High Court to Look at Life in Prison for Juveniles
In Monday case, Supreme Court weighs whether life in prison for juveniles is cruel and unusual.
Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.
Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.
They didn’t kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.
Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.
Now the Supreme Court is being asked to say that locking up juveniles and throwing away the key is cruel and unusual — and thus, unconstitutional. Other than in death penalty cases, the justices never before have found that a penalty crossed the cruel-and-unusual line. They will hear arguments Monday.
Graham, now 22, and Sullivan, now 33, are in Florida prisons, which hold more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for nonhomicide crimes. Although their lawyers deny their clients are guilty, the court will consider only whether the sentences are permitted by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court’s latest look at how to punish young criminals flows directly from its 4-year-old decision to rule out the death penalty for anyone younger than 18.
In that 2005 case decided by a 5-4 vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion talked about “the lesser culpability of the juvenile offender.”
“From a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed,” Kennedy said.
Yet Kennedy also acknowledged the possibility that for the worst crimes and the worst offenders, “the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person.”
Both sides point to the same basic facts — the rare imposition of Draconian prison terms on people so young — to make their point.
The state of Florida, backed by 19 other states, argues it should retain flexibility in sentencing so that “particularly heinous acts that stop short of causing death” can be punished vigorously.
Life without parole “is appropriately rare and reserved only for the worst of the worst offenders,” crime victims’ groups said in court papers.
Most victims of juvenile violence also are young, the victims groups said, citing Justice Department statistics. “Softening sentences for juvenile offenders puts actual children in harm’s way — innocent ones, not those who have committed violent crimes,” the victims’ groups said.
Opponents of such sentences said, however, that most states have in practice rejected life terms for juveniles when no one was killed. The 109 juveniles serving terms of life without parole are in Florida and seven other states — California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska and South Carolina — according to a Florida State University study. More than 2,000 other juveniles are serving life without parole for killing someone.
Only 9 people in the country are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were 13. The number rises to 73 when 14-year-olds are added in.
No other country allows life sentences for young offenders, opponents say.
Beyond the infrequency of such punishment, lawyers for Graham and Sullivan argue that it is a bad idea to render a final judgment about people so young.
“They are unfinished products, works-in-progress,” said Bryan Stevenson, who will argue Sullivan’s case at the high court.
Actor Charles Dutton, former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson and others who committed crimes as teenagers have weighed in against life without parole sentences. Corrections officials, psychologists, educators and even some victims also have taken Graham’s and Sullivan’s side.
“The crimes that these guys committed were grotesque,” Simpson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I’m sure people will say Simpson’s gone soft in the head.”
The Wyoming Republican served 18 years in the Senate, but as a teenager, he pleaded guilty to setting fire to an abandoned building on federal property and later spent a night in jail for slugging a police officer.
Simpson said he sees no good argument for refusing even to review their sentences after the passage of time.
“When they get to be 30 or 40 and they been in the clink for 20 years or 30 or 40 and they have learned how to read and how to do things, why not?”
If a prisoner shows he is not fit to be released, “throw him back in,” he said. “That’s better than saying ‘Sorry, we can’t look at that file because you were sent here for life.’”
As their cases come to the court, Sullivan’s and Graham’s interests are not strictly aligned. The justices could, for example, decide that life sentences may be inappropriate for 13-year-olds, but allow them for older teenagers.
Such a decision could help Sullivan and another Florida inmate, Ian Manuel, who wounded a woman in a shooting when he was 13. But it could leave Graham with his sentence unchanged.
The cases are Sullivan v. Florida, 08-7621, and Graham v. Florida, 08-7412.
Essex County’s spends $2.8M to settle legal claims
ESSEX COUNTY — They called the prairie dog Cujo, and his name turned out to be prophetic.
Shortly after his 2001 arrival at Essex County’s Turtle Back Zoo, the rapacious rodent named after the rabid St. Bernard in the Stephen King novel bit into his third victim, a girl who had to undergo a series of rabies shots.
