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UK lawyer fined for defying Heathrow court ruling embargo
Law Firm Web News |
2021/05/11 20:06
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A British lawyer and climate campaigner was fined 5,000 pounds ($7,070) on Monday after being convicted of contempt of court for a tweet which broke an embargo on a U.K. Supreme Court judgment over Heathrow Airport’s expansion.
Tim Crosland, a director of an environmental campaign group, revealed on social media the court ruling on Heathrow Airport’s proposed third runway a day before it was made public in December. He was among involved parties to receive a draft of the appeal judgment, and has said that he broke the embargo deliberately as “an act of civil disobedience” to protest the “deep immorality of the court’s ruling.”
The court had ruled that a planned third runway at Heathrow was legal. The case was at the center of a long-running controversy and environmentalists had argued for years that the climate impact far outweighed the economic benefits of expanding the airport.
Crosland said the proposed 14 billion-pound ($19.8 billion) expansion of Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest, would breach Britain’s commitments to the Paris climate agreement.
He argued that the government “deliberately suppressed” information about the effect that the airport’s expansion would have on the climate crisis, and said the publicity gained over breaking the embargo would act as an “antidote” to that.
Addressing the court, Crosland said: “If complicity in the mass loss of life that makes the planet uninhabitable is not a crime, then nothing is a crime.”
Three Supreme Court justices found Crosland in contempt of court for his “deliberate and calculated breaches of the embargo” and fined him 5,000 pounds.
The judges said he “wanted to demonstrate his deliberate defiance of the prohibition and to bring this to the attention of as large an audience as possible.”
Crosland had brought a small suitcase to Monday’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in case he was given immediate jail time. The maximum sentence had been up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine.
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Montana bill seeks to charge doctors assisting in suicides
Law Firm Web News |
2021/03/01 11:39
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The Montana Senate is considering a bill that would make it illegal for doctors to help terminal patients take their own life.
The bill heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday would open doctors up to possible homicide charges if they prescribe a lethal dose of medication at the request of their patients.
A 2009 state Supreme Court decision protects doctors from prosecution for the practice, though it is not explicitly allowed in state law.
Supporters of the bill said that allowing physician-assisted death would send the wrong message to those considering suicide in the state. Montana has one of the highest suicide rates in the U.S.
“Once allowed this is a severely slippery slope,” said bill sponsor Republican Sen. Carl Glimm. “We need to show in every way we can that suicide is wrong.”
Opponents of the bill made clear that medically assisted death is not related to the state’s suicide rate. The practice is only available to those suffering from terminal disease.
“Medical aid in dying is not suicide. These patients are not depressed ? they are dying. There is a very big difference,” said Dr. Colette Kirchhoff, a hospice and palliative care physician from Bozeman. “It’s a way to alleviate suffering.”
Leslie Mutchler, the daughter of Robert Baxter, the plaintiff in the Montana Supreme Court case that allowed the practice, testified in opposition to the bill. Her son chose physician assistance to end his life in 2016 after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.
“He gained so much peace of mind when he was able to obtain the life-ending medication from a physician,” Mutchler said. “It’s not suicide. It’s a life that is already ending. It is just a way to hasten it.”
Several states allow physician-assisted suicide, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Similar measures to criminalize physicians for the practice have faltered in Montana in every legislative session in the past decade ? when the bills have died before reaching the governor’s desk.
This year, the bill may find a more favorable fate with the support of the administration of Gov. Greg Gianforte, the state’s first Republican governor in 16 years. Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras testified in favor of the bill on Friday, saying the governor supports the measure.
Juras said two of her grandchildren are diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a disease that causes persistent lung infections and over time reduces lung capacity.
“We are committed to walking with them through the hard days. I do not want you to send them the message when they have a tough day that suicide is an acceptable option,” she said. |
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Wisconsin Supreme Court tosses Trump election lawsuit
Law Firm Web News |
2020/12/13 11:39
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state, ending Trump's legal challenges in state court about an hour before the Electoral College was to meet to cast the state's 10 votes for Biden.
The ruling came after the court held arguments Saturday, the same day a federal judge dismissed another Trump lawsuit seeking to overturn his loss in the state. Trump appealed that ruling.
Trump sought to have more than 221,000 ballots disqualified in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's two most heavily Democratic counties. He wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes.
Liberal Justice Jill Karofsky blasted Trumps' case during Saturday's hearing, saying it “smacks of racism” and was “un-American.” Conservative justices voiced some concerns about how certain ballots were cast, while also questioning whether they could or should disqualify votes only in two counties.
Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes, a margin of 0.6% that withstood a Trump-requested recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the two with the most Democratic votes. Trump did not challenge any ballots cast in the counties he won.
Trump and his allies have suffered dozens of defeats in Wisconsin and across the country in lawsuits that rely on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud and election abuse. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate Biden’s win by throwing out millions of votes in four battleground states, including Wisconsin. |
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New Orleans councilman, attorney plead not guilty to fraud
Law Firm Web News |
2020/07/15 08:40
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New Orleans City Council President Jason Williams and an attorney in his law firm pleaded not guilty to federal tax fraud charges on Friday.
Williams, 47, and Nicole Burdett, 39, appeared remotely before a federal magistrate judge and entered their pleas to charges of conspiracy, preparing false or fraudulent tax returns and failing to file tax forms related to cash received, news outlets reported.
The two were charged in an 11-count indictment last month following a yearslong investigation led by the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI.
Williams, a criminal defense lawyer, was accused of inflating his business expenses from 2013 to 2017 in order to reduce his tax liability by more than $200,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. The indictment also alleged Williams and Burdett, an attorney in Williams’ law office who also handled administrative duties, failed to file the proper reports on cash payments from clients totaling $66,516.
Williams’ attorney, Billy Gibbens, has contended his client was just following the advice of his tax preparer, saying the accountant made the errors on his own, according to The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. Michael Magner, an attorney for Burdett, also said his client was innocent and did not have any role in the tax decisions.
Williams and Gibbens raised questions about the timing of the indictment as Williams prepares to challenge Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro for the top prosecuting role. The campaign qualifying period for the Nov. 3 election is set to end July 24. Williams has said he still plans to run for the seat, according to The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. A preliminary trial date for the case was set for Sept. 14. |
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