in legal battles over its efforts to swiftly deport people accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
In Thursday’s arguments, the justices will be weighing whether judges have the authority to issue what are called nationwide, or universal, injunctions. The Trump administration, like the Biden administration before it, has complained that judges are overreaching by issuing orders that apply to everyone instead of just the parties before the court.
Yet in discussing the limits of a judge’s power, the court almost certainly will have to take up the change to citizenship that Trump wants to make, which would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years.
The first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Citizenship Clause, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was included to ensure that formerly enslaved people would be citizens. It effectively overturned the notorious Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court held that Black people, no matter their status, were not citizens.
Since at least 1898 and the Supreme Court case of Wong Kim Ark, the provision has been widely interpreted to make citizens of everyone born on U.S. soil except for the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; and, until a federal law changed things in 1924, sovereign Native American tribes.
Trump’s executive order would deny citizenship to children if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Those categories include people who are in the country illegally or temporarily because, the administration contends, they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
Almost immediately, states, immigrants and rights groups sued to block the executive order, accusing the Republican administration of trying to unsettle the understanding of birthright citizenship. Every court to consider the issue has sided with the challengers.
The administration is asking for the court orders to be reined in, not overturned entirely, and spends little time defending the executive order. The Justice Department argues that there has been an “explosion” in the number of nationwide injunctions issued since Trump retook the White House. The far-reaching court orders violate the law as well as long-standing views on a judge’s authority, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration.
Courts typically deal only with the parties before them. Even class actions reach only the people who are part of a class certified by a judge, though those can affect millions of people, Sauer wrote.
Nationwide injunctions, by contrast, have no limits and can even include parties who oppose what the court orders are designed to protect, he wrote. As an example, Sauer pointed to Republican-led states that favor the administration’s position but are subject to the nationwide injunctions.
But the justices may well ask about Trump’s executive order and perhaps even tip their hand. Lawyers for the states and immigrants argue that this is an odd issue for the court to use to limit judges’ authority because courts have uniformly found that Trump’s order likely violates the Constitution. Limiting the number of people who are protected by the rulings would create a confusing patchwork of rules in which new restrictions on citizenship could temporarily take effect in 27 states. That means a child born in a state that is challenging Trump’s order would be a citizen, but a child born at the same time elsewhere would not, the lawyers said. |
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Budget airline begins deportation flights for ICE with start of Arizona operations
Attorney Career |
2025/05/13 07:54
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A budget airline that serves mostly small U.S. cities began federal deportation flights Monday out of Arizona, a move that’s inspired an online boycott petition and sharp criticism from the union representing the carrier’s flight attendants.
Avelo Airlines announced in April it had signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to make charter deportation flights from Mesa Gateway Airport outside Phoenix. It said it will use three Boeing 737-800 planes for the flights.
The Houston-based airline is among a host of companies seeking to cash in on President Donald Trump’s campaign for mass deportations.
Congressional deliberations began last month on a tax bill with a goal of funding, in part, the removal of 1 million immigrants annually and housing 100,000 people in U.S. detention centers. The GOP plan calls for hiring 10,000 more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and investigators.
Avelo was launched in 2021 as COVID-19 still raged and billions of taxpayer dollars were propping up big airlines. It saves money mainly by flying older Boeing 737 jets that can be bought at relatively low prices. And it operates out of less-crowded and less-costly secondary airports, flying routes that are ignored by the big airlines. It said it had its first profitable quarter in late 2023.
Andrew Levy, Avelo’s founder and chief executive, said in announcing the agreement last month that the airline’s work for ICE would help the company expand and protect jobs.
“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” said Levy, an airline industry veteran with previous stints as a senior executive at United and Allegiant airlines.
Avelo did not grant an interview request from The Associated Press.
Financial and other details of the Avelo agreement — including destinations of the deportation flights — haven’t publicly surfaced. The AP asked Avelo and ICE for a copy of the agreement, but neither provided the document. The airline said it wasn’t authorized to release the contract.
Several consumer brands have shunned being associated with deportations, a highly volatile issue that could drive away customers. During Trump’s first term, authorities housed migrant children in hotels, prompting some hotel chains to say that they wouldn’t participate.
