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Court ‘deeply troubled’ by woman’s jailing over unpaid fines
Headline Legal News |
2020/02/16 10:37
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Federal appeals court judges said they were “deeply troubled” that a Georgia municipal court jailed a woman when she couldn’t pay a fine for driving without insurance.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of Ziahonna Teagan’s claims that her civil rights were violated, but said she could pursue a false imprisonment claim against the city of McDonough, news outlets reported.
“We are deeply troubled by what happened to Ms. Teagan in the McDonough municipal court,” the unsigned opinion says. “She, like all other citizens of that city, deserved better.”
After Teagan pleaded not guilty in December 2013, Judge Donald Patten found her guilty during a bench trial in March 2014. He imposed a $745 fine for driving without insurance and a $50 fine for arriving late to court.
Teagan told the judge she couldn’t immediately pay the fine but would be able to pay just over a week later. Patten sentenced her to serve 60 days in jail, suspending the sentence on the condition that she pay the total amount within nine days.
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UK parents lose court appeal to keep baby on life support
Legal Interview |
2020/02/14 10:37
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The parents of a baby declared brain dead by doctors have lost the latest round of a legal battle in Britain’s courts to keep him on life support.
Britain’s Court of Appeal on Friday rejected an attempt by Karwan Ali and Shokhan Namiq to overturn a High Court order that doctors could stop treating their infant son, Midrar Ali.
The baby was starved of oxygen due to complications at birth, and was born not breathing and without a heartbeat. He has been on a ventilator ever since.
Judges at both courts agreed with doctors that Midrar Ali had experienced “irreversible brain stem death” by Oct. 1, when he was 14 days old. Three appeals judges ruled Friday that doctors could lawfully "cease to mechanically ventilate" the baby.
One of the judges, Andrew McFarlane, said Midrar Ali no longer had a "brain that is recognizable as such." "There is no basis for contemplating that any further tests would result in a different outcome," he said.
The baby's parents, who live in Manchester in northwest England, do not accept that his condition is irreversible and want the courts to consider opinions from foreign experts.
Their lawyer, David Foster, said the couple was considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case is a latest in a series of legal challenges by parents to doctors in Britain’s state-funded National Health Service.
The cases often become flashpoints for debates on the rights of children and parents, the responsibilities of hospitals and the role of the state.
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European court backs Spain on express migrant deportations
Court Watch |
2020/02/12 10:37
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The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday backed Spain’s express deportation of two African migrants back to Morocco from a Spanish enclave in northwest Africa as part of a mass expulsion.
The court’s grand chamber ruled that there had been no violation of two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case was taken by a Malian and an Ivorian with the support of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, or ECCHR.
The two men, along with several dozen others, crossed the high three border wire fences separating the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco in August 2014. They were caught by Spanish police and immediately returned to Morocco.
Human rights organizations have long criticized express deportations. They claim that migrants are denied the opportunity to apply for asylum and an assessment of the risks they face if expelled.
The European court had initially condemned Spain in October 2017 for the case and concluded that the so-called summary returns from the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco were in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thursday's ruling followed an appeal by Spain.
The appeal chamber said the migrants had “placed themselves in an unlawful situation when they had deliberately attempted to enter Spain as part of a large group and at an unauthorized location, taking advantage of the group’s large numbers and using force.”
It said “they had thus chosen not to use the legal procedures which existed in order to enter Spanish territory lawfully.”
Ceuta and Melilla are the European Union’s only land borders with Africa, Each year thousands of migrants, most of them from sub-Saharan countries, try to scale the fences to make it into Spain in the hope they won’t be returned and may get asylum.
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Court raises sentence for banker who smuggled a Picasso
Legal Business |
2020/02/09 19:00
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A Spanish court has raised the sentence against a former bank president found guilty of trying to smuggle a painting by Pablo Picasso out of the country.
The Madrid court announced the decision Tuesday to raise the sentence against fined ex-Bankinter head Jaime Botin to three years instead of 18 months. The move came after the prosecution detected an error in the original sentence handed down last month.
The court also raised the amount Botin was fined from 52.4 million euros ($57. 9 million) to 91.7 million euros.
The trial last year heard how a team of Spanish police experts flew to the French island of Corsica in 2015 to retrieve the painting, Picasso’s masterpiece “Head of a Young Woman.” The Spanish government had ruled in 2012 that the painting, which is valued at some 24 million euros ($26.5 million), could not be taken out of the country.
The work was owned by Botin, an uncle of Ana Botin, president of the powerful Santander banking group.
Corsican authorities said they had been tipped off about an attempted smuggling of the prized painting from Spain by boat. They said the oil painting, which comes from the Cubist master’s “pink period” and features a woman with long black hair, was seized when the boat’s captain was unable to produce a proper certificate.
On the boat, authorities found a document in Spanish confirming that the work was of “cultural interest” and was banned from leaving Spain, Picasso’s homeland, without permission.
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Missouri county sued over jail time for unpaid court costs
Court Watch |
2020/02/03 18:58
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A Missouri man at the heart of a state Supreme Court case that overturned what critics called modern-day debtors’ prisons is back in jail and suing the local officials who put him there.
Warrensburg resident George Richey, 65, is one of two Missouri men who sued over boarding costs for time spent in county jails, which are commonly referred to as board bills.
Richey spent 65 days in jail in 2016 for not paying past board bills. Supreme Court judges last year unanimously sided with him, writing in an opinion that while inmates are responsible for those costs, “if such responsibilities fall delinquent, the debts cannot be taxed as court costs and the failure to pay that debt cannot result in another incarceration.”
The nonprofit legal defense organization ArchCity Defenders on Tuesday sued St. Clair County and Associate Circuit County Judge Jerry Rellihan on behalf of Richey for the harm caused by his unlawful imprisonment.
Richey’s lawyers wrote in a Tuesday court filing that the time he spent in jail meant he lost “his home, all of his personal belongings, and lived in constant fear of arrest for the past four years.”
“I have the clothes on my back, but that’s it. This has caused me to lose everything,” Richey said in a statement. “I’m not the only one these counties are picking on, and I’m taking a stand because these crooked practices can’t continue.”
Associated Press requests for comment to St. Clair County officials were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Richey’s lawyers also argued that the judge retaliated against him for taking his board bill case to the Supreme Court.
Three months after the high court’s ruling, Rellihan sentenced Richey to more than two years in county jail for probation violations and misdemeanor counts of assault, trespassing and disturbing the peace.
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