Evidence

Listing ‘jewelry thief’ as occupation on court forms does not help defendant at bail hearing

Listing her occupation as “jewelry thief” on court papers was not a plus factor for Doris Payne on Wednesday as a lawyer for the 83-year-old tried to persuade a California judge to release her pending trial. Noting the defendant’s admitted occupation, Superior Court Judge Richard A. Erwood kept Payne in…

Dec 12, 2013 8:05 PM CST

Former practice group chief at major firm takes plea in perjury case over deposition statement

A former chief of the real estate investment and capitalization practice at Troutman Sanders has taken a plea in a misdemeanor perjury case, admitting that he gave false deposition testimony in 2011. Leonard Grunstein, 61, who earlier gave up his New York law license, will be recommended for a conditional…

Dec 12, 2013 5:25 PM CST

Inmate convicted in attempted murder-for-hire plot against federal judge

After less than an hour of deliberation, a federal jury in Fort Worth on Wednesday found a tax protester guilty of attempting to solicit the murder-for-hire of a federal judge in Texas. The defense said Phillip Monroe Ballard, 72, didn’t really intend to target District Judge John McBryde, who formerly…

Dec 11, 2013 10:55 PM CST

Meth intoxication defense may be rebutted by court-ordered exam, SCOTUS rules

The Fifth Amendment does not bar the prosecution from introducing evidence from a court-ordered mental exam to rebut a defendant’s meth intoxication defense, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. The defendant, Scott Cheever, was convicted of fatally shooting a sheriff’s deputy in a home where he was hiding after a…

Dec 11, 2013 4:05 PM CST

Lawyer gets 20 years in judicial bribery case, is ordered to pay $12M restitution

A Texas lawyer convicted of racketeering conspiracy and other charges in a Cameron County judicial bribery case was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $12 million in restitution. During a two-day sentencing hearing in Brownsville, a federal judge reversed two mail fraud convictions against…

Dec 4, 2013 5:10 PM CST

Thalidomide plaintiffs agree to $80M settlement in Australian case; discovery continues in US

Decades after women were given Thalidomide to combat morning sickness during pregnancy in the 1950s and 1960s and wound up delivering babies with missing or deformed limbs and other birth defects, survivors are still seeking compensation. Litigation continues in the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain, but more than…

Dec 4, 2013 12:00 AM CST

Facebook chat about ‘hit’ on judges adds to court problems for 2 defendants

Tipped that a Maryland man had tried to buy a rifle because he wanted to kill a judge, police didn’t have to look far to find supporting evidence. On a Facebook page, their suspect, Zachary Ryan Mitchell, and another man, Justin Ray Ferrell, complained about the Anne Arundel County judges…

Dec 3, 2013 10:45 PM CST

Madoff’s $17B fraud began in 1970s, witness says in testimony against former colleagues

As testimony rolls on in the first criminal trial concerning Bernard L. Madoff’s massive $17 billion Ponzi scheme, at least one high-level ex-employee is saying that the fake trades on which his Manhattan investment firm was built dated back to the 1970s. For more than a decade, officials have said,…

Dec 2, 2013 8:19 PM CST

Prosecutors battle the wall of silence around sex assault in religious communities

The victim was 12 when child sex offender Nechemya Weberman first assaulted her. Last January, at age 18, she dabbed at tears in her eyes as she spoke in a Brooklyn courtroom. For years during and after the abuse, the woman said she would look in the mirror and see…

Dec 1, 2013 11:30 AM CST

University of Pennsylvania offers a boot camp on brain science

Phoenix public defender Ingrid Miller has been hearing a lot about neuroscience in the courtroom and wanted to know how much of it was hype. So she signed up for Neuroscience Boot Camp, a 10-day crash course on the brain run by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Neuroscience &…

Dec 1, 2013 10:20 AM CST

Suspect in bombing of DA’s office hoped to delay scheduled sentencing in earlier case, officials say

A man accused of setting off an improvised pipe bomb at a Medford, Ore., district attorney’s office earlier this month was hoping to delay his scheduled plea and sentencing the next day in a home-burglary case, authorities say. If so, Alan Leroy McVay, 46, got his wish, according to the…

Nov 27, 2013 9:20 PM CST

Is a new federal discovery rule needed? Fearful of sanctions, some companies don’t discard documents

Fearful of adverse consequences if they inadvertently discard electronic documents that are deemed to be relevant in litigation, some of the biggest companies in the U.S. are simply saving all documents, including email sent via employees’ electronic devices. A minority of federal courts say companies can be sanctioned even if…

Nov 27, 2013 3:55 PM CST

Judge calls evidence against OJ Simpson ‘overwhelming,’ denies bid for new trial in robbery case

Calling the evidence against O.J. Simpson in a Las Vegas casino hotel robbery case “overwhelming,” a Nevada judge on Tuesday denied the former football star’s bid for a new trial. Rejecting Simpson’s arguments that his trial and appellate counsel were ineffective and prejudiced his case, Clark County District Judge Linda…

Nov 27, 2013 3:30 PM CST

Federal judge: Lawyer must pay costs of producing imprisoned ex-attorney Rothstein at her trial

Disbarred attorney Scott Rothstein, who is serving a 50-year prison term for his role in a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, must testify as a defense witness at the January trial of one of the lawyers who formerly worked for his South Florida law firm, a federal judge has ruled. However,…

Nov 25, 2013 9:50 PM CST

Did falling bikini-top ‘emergency’ absolve distracted driver in fatal crash? Appeals court says yes

A trial judge got it right by allowing a jury to decide whether a fallen bikini top could constitute an “emergency” absolving a distracted driver of negligence in a fatal crash, a Brooklyn, N.Y., appeals court has decided. Brittany Lahm, now 24, took her hands off the wheel briefly to…

Nov 25, 2013 6:30 PM CST