The zoo’s operator — Essex County — opted to pony up $328,370 to settle the resulting lawsuit, on the installment plan.
This year, that one bill comes to $164,185, part of a ballooning bank of $2.78 million budgeted in 2009 to settle legal claims for everything from “slips and falls” to age discrimination to harassment to the $266.38 check cut to Freeholder Ralph Caputo when a security gate cracked the windshield of his 1996 Lincoln Town Car.
“A lot of them are interesting. … 500 claims a year on the liability side,” said Frank Del Gaudio, the Essex County “risk manager” who runs what is essentially a damage-control operation at the county’s Hall of Records. “You go back and forth on the phone with people. … We operate like a small insurance company.”
He is the keeper of stacks of papers titled “SETTLEMENT MEMO,” penned by various county counsels on what amounts to a game of risk. Take the lawsuit in a slip and fall at a South Orange parking lot. “Plaintiff, a professional comedian, could be charming to a jury,” the counsel wrote. Translation: We’ll settle for $115,000.
In 2000, Essex paid out $807,652 in legal settlements, according to Paul Hopkins II, the county treasurer. The expenditures stayed below the $1 million level until 2005, when the numbers begin an ascend to $3.75 million in 2007, trailing off to $2.54 million in 2008 and nudging up to $2.78 million this year.
A big settlement can — and does — skew the results.
Such was the case of Falzo et al. vs. Essex, in which some 11 corrections officers asserted that they were not paid overtime for off-the-clock K-9 duties. The resulting $1.8 million settlement, paid in stages, resulted in a $1.2 million charge to this year’s settlement costs alone, according to county documents.
The trend, however, is the county has been spending much more to settle lawsuits, though an explanation, at least at this juncture, appears elusive.
“There may be a number of variables,” said James R. Paganelli, who has been the Essex County counsel for little more than a year. “If we think something has merit and try to resolve it without incurring a ton of costs, we’ll do that.”
As the 2010 budget process unfolds, he said he expects to take a closer look. “I’ll make an analysis of the cases we have on hand,” he said.
No one appears to be suggesting that Essex County isn’t putting up a fight.
Jeffrey Strauss is the Montvale attorney who represented the teenage girl bitten in the “Cujo” case as well as Richard Shapiro, the comedian who shattered his femur after taking a spill with a shopping cart.
“They put up a fight, Essex County,” said Strauss, who is also a Scotch Plains councilman. “They do vigorously defend it. They’re good lawyers.”
In the prairie dog case involving a teenage girl from Clark, the decision to settle — reached in mediation — didn’t come until after a lengthy process of discovery, during which witnesses are interviewed, and only shortly before trial.
To Strauss, the issues were clear. “My girl was just standing there, not reaching in,” he said. “The next thing she was feeling something on her arm. It leaped up and bit her wrist.”
There were red flags, he said.
“That was the third bite,” he said of the prairie dog’s string of attacks. “After the first bite, they should have closed the exhibit.”
In the end, they shut the exhibit and renovated it to make it safer, he said.
Still, Strauss knew a jury trial could have pitfalls. “If we ended up trying it, there are enough issues where there would have been appeals,” he said. “I think we would have won, but you can’t predict juries.”
The Essex counsel’s office is 13 attorneys strong, each with a specialty, and a caseload that now stands at 120 lawsuits with three trial dates on the docket in the coming weeks, Paganelli said.
From Paganelli’s perspective, though, legal claims against Essex appear to be on the wane. “I do think claims are down. It does not mean there’s not a potential for claims. That would be hard to tell.”
This year’s $2.78 million budget for legal settlements amounts to payouts on 49 settled cases, nine of which are so-called structured settlements, or those paid over time.
Such was the case with the prairie dog lawsuit.
“They have financial issues,” Strauss said of Essex. “I was advised that if you want to settle, you had to do it that way … and believe me, it is a real annoying thing for a plaintiff.”
