Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Ex-DC Council chairman pleads guilty to 2 charges

The former chairman of the District of Columbia Council pleaded guilty Friday to lying about his income on bank loan applications, the latest blow to a city government rocked by scandal.
Kwame Brown also admitted to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation, capping a tumultuous week in which he forfeited his position as one of the city's most influential powerbrokers. His departure creates more turnover on the city's governing body and follows the resignation of another councilmember who admitted to stealing public funds earmarked for youth sports programs.
Their departures this year — coupled with a federal probe of Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign that has already produced guilty pleas from two campaign aides — have sent the district government into a tailspin. And the scandals likely aren't helping efforts to gain greater budget autonomy, much less win more voting power for the district's delegate to Congress or to secure the long-sought goal of statehood.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Lawyer enters not guilty plea for shooting suspect

A California man accused of committing the nation's deadliest school shooting rampage since the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges.

One L. Goh, 43, entered his plea through his lawyer, Deputy Public Defender David Klaus in Alameda County Superior Court.

Goh is charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in the April 2 attack at Oikos University in Oakland.

Klaus declined to comment after the hearing.

Goh also faces the special circumstance of committing multiple murders that makes him eligible for the death penalty.

Authorities said Goh planned the shootings and opened fire at the small Christian college founded to cater to Korean immigrants after becoming angry over a tuition dispute with school officials.

Those killed were students Doris Chibuko, 40; Judith Seymour, 53; Grace EunHea Kim, 23; Lydia Sim, 21; Bhutia Tshering, 38; Sonam Choedon, 33; and secretary Katleen Ping, 24.

Choedon's brother, Wangchen Nyima, attended Monday's hearing and said he wanted to see Goh in person.

"I just want to know why this happened," Nyima said. "He seems like he has his own problems. He seems like he's a psycho."

Shackled and wearing a red jumpsuit, Goh appeared somewhat calm during his brief court hearing and was noticeably thinner than he was during his previous court appearance.

A once heavyset man, Goh lost about 20 pounds in jail after he went on a self-imposed hunger strike, said sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson. Goh inexplicably began eating again on Saturday, Nelson said.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Houston Motorcycle Accident Law Firm

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Eugene and Portland Criminal Defense - Coit & Associates, P.C.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Supreme Court: Inmate cannot change court-appointed lawyer

The Supreme Court says a death row inmate can't change his court-appointed appeals lawyer because he didn't like the lawyer's defense tactics.

The justices on Monday turned away the appeal from Kenneth Clair, who was sentenced to death in California in 1987 for burglary and murder.

Clair wanted to change his federal public defender in 2005 because he says they were trying to stop his execution instead of trying to prove his innocence. A federal judge denied his request but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision.

The justices ruled unanimously that the appeals court's decision was incorrect

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that Clair's request came just as a judge was about to make a final ruling so any change would have been too late.

Conn. high court rules prisoners can be force-fed

Connecticut prison inmates who go on hunger strikes can be restrained and force-fed to protect them from life-threatening dehydration and malnutrition, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 7-0 decision came in the case of 51-year-old prisoner William Coleman, a Liverpool, England, native who stopped eating in September 2007 to protest his conviction on what he claimed was a fabricated rape charge by his ex-wife. The court rejected Coleman's claims that force-feeding violated his free speech rights and international law.

Coleman's weight dropped from 237 pounds to 129 pounds by October 2008, and a prison doctor who believed Coleman was at risk of dying or developing irreversible health problems determined it was necessary to force-feed him by inserting a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach.

The first of what Coleman's lawyers say was about a dozen forced feedings was performed on Oct. 23, 2008, after prison officials had obtained permanent authority to force-feed him after a trial in Superior Court. Coleman appealed the Superior Court judge's ruling to the Supreme Court.

Coleman resumed taking liquid nutrition voluntarily in late 2008 and returned to a normal weight, court records say, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut says he went back on the hunger strike last week.