Recent Updates
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Court to decide on convict's right to test DNA
U.S. Court News 11/03/2008The Supreme Court will decide whether, years after his conviction, a defendant has a constitutional right to test genetic evidence found at the crime scene.The justices, in an order Monday, accepted the appeal of prosecutors in Alaska. They asked the...
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Navy Refuses to Release McCain Car Crash Records
U.S. Court News 10/20/2008Journalists say the U.S. Navy refuses to release documents about a 1964auto accident in which then-Lt. John McCain was involved, and injured,along with another man, outside the main gate of the Norfolk Navy Base.The Navy allegedly located the documen...
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Court Stays Guantanamo Prisoner Release
U.S. Court News 10/09/2008The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday stayed a federaljudge's order that the Bush administration free 17 prisoners fromGuantanamo. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the governmentto bring the prisoners to his court Friday, s...
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Tokyo Broadcasting Sues ABC for Ripping off Shows
U.S. Court News 10/07/2008ABC's "reality" show "Wipeout" is a ripoff of Tokyo BroadcastingSystem's shows, the Japanese network claims in Federal Court. TBS saysABC's show might "more aptly be titled 'Swipe-Out, given that it isnothing more than a blatant copycat combination o...
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State Farm Won't Back Mean Mom
U.S. Court News 10/06/2008State Farm says a policyholder, a mother, suggested her daughter taunta girl the daughter doesn't like by writing insults, including "bitch,""whore," "slut" and "you have no friends," on disposable diapers andstrewing them about the girl's yard. The ...
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Judge Rejects Challenge to College Religious Displays
U.S. Court News 09/30/2008Religious displays in the bursar's office at Hunter College do not constitute a government endorsement of religion, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell dismissed a challenge brought by Herman Menes, a college accountant who sai...
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New class action filed over US warrantless surveillance program
U.S. Court News 09/22/2008The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit seeking injunctive, declaratory and equitable relief from the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program, which gave government agencies access to over 300 ter...
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Bush to sign disabilities bill passed by US House
U.S. Court News 09/19/2008A bill overwriting judicial interpretations which have narrowed protections under the Americans With Disabilities Act awaits President Bush's signature following passage by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. The ADA Amendments Act of 2008,...
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TSA Wins Ruling over Air Marshal's Text Leak
U.S. Court News 09/18/2008The Transportation Safety Agency did not violate an air marshal's due process rights when it disciplined him for leaking a text message to the media, the 9th Circuit ruled. Robert McLean received a text message in late July 2003 stating that there wo...
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Pole Dance Teacher Sues City To Combat 'Pall Of Orthodoxy'
U.S. Court News 08/29/2008Adams Township unconstitutionally refused a permit to a woman who wants to open a "dance and fitness studio ... to teach women how to pole dance, power lap dance, and strip tease - all while fully clothed," Stephanie Babines claims in Federal Court. ...
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San Francisco Mayor's Wife Says She Was Swindled
U.S. Court News 08/26/2008Moviemakers swindled the mayor of San Francisco's wife out of $75,000 by promising she would act in and produce a film in China, then making another movie, without hiring her for anything and without repaying her "one cent," Jennifer Siebel claims in...
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Prosecutors trying to get obese defendant to court
U.S. Court News 08/22/2008Prosecutors are trying to decide how to jail and bring to court a nearly half-ton, bedridden woman accused of killing her 2-year-old nephew.A grand jury on Thursday indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, on one count of first-degree murder and on one co...