Philippines court convicts US Marine of rape
Legal World
A Philippines trial court Monday convicted one US Marine and acquitted three other Marines on charges of raping a 23-year-old Filipino woman at a Navy base in Manila last year. The verdict is subject to an automatic appeal. Lance Corporal Daniel Smith will serve a 40 year sentence in a Filipino prison and will pay around $2,000 in compensation to the victim. The Marines were charged within the framework of the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which requires US personnel to "respect the laws of the Republic of the Philippines," and provides the Philippines with "jurisdiction over United States personnel with respect to offenses committed within the Philippines and punishable under the law of the Philippines." The US retains the power to enforce the US Military Code as appropriate and to punish all acts that are punishable under US but not Philippine law.
This case was the first tried under the VFA since it was ratified by both countries in 1999. The VFA was motivated in part by the large number of reported rape incidents in the 1980s involving US soldiers stationed in the Philippines, which resulted in zero convictions.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.