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Oregon Supreme Court denies request for information release
Headline Legal News |
2017/10/14 10:04
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The Oregon Supreme Court has denied a request by The Oregonian Publishing Co. for Oregon Health and Science University to release the names of patients who intend to sue.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the court ruled on Thursday that the information is protected from public disclosure under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The company that publishes the Portland newspaper in 2011 sought a list of names of those who planned to sue the university, which is a public institution that receives taxpayer money. The list would have included patients, students, employees, contractors and visitors.
Lower courts ordered the university to release the information, but it appealed to the state Supreme Court. State attorneys filed a brief in support of the newspaper’s position.
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NC high court reviews death penalty of man who beheaded wife
Topics in Legal News |
2017/10/10 09:24
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North Carolina's highest court is reviewing whether justice means the death penalty for a survivor of El Salvador's blood-soaked civil war of the 1980s who strangled and then decapitated his estranged wife.
The state's Supreme Court hears oral arguments Monday on whether the state can execute 41-year-old Juan Carlos Rodriguez of Winston-Salem for the 2010 murder of his wife, Maria. The high court automatically reviews death cases.
North Carolina is rare among southern states in that it hasn't had an execution in more than a decade because of various legal challenges. While the state has continued to suffer 500 to 600 murders a year, prosecutors have sought the death penalty only a handful of times each year and juries have condemned killers in only a fraction of those cases.
Rodriguez's children told investigators their father beat and bloodied Maria Rodriguez after she told them she was leaving in November 2010. He tossed the woman's still-breathing body over his shoulder, placed her in his vehicle, and said he was taking her to a hospital. Maria's body and severed head were found at different locations three weeks later, after Juan was already jailed for her kidnapping.
Justices are holding hearings in the case for the second time in almost exactly a year. Monday's hearing comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this spring that states needed to use current medical standards in deciding whether a killer is so mentally disabled he can't be executed. The U.S. constitution bans "cruel and unusual punishments," and that has been interpreted to prohibit executing people with severe mental shortcomings.
Rodriguez's IQ was estimated several times at below 70, a threshold for significantly impaired intellectual functioning. But accused killers in North Carolina also must show significant inability to adapt to daily life and that their mental handicaps were evident before adulthood. |
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Australia's High Court to consider fate of 7 lawmakers
Court Watch |
2017/10/10 09:24
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Australia's prime minister said Monday that he was confident that government lawmakers would win a court challenge this week that threatens his administration's slender majority.
Seven High Court judges will decide whether seven lawmakers should be disqualified from Parliament because of a constitutional ban on dual citizens being elected. The three-day hearing begins Tuesday.
The fate of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is most crucial to the government in an unprecedented political crisis.
If the court rules that he was illegally elected in July last year due to New Zealand citizenship he unknowingly inherited from his father, the ruling conservative coalition could lose its single-seat majority in the House of Representatives, where governments are formed.
Joyce could stand in a by-election, having renounced his Kiwi citizenship. But with the government unpopular in opinion polls, voters in his rural electoral division could take the opportunity to throw both the deputy prime minister and his administration out of office.
Two of the six senators under a cloud are government ministers. Fiona Nash inherited British citizenship from her father and Matt Canavan became an Italian through an Australian-born mother with Italian parents. Disqualified senators can be replaced by members of the same party without need for an election.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given no indication of what his government would do if the court rules against any of the three ministers.
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Bosnian court acquits ex-Srebrenica commander of war crimes
Topics in Legal News |
2017/10/09 09:24
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Bosnia's war crimes court on Monday acquitted the wartime commander of Srebrenica, who was accused of committing atrocities against Serbs during the 1992-95 Balkan conflict.
The acquittal of Naser Oric immediately prompted anger from Serbian leaders, with Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin saying the court ruling "threatens security, trust and reconciliation in the whole of the Balkans."
Oric was accused of war crimes against three Serb prisoners of war who were slain in villages around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in the early days of the conflict. A panel of judges presiding over the trial ruled Monday the prosecution did not present evidence proving the case against Oric.
Oric had previously been tried by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was also acquitted in 2008.
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Man who killed NFL star's son taking case to high court
Attorney News |
2017/10/08 09:27
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The case of a man serving life in prison for killing the 2-year-old son of NFL running back Adrian Peterson in South Dakota is going before the state Supreme Court.
Joseph Patterson was convicted in September 2015 of second-degree murder in the October 2013 death of Tyrese Ruffin, the son of Patterson's girlfriend and Peterson.
Patterson appealed, and the Argus Leader reports the state Supreme Court will decide whether his jury trial was mishandled. Attorney arguments are scheduled Monday on several questions, including whether the trial court prejudiced the jury by allowing prosecutors to mention certain information.
Peterson was a longtime member of the Minnesota Vikings. He now plays for the New Orleans Saints. |
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