Sentencing/Post Conviction

Was judge senile in death penalty case? 9th Circuit dissenter sees ‘painfully obvious’ incompetence

A federal appeals court has discounted allegations that a judge who sentenced a triple murderer to death was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease at the time. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence for Ronald Deere, convicted of murdering three family members of his ex-girlfriend…

Jun 5, 2013 11:25 AM CDT

Disbarred lawyer gets 30 years in attempted prosecutor hit, plus 8 in racketeering case plea

A disbarred Florida lawyer had a busy day in court on Monday. First James Tipler, 62, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after his conviction last month by an Okaloosa County jury on two counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder, according to WJHG and the Pensacola News Journal.…

Jun 4, 2013 10:10 PM CDT

Attorney gets 30 months in mortgage case that brought down 2 lawyers and a paralegal

A Connecticut real estate lawyer and others with whom he schemed reportedly intended to sell upscale homes at a profit when they submitted fraudulent mortgage applications to get standard financing to pay off “hard money” purchase loans that carried high interest. But the real estate scheme in the state’s burgeoning…

Jun 3, 2013 11:05 PM CDT

Lawyer accused of lying about claimed ‘self-employment’ as prostitute and name used in online ads

An Illinois attorney is facing a legal ethics case over her alleged lies to the state Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission about her work as a prostitute. Reema Bajaj, who earned her law degree from Northern Illinois University and became licensed as an attorney in 2010, pleaded guilty last June…

Jun 3, 2013 4:40 PM CDT

Onetime Natalee Holloway suspect may wed from Peruvian jail to avoid extortion extradition

Corrected: Convicted murderer Joran van der Sloot is now jailed in Peru, where he was found guilty of slaying college student Stephany Flores. His crime there was high-profile because of extensive publicity over the still-unsolved disappearance of another young woman, U.S. citizen Natalee Holloway, who vanished in Aruba while on…

Jun 3, 2013 2:46 PM CDT

Rats are so plentiful at Mississippi prison that inmates put them on leashes, suit says

A Mississippi prison for mentally ill inmates is so infested with rats that some prisoners put them on makeshift leashes and sell them as pets, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday. The suit (PDF) says the East Mississippi Correctional Facility near Meridian is “an extremely dangerous facility operating in…

Jun 3, 2013 11:04 AM CDT

Ex-offenders face tens of thousands of legal restrictions, bias and limits on their rights

Growing up in northwest Kansas in the 1970s, Peter Ninemire was on the skinny side, with long, dark hair covering his eyes and a wild streak that drew him to marijuana. When he lost his father at age 22, Ninemire says, the wheels came off completely. He fell deep into…

Jun 1, 2013 10:00 AM CDT

Former governor helps establish a clemency clinic

When Robert Ehrlich was governor of Maryland, he took his pardon responsibilities seriously, assigning lawyers to investigate cases and holding monthly meetings throughout his term to consider applications. Now he’s the vision behind a new clemency clinic at Catholic University of America’s law school that aims to help others take…

Jun 1, 2013 9:20 AM CDT

Inmate’s 17th-story bedsheet-rope escape shows he should get 20 years for bank robbery, judge says

Kenneth Conley hasn’t yet been convicted for his dramatic escape last December from a federal detention center in Chicago, in which he and a cellmate reportedly scaled down from the building’s 17th floor on a rope made of bedsheets. However, that didn’t prevent U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan from taking…

May 30, 2013 3:45 PM CDT

In final case related to attorney’s homicide, man takes misdemeanor plea in case over stolen rifle

A former prison guard pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor counts of receiving stolen property, including a rifle reportedly used to kill a Pennsylvania lawyer. Thomas Tuso, 37, will be sentenced in July. Meanwhile, another former prison guard, Raymond F. Peake III, pleaded no contest last year to charges including…

May 29, 2013 4:40 PM CDT

Former state supreme court justice gets one year in bank fraud case

A now-retired Michigan supreme court justice was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in federal prison after pleading guilty to a felony bank fraud charge earlier this year. Prosecutors in the Ann Arbor case had sought a year to 18 months for Diane Marie Hathaway, 59, who reportedly…

May 28, 2013 7:40 PM CDT

SCOTUS rules for Texas inmate who didn’t raise claim of ineffective counsel on direct appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled for a Texas death-row inmate who claimed in his federal habeas appeal that his trial counsel failed to adequately investigate and present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his trial. In a 5-4 decision (PDF), the court ruled that inmate Carlos Trevino may…

May 28, 2013 4:49 PM CDT

SCOTUS: Actual innocence may excuse blown habeas deadline; Scalia blasts ‘shiny new exception’

A blown deadline isn’t an automatic bar to habeas review for an inmate who shows actual innocence of the crime, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. In a 5-4 opinion (PDF), the court said a missed deadline isn’t an absolute bar to review, but “unjustified delay” does count against the…

May 28, 2013 3:12 PM CDT

Jodi Arias jury hangs on whether she should get death penalty

It didn’t take long for an Arizona jury to convict Jodi Arias of first-degree murder in the grisly death of her former boyfriend. But it wasn’t able to agree Thursday on whether the 32-year-old should get the death penalty in the Maricopa County case. That leaves the prosecution with two…

May 24, 2013 10:45 AM CDT

3rd law student charged in beheading of exotic Vegas bird takes misdemeanor plea and gets 2 days

A third law student from the University of California-Berkeley has been charged with playing a role in the beheading death last year of an exotic bird at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Hazhir Kargaran, 26, was charged with three misdemeanors in the Clark County case and pleaded no…

May 23, 2013 4:10 PM CDT