Accused ‘was very ill’
The lawyer for a man accused of shooting six people, one fatally, at an Orlando office building, said after a court appearance that his client was ”very, very mentally ill”.
”This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year: unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce – all of the stresses,” said Robert Wesley for Jason Rodriguez, 40, who was fired in 2007 from Reynolds, Smith & Hills, the engineering company where the shooting took place on Friday.
When asked why he had opened fire, Rodriguez said: ”They know why I did it – they left me to rot,” according to the affidavit
All solicitation charges against Clarksdale cardiologist Roger Weiner Dismissed
All solicitation charges against Clarksdale cardiologist Roger Weiner were dismissed Thursday in U. S. District court by Judge Neal Biggers Jr. The charges were thrown out based on the federal court not having jurisdiction in the case.
Several pending motions were being heard in U. S. District Court in Oxford when the dismissal came. Several of the motions dealt with Wiener’s attorneys asking for a hearing based on their complaints that prosecutors were not sharing evidence with them.
“I am extremely relieved that this ordeal is over and want to thank the community, my patients, the medical staff and all the hospital employees for their unwavering support during what has been a trying time,” said Weiner in response to the dismissal.
He continued, “I am looking forward to continuing my advocacy for improving the quality of care in the Delta and working with my colleagues on the County Board of Supervisors to revitalize our community.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi plots trips ‘to stall his trials’
Rome (Italy) : Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of planning more than a dozen foreign trips in an attempt to ensure that two trials, in which he is to be accused of bribery and fraud, move so slowly that the judges will have to abandon them.
Two cases against him will be heard in Milan later this month after he was stripped of immunity from prosecution, The Times reports.
Berlusconi, 73, is due to go on trial on November 16 for tax evasion and false accounting over the purchase of television rights by his company Mediaset. He has already announced he will be in Rome for a United Nations summit on that date.
On November 27 a second court case is expected to see Berlusconi accused of bribing David Mills, the British lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, with 378,000 pounds to give false evidence. Mills is planning to appeal his his sentence in the supreme court.
Berlusconi plans to argue that he is too busy to attend on the dates set by the court.
Trips are also planned to Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Copenhagen, Minsk, Israel, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the coming months.
European Union summits require further journeys.
One of his lawyers said: ‘He wants to be free to take part in his trial when he is free to participate.’
Timberlake ordered to testify in court
Justin Timberlake has been ordered to court on November 9th so he can permanently keep a woman accused of stalking him at a distance legally.
A judge in Los Angeles wants the pop star to personally testify against Karen McNeil, the woman he has accused of harassing him, if he is to make a temporary restraining order permanent.
Timberlake’s aides have claimed McNeil has showed up at his property uninvited several times – but the singer has yet to submit a sworn declaration about his alleged obsessed fan, who insists she’s a long time friend of the star.
Unhappy with the judge’s decision to call Timberlake to court, the singer’s attorney has filed legal papers to disqualify the judge, according to TMZ.com.
William Jefferson sentencing of 27-33 years recommended
Prosecutors on Friday night issued a memorandum recommending that former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson be sentenced to between 27 and 33 years in prison.
Jefferson, 62, will be sentenced by federal Judge T.S. Ellis III on Nov. 13.
The prosecution’s sentencing memorandum suggests that Jefferson, who served 18 years in Congress, may have hidden resources and “poses a significant risk of flight,” and ought to be immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after sentencing at the Alexandria, Va., courthouse.
If Ellis follows the U.S. attorney’s office recommendations, Jefferson would face by far the longest prison term ever imposed for congressional corruption, dwarfing the sentences meted out in such famous scandals as Abscam, Koreagate and Wedetch.
In March 2006, Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California was sentenced to eight year and four months in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes to help military contractors win government contracts. At the time, prosecutors described the sentence as longest ever handed down for a member or former member of Congress in a corruption case.