Avelo was launched in 2021 as COVID-19 still raged and billions of taxpayer dollars were propping up big airlines. It saves money mainly by flying older Boeing 737 jets that can be bought at relatively low prices. And it operates out of less-crowded and less-costly secondary airports, flying routes that are ignored by the big airlines. It said it had its first profitable quarter in late 2023.
Andrew Levy, Avelo’s founder and chief executive, said in announcing the agreement last month that the airline’s work for ICE would help the company expand and protect jobs. |
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Jury begins deliberating in UK trial of men accused of felling Sycamore Gap tree
Legal Center |
2025/05/09 12:36
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Jurors began deliberating Thursday in the case of two men charged with cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree that once stood along the ancient Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of criminal damage. The former friends each testified that they were at their separate homes that night and not involved.
Justice Christina Lambert told jurors in Newcastle Crown Court to take as long as they need to reach unanimous verdicts in the trial that began April 28.
The tree was not Britain’s biggest or oldest, but it was prized for its picturesque setting along the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire.
The tree was long known to locals but achieved international fame in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.” It sat symmetrically between two hills along the historic wall and was a draw for tourists, landscape photographers and those taking selfies for social media.
Prosecutors said the tree’s value exceeded 620,000 pounds ($830,000) and damage to the wall, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was assessed at 1,100 pounds. Andrew Gurney, a lawyer for Carruthers, said Graham’s story didn’t add up and he was projecting his guilt on his former friend.
“Is that a plausible chain of events or is that the desperate story of a man caught out?” Gurney said.
Wright mocked the duo’s defense, saying common sense and a trail of evidence should lead jurors to convict them for their “moronic mission.”
Prosecutors showed grainy video from Graham’s phone of the tree being cut down — a video sent shortly afterward to Carruthers’ phone. Metadata showed it was taken at the tree’s location in Northumberland National Park. Data showed Graham’s Range Rover had traveled there.
Wright said he couldn’t say who cut the tree and who held the phone, but the two were the only people in the world who had the video on their devices.
Text and voice messages exchanged the following day between Carruthers and Graham captured their excitement as the story went viral.
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Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from Texas under the Alien Enemies Act
Attorney Career |
2025/05/04 10:32
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A federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump’s invocation of it was “unlawful.”
U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is the first judge to rule that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who, the Republican administration claims, are gang members invading the United States. Rodriguez said he wouldn’t interfere with the government’s right to deport people in the country illegally through other means, but it could not rely on the 227-year-old law to do so.
“Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States,” wrote Rodriguez, who was nominated by Trump in 2018. But, the judge said, “the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”
In March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S. He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings.
“The Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” Rodriguez wrote.
In an interview on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said the administration will be “aggressively appealing” the ruling and others that hem in the president’s deportation power.
“The judge doesn’t make that determination, whether the Alien Enemies Act can be deployed,” Vance said. “I think the president of the United States is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded.”
The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said in a statement the judge had made clear “what we all knew to be true: The Trump administration illegally used the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process.”
The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in U.S. history, most recently during World War II, when it was cited to intern Japanese-Americans.
The proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the administration tried to ship migrants it claimed were gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Rodriguez’s ruling is significant because it is the first formal permanent injunction against the administration using the AEA and contends the president is misusing the law. “Congress never meant for this law to be used in this manner,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, in response to the ruling.
Rodriguez agreed, noting that the provision has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of 1812. Trump claimed Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities the administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or “predatory incursion,” as the statute requires.
“The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized, armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation,” Rodriguez wrote. “Thus, the Proclamation’s language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of ‘invasion’ for purposes of the AEA.”
If the administration appeals, it would go first to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is among the nation’s most conservative appeals courts and it also has ruled against what it saw as overreach on immigration matters by both the Obama and Biden administrations. In those cases, Democratic administrations had sought to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the U.S.
The administration, as it has in other cases challenging its expansive view of presidential power, could turn to appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in the form of an emergency motion for a stay pending an appeal.
The Supreme Court already has weighed in once on the issue of deportations under the AEA. The justices held that migrants alleged to be gang members must be given “reasonable time” to contest their removal from the country. The court has not specified the length of time.
It’s possible that the losing side in the 5th Circuit would file an emergency appeal with the justices that also would ask them to short-circuit lower court action in favor of a definitive ruling from the nation’s highest court. Such a decision likely would be months away, at least.
The Texas case is just one piece of a tangle of litigation sparked by Trump’s proclamation.
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