Recent Updates
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Calif. trio charged with torturing, abusing teen
Lawyer Blogs 12/05/2008A couple accused of beating and torturing a teenager, who authorities say was sometimes kept shackled inside their home, appeared in shackles themselves to face more than a dozen kidnapping and child abuse charges.It was Michael Schumacher and Kelly ...
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NYC court: Big city guns can equal stiff sentence
Lawyer Blogs 12/05/2008Federal judges can give harsher penalties to people who help bring illegal guns to big cities, a federal appeals court decided Thursday.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved the practice in its ruling for the case of an illegal gun dealer wh...
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High court to hear enemy combatant case
Lawyer Blogs 12/05/2008The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether the president may order that people picked up in the United States be detained indefinitely and without criminal charges.The court is undertaking a fresh review of the Bush administration's aggressive...
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Smoker's widow seeks $79.5M award at high court
Lawyer Blogs 12/03/2008A cigarette maker and a smoker's widow squared off at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the third time over a $79.5 million punitive damages award, but the real battle was between the justices and their counterparts on Oregon's high court.Twice befo...
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Junk-bond king among those seeking Bush pardon
Lawyer Blogs 11/29/2008Some high-profile convicts past and present are among more than 2,000 people asking President George W. Bush to pardon them or commute their prison sentences before he leaves office.Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American...
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Appeals court lets Vatican sex-abuse case proceed
Lawyer Blogs 11/25/2008A lawsuit can continue against the Vatican alleging that top church officials should have warned the public or authorities of known or suspected sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Louisville, a federal appeals court ruled Monda...
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Bush says Citigroup deal needed to protect system
Lawyer Blogs 11/24/2008President Bush argued Monday that the government's dramatic rescue of Citigroup was necessary to "safeguard the financial system" and help the economy recover, and he said there could be more such moves if other institutions need help.Bush said he ap...
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Court could give Obama early test on detentions
Lawyer Blogs 11/22/2008The Supreme Court could hand President-elect Barack Obama a delicate problem in the coming days: What to do with a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent who is the only person detained in this country as an enemy combatant?Ali al-Marri has been held in vi...
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Former Congress aide pleads guilty to hiding gifts
Lawyer Blogs 11/21/2008A former legislative aide to two Missouri Republicans, Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Roy Blunt, pleaded guilty Thursday to hiding thousands of dollars of gifts from lobbyists, the latest political figure to go down in the Jack Abramoff corruption scan...
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Calif. Supreme Court to take up gay marriage ban
Lawyer Blogs 11/20/2008California's highest court has agreed to hear legal challenges to a new ban on gay marriage, but is refusing to allow gay couples to resume marrying until it rules.The California Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted three lawsuits seeking to overturn ...
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Ohio executes man for killing store owner in 1992
Lawyer Blogs 11/19/2008Ohio on Wednesday executed a man for the 1992 stabbing death of a collectibles store owner in Toledo, the state's second execution in as many months.Gregory Bryant-Bey, 53, died by lethal injection at 10:41 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Faci...
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Calif. high court asked to hear gay marriage cases
Lawyer Blogs 11/18/2008The state attorney general and sponsors of the ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California urged its Supreme Court to hear a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn the ban, saying the matter is too urgent to be unsettled."The petiti...