Sentencing/Post Conviction

Bradley Manning plans to live as a woman; will Fort Leavenworth allow hormone therapy?

A day after receiving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents, Bradley Manning has revealed plans to begin hormone therapy to live life as a woman. The former Army private revealed the plans in a statement read on the Today show, Today News reports. “As I transition into this next…

Aug 22, 2013 12:40 PM CDT

HIV-positive man can’t be prosecuted for consensual sex after disclosing status, state court says

An HIV-positive man cannot be prosecuted for engaging in consensual sex after disclosing his HIV status to his partner, the Minnesota Supreme Court has held. The court, in a 5-0 decision (PDF) (with two abstentions) Wednesday, found that the law applies to the donation or exchange for value of blood,…

Aug 21, 2013 7:14 PM CDT

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years for giving US intel to WikiLeaks

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. The Washington Post has the story. In announcing the sentence, the judge overseeing the case, Army Col. Denise Lind, said that in addition to the…

Aug 21, 2013 2:22 PM CDT

Death sentence is too pricey and should be overturned, lawyer tells Ohio Supreme Court

Toledo lawyer Spiros Cocoves told the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday that his client’s death sentence should not be carried out because the cost is too high. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor framed the issue in a question for Cocoves, the Toledo Blade reports. “So your argument is that, because it’s…

Aug 21, 2013 11:58 AM CDT

Judge order allows force-feeding of inmates on hunger strike

Prison officials in California obtained a federal court order that would allow them to begin force-feeding inmates who are continuing a hunger strike that began July 8 to protest the conditions of isolation units and food quality. State officials argued in a filing Monday that there is a “risk that…

Aug 20, 2013 11:52 PM CDT

Disbarred lawyer pleads guilty after accepting money from a prospective client

Former Parsippany, N.J., township planning board lawyer John J. Montefusco was disbarred in 2009 for taking bribes from a local builder. But that didn’t stop him from accepting money from a prospective client facing criminal charges earlier this year as a retainer for legal services, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. Montefusco,…

Aug 20, 2013 6:06 PM CDT

Ohio kidnapper Castro fits sociopath profile and should be studied, his lawyers say

Lawyers for the Cleveland man who pleaded guilty in the kidnapping and rape of three women he held captive at his home say their client fits the profile for a sociopathic disorder and should be studied. The lawyers for Ariel Castro—Craig Weintraub and Jaye Schlachet—gave an exclusive interview to the…

Aug 20, 2013 11:53 AM CDT

Convicted in real cold-case murder, fake Rockefeller gets 27 years

A German national who masqueraded for years as a member of the monied elite has been found guilty of murdering the son of a long-ago California landlord and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. Christian Gerhartsreiter also made headlines a few years ago, when he was initially known…

Aug 15, 2013 8:00 PM CDT

Hospital tech takes plea in hep C case, may get 30 to 40 years

A traveling hospital lab technician accused of infecting 46 patients in multiple states with hepatitis C through injections with tainted needles has taken a plea that calls for him to spend decades in prison. David Kwiatkowski, 34, has agreed to plead guilty to 16 federal drug counts in New Hampshire…

Aug 14, 2013 10:10 PM CDT

7th Circuit says lawyer failed mentally disabled client by not seeking unfitness finding

An Illinois lawyer failed a mentally disabled teenager he was defending in a first-degree murder case by not seeking to prove that Melvin Newman was unfit for trial, a federal appeals court has ruled. Then 16, with a first-grade reading level and what the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of…

Aug 14, 2013 6:25 PM CDT

Jesse Jackson and his wife tearfully apologize for misusing $750K in campaign funds, both get time

Updated: Disgraced former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife, who until recently was a member of Chicago’s governing body, tearfully apologized on Wednesday for misusing $750,000 in campaign funds to pay for luxury items and cover other personal expenses. The 48-year-old ex-Congressman from Illinois asked a federal judge…

Aug 14, 2013 5:25 PM CDT

Tests on degraded DNA can’t link ‘In Cold Blood’ killers to unsolved Florida slayings

Did the two men made infamous by Truman Capote’s true-crime novel, In Cold Blood, kill not only the four members of a Kansas farm family, for which they were executed, but four members of a Florida family, too? Law enforcement officials believe Richard Hickock and Perry Smith likely were involved.…

Aug 13, 2013 10:20 PM CDT

Boy and pal, both 14, get life in slaying of his great-grandmother, 78

Apparently motivated by a desire for marijuana and pizza, two Wisconsin teens killed the 78-year-old great-grandmother of one of the boys last year with a hammer and a hatchet, then ransacked her Sheboygan home. They found $155 in cash and some jewelry, authorities said. Now 14 and convicted of first-degree…

Aug 13, 2013 6:35 PM CDT

Dying disbarred lawyer won’t be released from prison now, but could get out later

A 73-year-old disbarred New York lawyer who is dying in prison of breast cancer that has spread to other areas of her body has lost her bid to have her sentence vacated by a federal judge. But U.S. District Court Judge John Koeltl said he would be “prepared to give…

Aug 12, 2013 7:43 PM CDT

Sweeping reversal of the War on Drugs announced by Atty General Holder

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking to the ABA’s 560-member policy making House of Delegates, on Monday announced a sweeping initiative by the Justice Department that in effect renounces several decades of tough-on-crime anti-drug legislation and policies. Significantly, among initiatives Holder outlined today, Holder announced a change in DOJ policies…

Aug 12, 2013 6:44 PM CDT