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Arkansas court tosses conviction in woman's meth case
Attorney News |
2015/10/10 16:22
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The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a woman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after giving birth to a baby with methamphetamine in his system.
Melissa McCann-Arms, 39, was convicted by a jury in Polk County after she and her son tested positive for meth when she gave birth at a Mena hospital in November 2012. She was convicted of a felony crime called introduction of controlled substance into body of another person.
In January, the Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, ruling that even if the statute doesn't apply to unborn children, McCann-Arms still transferred the drug to her child in the moments between his birth and when hospital staff cut the umbilical cord.
But Arkansas' highest court reversed the conviction and dismissed the case, ruling there is no evidence McCann-Arms directly introduced methamphetamine into her baby's system by causing the child to ingest or inhale it. Likewise, there is no evidence of an ongoing transfer of methamphetamine in McCann-Arms' system after the child was born, the court ruled.
"The jury would thus have been forced to speculate that Arms was 'otherwise introducing' the drug into the child at that point," the ruling states. "When a jury reaches its conclusion by resorting to speculation or conjecture, the verdict is not supported by substantial evidence."
The court also ruled state law does not criminalize the passive bodily processes that result in a mother's use of a drug entering her unborn child's system.
"Our construction of criminal statutes is strict, and we resolve any doubts in favor of the defendant," the decision states. "The courts cannot, through construction of a statute, create a criminal offense that is not in express terms created by the Legislature."
Farah Diaz-Tello, a staff attorney with the New York-based National Advocates for Pregnant Women, had urged the court to reverse McCann-Arms' conviction and said the decision sends a message to state prosecutors about expanding the law beyond what was intended by state lawmakers.
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Appeals court clears way for trial over dancing baby video
Attorney News |
2015/09/07 10:32
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A federal appeals court Monday cleared the way for a trial in a copyright lawsuit over a YouTube video showing a baby dancing to the Prince song, "Let's Go Crazy."
The lawsuit was filed by the baby's mother, Stephanie Lenz, after Universal Music sent a notice to YouTube demanding the video be taken down for violating the song's copyright. Lenz posted the 29-second video in February 2007. It was taken down a few months later, but went back up weeks later and remains on the site. It has been viewed more than a million times.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said copyright holders can't demand videos and other content that uses their material be taken down without determining whether they constitute "fair use." It's the first circuit court to issue such a ruling, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the civil liberties group that represented Lenz in her lawsuit.
Fair use allows segments of copyrighted works to be used for purposes of criticism, comment, research or in other limited circumstances without a license from the copyright holder.
Lenz said the video is fair use and Universal had failed to consider that before ordering the video taken down.
Universal said it considered fair use and still determined the use of Prince's song in the video was unauthorized.
The 9th Circuit said a jury would have to decide whether Universal had done enough to form a good faith belief that the video violated fair use. The court agreed with a lower court that rejected Universal's and Lenz's motions to grant pre-trial judgments in their favor. The 9th Circuit also said Lenz could seek damages.
When asked for comment, a spokesman for Universal Music Group deferred to a statement from the Recording Industry Association of America, which said it disagreed with the "burden the court places upon copyright holders before sending takedown notices." Universal had argued that considering whether material is fair use could slow its response to stamping out pirated versions of its work.
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Court rules against St. Louis police in ticket scandal
Attorney News |
2015/08/20 10:49
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The St. Louis police department will have to turn over records from its probe into a scandal over 2006 World Series tickets now that the Missouri Supreme Court has thrown out a final appeal that sought to block the documents' release.
The state high court's ruling on Tuesday upholds decisions by a St. Louis judge and a state appellate court who ordered the release of records from the department's investigation of officers who gave tickets that had been confiscated from scalpers to friends and family.
"This ends it," Neil Bruntrager, a lawyer for the officers, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story Thursday. "We certainly are disappointed. There are privacy issues at play."
Eight officers and six supervisors were disciplined for giving away the tickets to the three games played in St. Louis during the series, in which the Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games. But the police department refused to turn over the records of its internal probe, leading the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri to sue, saying the records should be released under Missouri's Sunshine Law.
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Peterson returns to court in murder-for-hire trial
Attorney News |
2015/07/06 11:37
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Former suburban Chicago police sergeant Drew Peterson is due back in court as his trial on charges of plotting to kill a prosecutor approaches.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday in the southern Illinois county where Peterson is imprisoned.
He's pleaded not guilty to charges of soliciting an unidentified prison inmate to kill Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow.
Glasgow prosecuted the 2012 case in which Peterson was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the bathtub drowning death of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio eight years earlier. Her death was initially ruled an accident, but the case was re-opened after the 2007 disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife.
The Randolph County trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but has been rescheduled to start on August 28.
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In Supreme Court loss, death penalty foes see an opening
Attorney News |
2015/07/02 11:37
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A strongly worded dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court's narrow decision this week upholding the use of an execution drug offered a glimmer of hope to death penalty opponents in what they considered otherwise a gloomy ruling. One advocate went so far Tuesday as to call it a blueprint for a fresh attack on the legality of capital punishment itself.
But even those who see Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent as a silver lining think it will take time to mount a viable challenge.
And Breyer's words don't change the fact that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld capital punishment for nearly four decades. The five justices forming the majority in Monday's decision made it clear they feel that states must somehow be able to carry out the death penalty.
In disagreeing with the 5-4 ruling that approved Oklahoma's use of an execution drug, Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called it "highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment," which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
"It was a sweeping and powerful dissent that issues an invitation that we should accept, which is to make the case for why today the death penalty itself is no longer constitutional," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the Capital Punishment Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. |
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