* Supreme Court says EPA can regulate greenhouse gases. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
* Fourth Circuit’s reading of PSD regulations did not comport with Clean Air Act’s limits on judicial review of EPA regulations for validity, so Duke Energy’s summary judgment gets reversed. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]
* More interminable Anna Nicole legal news: Howard K. Stern drops his appeal of using DNA to determine paternity, and some kind of a hearing will be held tomorrow. Apparently Bahamian court rules prevent us from knowing the nature of the hearing. [CNN]
* Bong hits 4 glaucoma in New Mexico. [Jurist]
* DNA evidence to the rescue once again. [CNN]
Rape
- Anna Nicole Smith, Drugs, Environment / Environmental Law, Marijuana, Morning Docket, Rape, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Morning Docket: 04.03.07
By Billy Merck- Airplanes / Aviation, Bad Ideas, Crime, Fashion, Free Speech, Jury Duty, Non-Sequiturs, Rape, Sexual Harassment, Violence
Non-Sequiturs: 02.23.07
By Stella Q* Jurors become instant BFF over testimony of an intimate and sexual nature. [Los Angeles Times]
* Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
* Turns out you actually
* As kids, my brother and I were familiar with only this constitutional amendment because of the “
* Faux fur is, more often than not, real fur. As in real dog fur. So who is going to cast the first stone (or, rather, paint bucket) at Anna Wintour now? [San Francisco Chronicle]
* It’s getting hot in herre. [MSN]
* “Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.” One thing’s for sure — if you’re being tried for a crime, you’re SOL. [PrawfsBlawg]
A reader brought our attention to this disturbing story out of the Midwest, which we hadn’t heard about previously. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Nobody but the two Chicago men and the woman from Berlin knows for certain exactly what happened at the private boat landing on Green Lake in early morning of Aug. 7, 2005.
The 29-year-old woman says the two men — then both attorneys at prominent Chicago law firms — held her down on the hood of her car and cheered each other on as they repeatedly raped her.
The two men say what happened was consensual sex.
The undisputed facts after that night, from the bail amounts and the plea bargains to the minimal sentences and the district attorney’s resignation, have some locals in this small tourist town 30 miles west of Fond du Lac wondering if justice was served or if two big-city attorneys got a “good-ole-boy” break.
“Something doesn’t look right,” said Jaime Brotz, a 10-year resident of the Berlin area. “I think they got away with a lot more than they should have.”
Find out which firms these defendants worked for, after the jump.
Big news in the Duke lacrosse team rape sexual assault and kidnapping case. From ABC News:
District Attorney Mike Nifong has requested that he have himself removed from prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse rape investigation, ABC News has learned.
A source close to the investigation said Nifong sent a letter to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper asking his office to assume responsibility of the case. Calls to the Attorney General’s office and Mike Nifong’s office were not yet returned.
Smart guy, that Nifong. We wouldn’t want to prosecute this case either.
And from the New York Times:
“Michael B. Nifong, the Durham district attorney, faxed the request to Jim Coman, head of the state attorney general’s special prosecution unit, today, the official said. Mr. Nifong decided he had no choice but to hand off the case because he faces a conflict of interest with ethics charges pending against him for his public comments on the case, the official said….”
“The official said the attorney general’s office was expected to accept the referral. But the fate of the case is uncertain: Many experts wonder if the attorney general or another prosecutor will quickly drop the charges after assessing weaknesses in the credibility of the accuser….”
This exit strategy isn’t half-bad. Mike Nifong has turned lemons (ethics charges) into lemonade (escape from a sinking ship).
(What are Nifong’s thoughts on Iraq?)
DA in Duke Rape Case Asks to Be Taken off Case [ABC News via Drudge Report (w/siren)]
Prosecutor Asks State to Take Over Duke Case [New York Times]
Update (5:57 PM): Matt Drudge has downgraded this story by removing the siren.
Earlier: You Don’t Say: Duke Accuser Contradicts Herself
A nice bit of understatement, from the sober New York Times:
Does she contradict herself?
Very well then
She contradicts herself
She is large, she contains multitudes.
Of accounts of the alleged rape. Plus, a baby.*
Duke Accuser Contradicts Herself [New York Times]
* We realize that the alleged victim no longer “contains” a baby, since she recently gave birth to a baby girl. We took some liberties with the facts, for the sake of our snarky quip. Call it poetic license.
The Duke lacrosse team rape charges were dropped.
The timing isn’t surprising. This is the just the sort of news you break on the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.
But the three lacrosse players still face sexual assault and kidnapping charges.
Rape Charges Dropped in Duke Case [Associated Press]
Things that make you go hmmm:
DNA testing in the Duke lacrosse rape case found genetic material from several males in the accuser’s body and her underwear — but none from any team member, defense attorneys said in court papers Wednesday.
The papers were filed by attorneys for the three lacrosse players charged, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. They complained that the information about DNA from other men was not disclosed in a report prosecutors provided earlier this year to the defense.
The testing was conducted at a private laboratory for the prosecution.
“This is strong evidence of innocence in a case in which the accuser denied engaging in any sexual activity in the days before the alleged assault, told police she last had consensual sexual intercourse a week before the assault, and claimed that her attackers did not use condoms and ejaculated,” the defense said.
Two reactions:
1. We haven’t read the papers in question, and we don’t know the discovery timetable set in this case. But at first blush, this DNA information sure sounds like evidence that would be subject to disclosure under Brady v. Maryland. When was the prosecution planning on getting around to sharing it?
2. “[G]enetic material from several males,” but none from any of the defendants? ICK. Deeply troubling. And we apologize if you find this gauche or un-PC of us, but we can’t help wondering: Exactly how many is “several”?
Lawyers: DNA Not Linked to Duke Athletes [Associated Press via Instapundit]
Earlier: The Duke Rape Case: The DNA Evidence
* Third Marine pleads guilty in Iraq civilian murder case. [Jurist]
* Villaraigosa says L.A.’s not going out like that. [CNN]
* Ah, the old disaster-victim-flip-this-house ploy; works every time. [AP via Online Athens]
* Man, talk about putting the victim on trial. [AP via Yahoo!]
Last week we wrote about Andrew Gardner, the Fried Frank litigation partner who was accused of rape (although never indicted), and recently found dead (presumably of suicide). We now have an update to offer.
Yesterday’s New York Post carried a long and detailed article about Gardner. And blogger Ron Coleman, who knew Gardner, had these thoughts to offer.
Excerpts and discussion, after the jump.
- Celebrities, Crime, Death Penalty, Deaths, Divorce Train Wrecks, Election Law, Family Law, Kids, Morning Docket, Murder, Politics, Rape, Sentencing Law, Sex
Morning Docket: 11.09.06
By Billy Merck* Democrats likely to officially declare victory today in the Senate; Allen “has no intention of dragging this out.” [CNN; Election Law Blog]
* Thank you sir may I have another… .life sentence; Malvo gets life in Maryland. [CNN; Washington Post; Baltimore Sun]
* Another one bites the KCl in Texas. [CourtTV]
* KFed wants the kids, yo. I still say DFACS should take ‘em. [AP via FindLaw]
* California sex offender law found temporarily blocked by judge one day after being approved on the ballot by voters. [AP via FindLaw]
-
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