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6 appear in court on charges they sent mosque attack images
Court and Trial |
2019/04/08 11:00
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Six people appeared in a New Zealand court Monday on charges they illegally redistributed the video a gunman livestreamed as he shot worshippers at two mosques last month.
Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen O’Driscoll denied bail to businessman Philip Arps and an 18-year-old suspect who both were taken into custody in March. The four others are not in custody.
The charge of supplying or distributing objectionable material carries a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment. Arps, 44, is scheduled to next appear in court via video link on April 26.
The 18-year-old suspect is charged with sharing the livestream video and a still image of the Al Noor mosque with the words “target acquired.” He will reappear in court on July 31 when electronically monitored bail will be considered.
Police prosecutor Pip Currie opposed bail for the 18-year-old suspect and said the second charge, involving the words added to the still image, was of significant concern.
New Zealand’s chief censor has banned both the livestreamed footage of the attack and the manifesto written and released by Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who faces 50 murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges in the March 15 attacks. |
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Spacey’s lawyers returning to court in bar groping case
Court and Trial |
2019/04/04 16:12
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A judge will consider motions filed by lawyers for Kevin Spacey, who’s charged with groping an 18-year-old man on Nantucket in 2016.
The Oscar-winning former “House of Cards” actor won’t be present for Thursday’s hearing at Nantucket District Court.
Spacey’s attorneys have been seeking to preserve phone and electronic records between the man — who says Spacey unzipped his pants and fondled him — and the man’s girlfriend at the time. The assault allegedly occurred at a restaurant on the island off Cape Cod where the young man worked as a busboy.
Spacey pleaded not guilty in January to felony indecent assault and battery. His lawyers have called the accusations “patently false.”
It’s the first criminal case brought against Spacey after several sexual misconduct allegations crippled his career in 2017. |
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Texas bans clergy from executions after Supreme Court ruling
Court and Trial |
2019/04/03 16:13
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Texas prisons will no longer allow clergy in the death chamber after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the scheduled execution of a man who argued his religious freedom would be violated if his Buddhist spiritual adviser couldn’t accompany him.
Effective immediately, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will only permit prison security staff into the execution chamber, a spokesman said Wednesday. The policy change comes in response to the high court’s ruling staying the execution of Patrick Murphy, a member of the “Texas 7” gang of escaped prisoners.
Texas previously allowed state-employed clergy to accompany inmates into the room where they’d be executed, but its prison staff included only Christian and Muslim clerics.
In light of this policy, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas couldn’t move forward with Murphy’s punishment unless his Buddhist adviser or another Buddhist reverend of the state’s choosing accompanied him.
One of Murphy’s lawyers, David Dow, said the policy change does not address their full legal argument and mistakes the main thrust of the court’s decision.
“Their arbitrary and, at least for now, hostile response to all religion reveals a real need for close judicial oversight of the execution protocol,” Dow said
Murphy’s attorneys told the high court that executing him without his spiritual adviser in the room would violate the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The 57-year-old — who was among a group of inmates who escaped from a Texas prison in 2000 and then committed numerous robberies, including one where a police officer was fatally shot — became a Buddhist while in prison nearly a decade ago. |
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Australian man loses bullying-by-breaking wind court case
Court and Trial |
2019/03/29 12:29
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An Australian appeals court on Friday dismissed a bullying case brought by an engineer who accused his former supervisor of repeatedly breaking wind toward him.
The Victoria state Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court judge's ruling that even if engineer David Hingst's allegations were true, flatulence did not necessarily constitute bullying.
Hingst said he would take his case to the High Court, Australia's final court of appeal. The 56-year-old is seeking 1.8 million Australian dollars ($1.3 million) damages from his former Melbourne employer, Construction Engineering.
Hingst testified that he had moved out of a communal office space to avoid supervisor Greg Short's flatulence.
Hingst told the court that Short would then enter Hingst's small, windowless office several times a day and break wind.
Hingst "alleged that Mr. Short would regularly break wind on him or at him, Mr. Short thinking this to be funny," the two appeal court judges wrote in their ruling.
Hingst said he would spray Short with deodorant and called his supervisor "Mr. Stinky."
"He would fart behind me and walk away. He would do this five or six times a day," Hingst said outside court.
Short told the court he did not recall breaking wind in Hingst's office, "but I may have done it once or twice."
Hingst also accused Short of being abusive over the phone, using profane language and taunting him.
The appeal judges found Hingst "put the issue of Mr. Short's flatulence to the forefront" of his bullying case, arguing that "flatulence constituted assaults."
The court found that Short did not bully or harass Hingst. Hingst had failed to establish that Construction Engineering had been negligent. |
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Supreme Court won't stop bump stock ban
Court and Trial |
2019/03/27 12:37
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The Supreme Court won't stop the Trump administration from enforcing its ban on bump stock devices, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns.
The ban took effect Tuesday. Gun rights groups asked the court on Monday to stop the government from enforcing the ban for now. Chief Justice John Roberts declined one request for the court to get involved on Tuesday and a second request was declined by the court on Thursday. That was the only remaining request.
The administration's ban puts it in the unusual position of arguing against gun rights groups.
President Donald Trump said last year that the government would move to ban bump stocks. The action followed a 2017 Las Vegas shooting where bump stocks were used. Fifty-eight people were killed. |
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