Sentencing/Post Conviction

Lawyer gets 4 months for stealing from law firm, is ordered to pay $160K

A Virginia attorney who reportedly stole from his law firm was sentenced Tuesday to serve four months in federal prison and ordered to pay $160,647 to his former employer. Tony Michael Hutchinson, 52, had previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the Abingdon case, WJHL reports. Hutchinson, a bankruptcy practitioner,…

Sep 1, 2015 4:40 PM CDT

Those convicted as juveniles who are serving life without parole hope the court will go back in time

It's been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder were cruel and unusual punishment. Yet states remain divided over whether prisoners currently serving those sentences—many of them well into adulthood—should get a second chance.

Sep 1, 2015 4:50 AM CDT

Alleged ‘office creeper’ charged in law firm burglary and other thefts

Ameenah Franks isn’t discussing the latest burglary cases in which she is charged, including a break-in at a Norfolk, Virginia, law firm. But the 30-year-old, who has previously served time for stealing in workplace settings, did offer some perspective on the reasons behind her past actions during a three-hour jailhouse…

Aug 28, 2015 12:15 PM CDT

Appeals court chides judge who asked if domestic violence victim and defendant ‘get it on’

A Georgia appeals court has reinstated a domestic violence case dismissed by a Georgia judge after he learned the alleged victim had reconciled with the defendant. The judge, A. Wallace Cato of the South Georgia Judicial Circuit, had dismissed the case during sentencing for the defendant, Domingo Santiago, according to…

Aug 28, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

Former TV judge goes to jail: Contempt term went from 1 day to 5 days as Joe Brown kept talking

After Tennessee’s top court earlier this month rejected his appeal of a five-day contempt sentence, former television judge Joe Brown headed to jail in Shelby County on Thursday to begin paying his debt to society. Jail officials said Brown will be housed in a single-man cell for his own protection,…

Aug 27, 2015 5:15 PM CDT

Defendant overpowers bailiff, fatally shoots himself with bailiff’s gun in courthouse elevator

A Kentucky courthouse was closed for most of the day Wednesday, after a defendant overpowered a bailiff in a courthouse elevator and shot himself to death with the bailiff’s service weapon, state police said. Erik Barnett, 25, had been in a drug court hearing at the Bell County Courthouse at…

Aug 27, 2015 3:20 PM CDT

Shooter James Holmes gets 12 life terms plus 3,318 years in Batman movie massacre

Saying that James Holmes “quit on life” and has himself as well as his mental illness to blame for a movie-theater massacre that left 12 dead and 70 more wounded, a Colorado judge on Wednesday gave him the maximum. In addition to 12 consecutive life terms, Judge Carlos Samour Jr.…

Aug 26, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

Judge refuses to release names of jurors in Boston Marathon bombing trial

The federal judge who oversaw the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has refused a request to release the names of the jurors. U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. said he would eventually release the names, but not until some of the ongoing legal proceedings in the case…

Aug 25, 2015 5:03 PM CDT

Right-to-die group fined $30,000 for assisting Minnesota woman’s suicide

A national right-to-die group has been fined $30,000 for assisting in the 2007 suicide of a Minnesota woman. Final Exit Network Inc. was convicted in May of a felony for helping Doreen Dunn commit suicide and interfering with a death scene, the Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune report.…

Aug 25, 2015 2:45 PM CDT

Mentally ill man gets 20 years in slaying of prominent defense attorney

A mentally ill man was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for shooting to death a prominent Kentucky defense attorney as he arrived at work at his law office, across the street from the defendant’s home. Clinton Inabnit, 41, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in the June 27, 2014…

Aug 25, 2015 8:25 AM CDT

Dallas lawyer sentenced to prison for defrauding vodka investors

A Dallas lawyer who collected nearly $1.6 million from investors for a vodka that didn’t exist has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Andrew Lee Siegel, 54, had pleaded guilty earlier to investor fraud and copyright infringement charges, the Dallas Morning News reports. Siegel has also…

Aug 24, 2015 3:10 PM CDT

Man will be resentenced over trial judge’s comments in unrelated case

A New Jersey man convicted of murdering his girlfriend must be resentenced because of comments the trial court judge made in another case, a state appeals court has held. The appeals court said Thursday that the judge’s comments “deprived” them of confidence that the judge sentenced the man in accordance…

Aug 24, 2015 11:30 AM CDT

Woman gets 24 years in hotel slaying of BigLaw attorney

A 21-year-old woman who pleaded guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder in a fatal February stabbing attack on a DLA Piper attorney at a Washington, D.C., hotel was sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought a 25-year term for Jamyra Gallmon, who they said intended to…

Aug 21, 2015 10:50 AM CDT

Dad who let 15-year-old drive gets prison time after fatal accident

A Scarsdale, New York, dad who let his unlicensed teenage daughter drive his sports utility vehicle during a vacation in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania last year has been sentenced to prison time for the fatal accident that resulted. Michael Ware, 54, was given 6½ to 16 years in prison…

Aug 20, 2015 2:35 PM CDT

University to pay $480K to remove convicted embezzler’s name from stadium scoreboard

In 2009, using money swindled from investors in a Ponzi scheme, a former football star at California Polytechnic State University paid $625,000 to put his name on a scoreboard at the school’s Alex G. Spanos Stadium, prosecutors said. Following Al Moriarty’s conviction in a $22 million swindle that victimized a…

Aug 20, 2015 1:25 PM CDT