Appellate Practice

Despite Holder’s call for clemency to free over 10,000, actual number so far is much lower

Updated: In a 2013 speech delivered at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new “Smart on Crime” initiative and called for a number of changes to reduce “shameful” sentencing disparities that often affect drug offenders. Among the measures he suggested was clemency. Yet…

Dec 9, 2015 3:20 PM CST

Man is released from prison after 15 years when DNA testing points finger at his brother

After serving more than 15 years in prison for the slaying of his teenage sister-in-law, a Kansas man was freed Tuesday because recent DNA testing pointed the finger at his brother. A Jefferson County judge overturned convictions of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated indecent liberties against Floyd Bledsoe, 39,…

Dec 8, 2015 4:50 PM CST

Judge used wrong standard to disqualify law firm in major case, top state court says

After initially agreeing with a trial judge and an intermediate appeals court that Bickel & Brewer should be disqualified from representing the plaintiff in a $60 million case between business partners, the Texas Supreme Court reversed course. It conditionally granted a petition for a writ of mandamus on Friday, ruling…

Dec 7, 2015 11:40 AM CST

Tennessee Supreme Court affirms Nashville lawyer’s six-month suspension

The Tennessee Supreme Court has affirmed the six-month suspension of a Nashville lawyer who challenged the constitutionality of the state’s disciplinary process. The court, in a ruling (PDF) Thursday, said lawyer Paul J. Walwyn’s claims were without merit, the Tennessean reports. It also said that Walwyn’s arguments to the contrary…

Dec 4, 2015 12:20 PM CST

Focus on hiring recent grads creates basis for age-discrimination suit, 11th Circuit says

A seasoned 49-year-old applicant who said he did not get a response when he applied for a sales job with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 2007 can use a disparate impact theory to sue for age discrimination, a federal appeals court has ruled. Reversing a federal trial court judge in…

Dec 4, 2015 8:45 AM CST

Oscar Pistorius was guilty of murder, rather than manslaughter, appeals court finds

A South African appeals court has overturned Oscar Pistorius’ manslaughter conviction and found that he is instead guilty of murder. The track star faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison as a result of the ruling Thursday, the New York Times and the Guardian report. Pistorius had been…

Dec 3, 2015 9:14 AM CST

Lawyers for convicted Boston bomber argue that SCOTUS decision taints death sentence

Lawyers for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in a bid to obtain a new capital sentencing hearing. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. heard the lawyers’ arguments on the sentencing issue on Tuesday, report the Boston Globe and Fox News. Defense…

Dec 2, 2015 10:58 AM CST

Guitarist for rock band Boston lacked basis for defamation suits, top state court says

After years of litigation, a top state court has definitively ended consolidated defamation cases by Boston guitarist Tom Scholz against the Boston Herald and the ex-wife of the rock band’s late frontman, Brad Delp. Scholz said news coverage in the Herald implied that he was to blame for Delp’s 2007…

Dec 1, 2015 12:35 PM CST

DNA clears man jailed 16 years; meanwhile, ‘Teardrop Rapist’ committed more crimes

Convicted of three California sexual assaults, Luis Lorenzo Vargas argued at his 1999 sentencing that the real perpetrator was still out there. “That individual that really did these crimes might really be raping someone out there,” he told a Los Angeles County judge, according to a court transcript. The judge…

Nov 23, 2015 2:50 PM CST

Disbarred lawyer admits collecting $247K in disability benefits while still in practice

A former New York bankruptcy lawyer who was disbarred and has served time for taking money from clients without doing promised work is in trouble again. Christopher Chadick, 63, pleaded guilty Monday in a Syracuse federal disability fraud case, Syracuse.com reports. He admitted that he obtained $247,000 in Social Security…

Nov 23, 2015 2:00 PM CST

Nightclub owners get probation in contempt case over stampede that killed 21

After a 12-year legal saga, an Illinois judge on Friday imposed probation sentences on two owners of a Chicago nightclub at which 21 people died in a 2003 stampede. Calvin Hollins Jr. and Dwain Kyles were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter. But they were found guilty of contempt for violating a…

Nov 20, 2015 3:35 PM CST

DC agrees to pay more than $16M to man who served 27 years for rape and murder he didn’t commit

After a federal jury on Wednesday found that two Washington D.C. police officers withheld evidence in a criminal prosecution of a man who served 27 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit, the city didn’t wait to hear what its damages award would be in the…

Nov 20, 2015 11:40 AM CST

As execution looms, appellate lawyers fight client’s effort to get new counsel and seek clemency

Scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for setting a house fire that killed three children almost 15 years ago, a 36-year-old death row inmate in Texas has effectively been abandoned by his court-appointed appellate counsel, some observers say. Raphael Deon Holiday sent letter after letter from prison seeking to find…

Nov 17, 2015 2:00 PM CST

Lawyer is sanctioned for ‘deploying boilerplate claims’ and ‘utterly frivolous’ arguments

An appeals court in Georgia has fined a lawyer $2,500—the maximum allowed under the rules—for “deploying boilerplate claims” and “misuse of notice pleading.” The Nov. 5 opinion (PDF) sanctioning Atlanta lawyer Grady Roberts III was signed by all 12 appeals judges, according to the Daily Report (sub. req.). The opinion…

Nov 17, 2015 5:45 AM CST

Ex-lawyer serving time in rare dog-maul murder case asks 9th Circuit to nix conviction

A former lawyer serving time after a rare second-degree murder conviction in a dog-mauling case is hoping a federal appeals court will overturn her conviction in the death of a San Francisco neighbor more than a decade ago. Arguments that the judge and prosecutor in Marjorie Knoller’s trial behaved inappropriately…

Nov 16, 2015 4:50 PM CST