“Because Congressman Jefferson’s crimes against the people of the United States were exceptional in their sheer number, length and breadth, the United States respectfully requests that this Court sentence the defendant within the applicable guideline range,” the memorandum states. “While the guidelines sentence calculated by the Probation Office is lengthy, it is appropriate, in that Congressman Jefferson’s criminal activities have surely caused or substantially added to the loss of public confidence and trust in our nation’s highest levels of government.”
Later, the 25-page memorandum states, “A sentence within the guidelines range will communicate to Congressman Jefferson that his repeated attempts to sell his office were not only criminal, they were egregious. … A severe sentence would send the message to the public that such egregious and criminal behavior will not be tolerated in our society.”
As to his flight risk, the government asserted that despite being in bankruptcy, Jefferson may have sufficient hidden resources and contacts in Africa to try to make his escape between sentencing and being remanded to prison if he has the opportunity.
According to the memorandum, “law enforcement agents learned of several wire transfers from offshore territories into U.S. financial accounts that were either controlled by the defendant or whose proceeds were made available for his benefit.”
The government’s conclusion: “Given the age of the defendant, the severity of the sentence calculated by the Probation Office, the defendant’s frequent travel overseas and unexplained wire transfers from overseas locations to financial accounts used by the defendant, the defendant cannot rebut the presumption at sentencing that he is a risk of flight.”
Jefferson is planning to appeal his verdict, and his attorneys may submit a reply to the government memorandum next week.
Jefferson was found guilty on Aug. 6 of 11 of 16 corruption counts, including soliciting bribes, depriving citizens of honest service in their representative, money laundering and racketeering. The charges revolved around a series of schemes in which Jefferson, who took a keen interest in African affairs as a member of Congress and was on good terms with heads of state and other influential figures on the continent, sought to help American businesses secure business deals in West Africa in exchange for payments to shell companies held in the name of his wife, his daughters and his brother, Mose.
Jefferson claimed he was not acting in his official capacity a member of Congress when he was working on those deals and therefore the payments were not bribes.
The case earned an indelible place in the American popular imagination when an FBI raid of his Washington, D.C., home in the summer of 2005 discovered $90,000 in marked FBI bills stowed in the freezer. The FBI thought Jefferson had delivered the money as a bribe to Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Ellis has already issued harsh sentences to supporting players in the case. In 2006 he sentenced Brett Pfeffer, a former Jefferson aide who pleaded guilty to being a go-between in the bribe scheme, to eight years in prison. In 2007, he sentenced Vernon Jackson, the CEO of IGate Inc. to seven years and three months. Jackson pleaded guilty to making payments to a company controlled by Jefferson’s wife, Andrea, and their five children, for the congressman’s help in landing telecommunications business in West Africa.
Both Jackson and Pfeffer, dressed in their prison jumpsuits, testified against Jefferson at his trial.
The first African-American to represent Louisiana in Congress since Reconstruction, Jefferson was defeated last December in a hurricane-delayed election, by a virtual unknown – Vietnamese-American Republican, Anh “Joseph” Cao.
French fashion giant Chanel was accused of counterfeiting
PARIS -French fashion giant Chanel was accused in court Friday of stealing a supplier’s design in a case that could have a bearing on the rights of skilled artisans toiling in the luxury industry.
After four years of legal wrangling, the trial opened before the Paris commercial court, pitting World Tricot, a small firm that manufactures high-end knits, against Chanel.
World Tricot founder Carmel Colle is seeking 2.5 million euros (3.7 million dollars) from Chanel for alleged counterfeit after she spotted a crochet design in a Chanel boutique in Tokyo in 2005 that she claims is hers.
The design had been previously submitted to Chanel’s studio and rejected, Colle claims.
“There have been hurtful things said about my so-called management but I am happy. I have gone all the way to the end and I have confidence in justice,” Colle said after the hearing.
A judgement will be given on December 11, the president of the Paris commercial court said.
