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High court sides with state in DNA case
Court News |
2012/06/18 12:40
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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The court's 5-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions that bolstered the right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.
Justice Clarence Thomas provided the margin of difference in the case to uphold the conviction of Sandy Williams, even though Thomas has more often sided with defendants on the issue of cross-examination of witnesses.
The case grew out of a DNA expert's testimony that helped convict Williams of rape. The expert testified that Williams' DNA matched a sample taken from the victim, but the expert played no role in the tests that extracted genetic evidence from the victim's sample.
And no one from the company that performed the analysis showed up at the trial to defend it.
The court has previously ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports used at trial. |
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Massive LA County court layoffs to begin Friday
Court News |
2012/06/15 10:50
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Squeezed by state budgets cutbacks, the Los Angeles County court system is launching massive job layoffs, pay cuts and transfers, court officials said Thursday.
Cutbacks that will be implemented Friday will affect 431 court employees and 56 courtrooms throughout the nation's largest superior court system.
Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon bemoaned the loss of longtime employees as well as the impact on public services.
"We are laying off people who are committed to serving the public," she said. "It is a terrible loss both to these dedicated employees and to the public."
The union representing state and municipal employees called Friday's action a "freeze on justice in Los Angeles" and warned that the county would experience "an end to timely justice" with cases being delayed for years, particularly in civil courts.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — AFSCME — planned to have representatives on hand to assist employees who will not know they are losing their jobs until they are informed individually Friday.
A spokeswoman for the California Judicial Council said other courts in the state will also be impacted by the budget cuts but will handle them individually. Los Angeles' court system, as the largest, will be the most heavily affected.
Edmon said the drastic actions are the result of a state mandate to reduce annual spending by $30 million. She noted that earlier reductions already saved $70 million, but more cuts in state support for trial courts are scheduled for the next fiscal year. |
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Arizona court approves fifth execution this year
Court News |
2012/06/13 15:11
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The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday approved the execution of a death-row inmate who was spared from the death penalty last year after winning a last-minute delay from the nation's highest court.
Daniel Wayne Cook, 50, is now scheduled for execution on Aug. 8 at the state prison in Florence.
Cook was sentenced to death for killing a 26-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, Carlos Cruz-Ramos, and a 16-year-old boy, Kevin Swaney, in 1987, after police say he tortured and raped them for hours in his apartment in Lake Havasu City in far western Arizona.
Cook had been scheduled for execution on April 5 of last year, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a last-minute stay to consider whether he had ineffective counsel during his post-conviction proceedings. They since have turned him down.
Another death-row inmate, Samuel Villegas Lopez, is set to be executed in two weeks.
Lopez would become the fourth inmate executed in Arizona this year, while Cook would become the fifth. Two other inmates who are nearing the end of their appeals could bring the number of executions in the state this year to seven. |
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New front expected in fight over Arizona law
Court News |
2012/06/10 11:02
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An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision, which is expected to uphold the most controversial part of Arizona's immigration law, won't end disputes over whether local police can enforce immigration law.
Instead, it's likely to ignite a renewed assault on the law by its opponents.
The court is evaluating the law on only the question of whether Arizona's attempt to fix its border problems is trumped by federal law.
Opponents might then ask the courts to block enforcement of the provision in question on other grounds, such as racial profiling. The court isn't considering the possibility of profiling arising from the law because the Obama administration's lawsuit that sent the case to the court didn't challenge it on those grounds.
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Texas high court orders state to pay ex-inmate $2M
Court News |
2012/05/18 22:34
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The Texas Supreme Court ordered the state Friday to pay about $2 million to an ex-inmate who spent 26 years in prison for murder before his conviction was overturned, a decision legal experts said could set a new standard for when ex-prisoners should be compensated.
Texas has paid nearly $50 million to former inmates who have been cleared. But state Comptroller Susan Combs had resisted paying Billy Frederick Allen, arguing that his conviction was overturned because he had ineffective lawyers, not because he had proven his innocence.
The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Dale Wainwright, disagreed, saying the state's criminal courts had shown Allen had a legitimate innocence claim and he should be paid.
Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas, which works to free wrongfully convicted inmates, said Friday's ruling could open the door for more compensation claims from ex-prisoners.
"The floodgates are not opening, but what this will do is give a fair shake to people who are innocent," Blackburn said. "This is a major step forward in terms of opening up and broadening the law of exoneration in general."
Texas' compensation law is the most generous in the U.S., according to the national Innocence Project. Freed inmates who are declared innocent by a judge, prosecutors or a governor's pardon can collect $80,000 for every year of imprisonment, along with an annuity.
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Court won't consider giving man new trial
Court News |
2012/05/15 22:33
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The Supreme Court won't consider giving a man convicted in the death of a Texas toddler a new trial because the medical examiner changed her opinion on the cause of death.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Neil Hampton Robbins, convicted in the death of 17-month-old Tristen Skye Rivet, who died on May 12, 1998.
At the trial, Dr. Patricia Moore testified that Tristen's death was a homicide caused by asphyxia. But Moore later changed her opinion and said the cause of death was undetermined. Robbins asked for a new trial but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal refused, saying there is no conclusive evidence of Robbins' innocence and that it wasn't proven that the state purposefully used false testimony.
Some patients' fate could hinge on Supreme Court
If the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama's health care law, it wouldn't just be politicians dealing with the fallout.
Nearly 62,000 patients with serious medical conditions would be out of luck.
They're the "uninsurables," people turned away by insurance companies because of medical problems but covered through a little-known program in the law called the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. The plan would have to shut down if the entire law is invalidated.
Cancer patient Kathy Thomas is worried she'll be uninsured again without the program. The Florida small businesswoman credits the coverage for saving her life this year when she had to be hospitalized with a serious respiratory infection.
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