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Texas high court orders state to pay ex-inmate $2M
Headline Legal News |
2012/05/18 21:56
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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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Ferrero sets aside $3 million for Nutella U.S. class action
Headline Legal News |
2012/04/30 09:16
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Italian confectionery group Ferrero has agreed to set aside $3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit championed by a Californian mother after she discovered the group's Nutella chocolate spread packed more calories than jam or syrup.
Notices of class action settlements said that Ferrero USA Inc., the group's U.S. division, would pay up to $4 for every jar of Nutella bought in California since August 2009, or bought anywhere else in the United States since January 2008.
The notices posted on nutellaclassactionsettlement.com said the settlement was for $3,050,000 in total.
Ferrero USA also agreed to "modify certain marketing statements about Nutella" and to give more prominence to nutrition labels on Nutella jars, the notices said.
"Ferrero USA continues to stand by its product," a spokeswoman for Ferrero said on Sunday. "We believe that it is in the best interest of the company to resolve these matters, and have reached an agreement with the parties involved." |
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NY court decision bolsters anti-fracking movement
Headline Legal News |
2012/02/23 09:46
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A New York court decision has bolstered a movement among towns determined to prevent the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas within their borders.
A state Supreme Court justice on Tuesday upheld the town of Dryden's August 2011 zoning amendment banning gas drilling. Denver-based Anschutz Exploration Corporation, which has spent $5.1 million leasing and developing 22,000 acres in Dryden, about 40 miles southwest of Syracuse, had argued state law trumped the ban.
More than 50 New York communities have enacted gas-drilling bans. Binghamton attorney Helen Slottje, who helps draft such laws, says the ruling should embolden towns considering local bans.
"We think it's a terrific vindication of the town's right to home rule and to decide their future," Slottje said Wednesday. "It really should give the green light to communities that want to proceed down this route."
Albany attorney Tom West, who represented Anschutz, said the trial-level state court decision is likely to be appealed to the mid-level Appellate Division and, if necessary, to the state Court of Appeals.
"We remain confident in our position that municipalities cannot ban natural gas drilling in New York state," West said.
Another challenge of a municipal gas-drilling ban is pending in Otsego County, where Cooperstown Holstein Corp. sued the town of Middlefield over a ban similar to Dryden's. The lawsuit says the landowner has leased nearly 400 acres to a gas-drilling company and the ban would block the economic benefits of the arrangement.
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Norway mass killer demands medal at court hearing
Headline Legal News |
2012/02/06 09:59
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The right-wing extremist who has admitted killing 77 people in the worst peacetime massacre that Norway has ever seen told a court Monday that he deserves a medal of honor for the bloodshed and demanded to be set free.
Anders Behring Breivik smirked as he was led in to the Oslo district court, handcuffed and dressed in a dark suit, for his last scheduled detention hearing before the trial starts in April. He stretched out his arms in what his lawyer Geir Lippestad said was "some kind of right-wing extremist greeting."
Reading from prepared remarks, the 32-year-old Norwegian told the court that the July 22 massacre — carried out with a bomb, a rifle and a handgun — was a strike against "traitors" he said are embracing immigration to promote "an Islamic colonization of Norway."
Like in previous hearings, Breivik admitted to setting off the bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo and opening fire at a Labor Party youth camp on Utoya island, outside the capital, but denied criminal responsibility and rejected the authority of the court.
About 100 survivors and relatives of victims watched in disbelief, as Breivik asked to be released, and told the judge he should receive a military honor for Norway's most deadly peacetime attacks.
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'Barefoot Bandit' to be sentenced in federal court
Headline Legal News |
2012/01/27 09:10
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"Barefoot Bandit" Colton Harris-Moore is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in a Seattle federal courtroom for his two-year international crime spree of break-ins and boat and plane thefts.
The 20-year-old pleaded guilty last month to his state crimes and was sentenced to seven years.
Federal prosecutors have asked for six-and-a-half years to be served while he serves the state time. Harris-Moore's attorneys want less than six years.
Authorities say he flew a plane stolen in Washington to the San Juan Islands; stole a pistol in British Columbia and took a plane from Idaho to Washington; stole a boat in southwestern Washington to go to Oregon; and took a plane in Indiana and flew to the Bahamas, where was arrested in 2010.
He committed several of the crimes without wearing shoes. |
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