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Washington high court to hear charter school case
Headline Legal News |
2014/08/18 14:44
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The Washington Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the state's voter-approved charter school law violates the state constitution.
Oral arguments concerning the lawsuit brought by charter school opponents have been scheduled for the afternoon of Oct. 28.
A King County Superior Court judge found in December that parts of the new law are unconstitutional. Judge Jean Rietschel's decision focused on whether certain taxpayer dollars can be used to pay for the operation of charter schools.
Both sides asked the Supreme Court to skip the appeals court process and directly review the case.
Attorney Paul Lawrence says the briefs to the court and the oral arguments will focus on that part of the lawsuit.
The state's charter school system was approved by voters in 2012. |
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Suspect in bodies-in-suitcases case due in court
Headline Legal News |
2014/07/17 12:33
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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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Priest guilty of killing nun will get funeral Mass
Headline Legal News |
2014/07/07 14:55
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A Roman Catholic priest convicted of stabbing and strangling a nun 34 years ago in a hospital chapel will receive a funeral Mass, a church official said Saturday.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson remained an ordained priest after his conviction and his services will follow the usual protocol for a diocesan priest's funeral, the Rev. Charles Ritter, administrator for the Diocese of Toledo, said in a statement.
Robinson, 76, died Friday. He had been serving a prison sentence of 15 years to life in what church historians have characterized as the only documented case of a Catholic priest killing a nun. He was arrested 24 years after the nun's death and found guilty in 2006 of stabbing and strangling Sister Margaret Ann Pahl at a Toledo hospital where they both worked.
Robinson had been in a hospice unit since the end of May after suffering a heart attack.
Robinson and Pahl, 71, had worked closely together at the hospital, where he was a chaplain and she was caretaker of the chapel. He presided at her funeral Mass.
Prosecutors blamed the murder on Robinson's simmering anger over Pahl's domineering ways, saying their relationship was strained and that Pahl was upset over the shortening of Good Friday services a day before she was killed. |
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Egypt court confirms death sentences for over 180
Headline Legal News |
2014/06/23 14:18
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The Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader and over 180 others were sentenced to death Saturday by an Egyptian court in the latest mass trial following last year's overthrow of the country's Islamist president.
The ruling by the southern Minya Criminal Court is the largest confirmed mass death sentence to be handed down in Egypt in recent memory and comes from Judge Said Youssef, who earlier presided over the mass trial. It is the second death sentence for the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie since the crackdown against his group began.
The court acquitted more than 400 others in the case and family members of the accused wailed or cheered the verdicts.
The case stems from an attack on a police station in the town of el-Adwa near the southern city of Minya on Aug. 14 which killed one police officer and one civilian. Similar revenge attacks swept across Egypt following a security force crackdown on Cairo sit-ins supporting toppled President Mohammed Morsi that killed hundreds. The charges in the case ranged from murder, joining a terrorist organization, sabotage, possession of weapons and terrorizing civilians.
Initially, Youssef sentenced some 683 people to death over the attack, then sent the case to Egypt's Grand Mufti, the country's top spiritual leader. The Mufti offered his opinion, then sent the case back to Youssef to confirm his sentence.
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Iowa high court reinstates major pollution lawsuit
Headline Legal News |
2014/06/16 15:26
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| In a major environmental case, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that residents can bring a nuisance lawsuit against a Muscatine manufacturer accused of routinely blanketing their properties with soot and chemicals. The court reinstated the class-action lawsuit against Grain Processing Corp., which operates a plant that turns corn kernels into products ranging from corn syrup to ethyl alcohol. The plaintiffs' claims of nuisance, negligence and trespass are not barred by the federal Clean Air Act or state rules governing air emissions, Justice Brent Appel wrote in a 6-0 decision that was applauded by environmentalists but criticized by business interests. A regional economic force, the company buys $400 million in corn from farmers annually and is one of the area's largest employers. But Muscatine residents have complained for years that it spews harmful chemicals into the environment that get blown onto their homes, yards and cars. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of up to 17,000 residents who live within a 3-mile radius of the plant, contends the pollution undermines their ability to enjoy their property and causes metals in everything from swing sets to air conditioning systems to corrode. |
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