Recent Updates
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Teen changes plea to guilty in deaths of mother, stepfather
Legal News Feed 03/16/2016A northern Wisconsin woman changed her plea to guilty Friday in the slaying of her mother and stepfather in a deal that has prosecutors recommending a 40-year prison sentence. Ashlee Martinson, who was 17 at the time of the March 2015 killings, faces...
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Plagued by delays, California high-speed rail heads back to court
Legal News Feed 02/07/2016California voters embraced the idea of building the nation's first real high-speed rail system, which promised to whisk travelers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours, a trip that can take six hours or more by car. Eight years after...
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Rome court acquits ex-Vatican accountant of corruption
Legal News Feed 01/15/2016A lawyer for an Italian monsignor who was fired from his Vatican accountant's job says a Rome court has acquitted his client of corruption. Prosecutors alleged Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was involved in a purported plot to use a private plane to try to...
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Kansas Court of Appeals mulls state protections for abortion
Legal News Feed 12/12/2015A lawsuit blocking Kansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on a common second-trimester method for terminating pregnancies forced an appeals court Wednesday to wrestle with whether the state constitution independently protects abortion rights. Abortion oppon...
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Religious clerks in Kentucky follow law, but see conflict
Legal News Feed 09/17/2015Clerk Mike Johnston prays twice a day, once each morning and once each night, and asks the Lord to understand the decision he made to license same-sex marriage. “It’s still on my heart,” said Johnston, whose rural Carter County sits just to the east ...
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Ohio court: Wording of pot legalization ballot is misleading
Legal News Feed 09/15/2015Ohio's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that part of the ballot wording describing a proposal to legalize marijuana in the state is misleading and ordered a state board to rewrite it. Supporters of the measure, known in the fall election as Issue 3, cha...
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Burkina Faso court rejects candidate of former ruling party
Legal News Feed 09/01/2015A court in Burkina Faso on Saturday rejected the chosen presidential candidate of the former ruling party, prompting threats of a boycott of the vote in October. The presidential and legislative elections scheduled for Oct. 11 are intended to end one...
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Court rejects inmate's challenge in 5 Ohio prison slayings
Legal News Feed 08/16/2015A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge by an inmate convicted and sentenced to be executed for the slayings of five fellow inmates during a 1993 prison riot in Ohio. Death row inmate Keith LaMar was convicted of aggravated murder in 1995 in...
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Iowa court allows remote dispensing of abortion pill
Legal News Feed 06/19/2015The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down a restriction that would have prevented doctors from administering abortion-inducing pills remotely via video teleconferencing, saying it would have placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion. ...
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Poll: Most Americans expect Supreme Court to OK gay marriage
Legal News Feed 06/13/2015Nearly two-thirds of Americans expect the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide when it rules on the issue within the next few weeks, according to a new poll. Only 25 percent expect the high court to leave existing state bans on gay ...
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Man accused of Jewish site shootings to appear in court
Legal News Feed 06/11/2015A Missouri man facing capital murder charges in Kansas is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing on motions in his case, one asking a judge to let him stay in the courtroom during recesses and another to suppress certain evidence. Frazier G...
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Brazil court convicts 2 firefighters in nightclub fire
Legal News Feed 06/04/2015A court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced two firefighters to a year behind bars in connection with a 2013 nightclub fire that killed more than 200 people in southern Brazil. The two and six other firefighters had been charged with negligence and ...