Opening the hearings in Paris, World Tricot lawyer Pascal Crehange said: “This is not a routine trial.
“It is a trial for skilled artisans because they are the ones who toil in silence. It is the recognition of their creative work that is at stake.”
Founded in 1987 in the town of Lure in eastern France, World Tricot claims that Chanel stole the simple knit cable design with black edging and used it for a vest.
But Chanel lawyer Gerard Delile said the fashion house was the “sole proprietor” of the vest design and that World Tricot has “a technical expertise” that does not extend to creative design.
Delile complained that World Tricot was seeking to play the victim and unfairly portrayed its complaint as a “David against Goliath battle” — a small firm of manual workers against an international fashion giant.
World Tricot is also accusing Chanel of illegally terminating a contract after the fashion house began drastically cutting down orders to World Tricot following Colle’s complaint.
Chanel contends that it works with some 270 suppliers and that this is the first time it has been targeted in a complaint from one of them.
A former community organiser, Colle created her firm with some help from charity foundations and with a view to hiring jobless women from an economically-depressed region of eastern France.
Soon she found herself in business with such top names in haute couture as Christian Dior, Christian Lacroix and Givenchy, providing high-quality workmanship.
The contract with Chanel however was a crowning moment for Colle and the fashion house became her main customer.
“Madame Colle is the first woman with the courage to stand up to a major fashion house and say ‘this work is mine’,” said Crehange. “Chanel does not do knitting.”
World Tricot’s financial woes have mounted since the clash with Chanel and in 2007 it was put into receivership.
The firm now employs only 12 people compared to 90 in 2001.
Usher and Tameka Foster’s Divorce Finalized
Usher and Tameka Foster’s marriage has been officially dissolved on Wednesday, November 4, legally ending their union as husband and wife.
Usher’s marriage to wife Tameka Foster was officially dissolved on Wednesday, November 4. Court documents confirm that a Fulton County, Georgia judge has issued a final decree to end the pair’s union as husband and wife in the eyes of the law.
Usher’s lawyer, Ivory Brown, said Friday, November 6 she couldn’t comment on the case. Meanwhile, Tameka’s attorney BJ Bernstein has not yet returned a phone call seeking comment on the matter.
Usher and Tameka Foster tied the knot on August 3, 2007. Their oldest son, named Usher Raymond V, was born in November the same year, while their second one named Naviyd Ely Raymond was born last December. Tameka also has three other children with her ex-husband Ryan Glover.
Following several false divorce reports, it was confirmed in early June this year that Usher filed for legal separation from Tameka Foster. In the court documents, the R ‘n’ B performer claimed his marriage to Tameka was “irretrievably broken” and there was “no reasonable hope of reconciliation.”
Morgan Freeman settles crash lawsuit
Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman has settled a US lawsuit involving a female passenger travelling in his car when it crashed last year, the woman’s lawyer confirmed.
Freeman, 72, suffered a broken arm, elbow and minor shoulder damage when his car veered off the road in a late-night single vehicle crash near Ruleville, Mississippi in August 2008.
His passenger, Demaris Meyer, had sued Freeman in the US District Court in Mississippi for compensation, saying the injuries and trauma she sustained in the crash left her unable to work.
Meyer, who had to be cut out of the vehicle by responders, suffered broken bones and head injuries which had left her with cognitive difficulties and short term memory loss, according to earlier statements.
The case has now been dismissed after both parties agreed an out-of-court settlement, Meyer’s lawyer Gloria Allred said on Friday.
‘Ms Meyer is pleased that the matter is resolved and the case is settled,’ Allred said.
Freeman won an Academy Award for his role in 2004’s Clint Eastwood boxing drama ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and is famous for his authoritative voice that has been used to narrate documentaries and commercials as well as film roles.
He has been nominated for an Oscar four times.
Freeman will soon be seen in another collaboration with Eastwood, Invictus, a film based on the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Freeman portrays former South African president Nelson Mandela.
