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Opening statements begin in Jonathan Majors assault trial in New York

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/12/04 17:08

Opening statements began Monday in the criminal trial of actor Jonathan Majors, who was charged last spring for allegedly assaulting his then-girlfriend during an argument.

Majors did not speak as he strode into a Manhattan courthouse seeking to clear his name following an arrest in March that has effectively stalled his fast-rising career.

The six-person jury is expected to hear opposing narratives from 34-year-old Majors and his accuser, Grace Jabbari, a British dancer, about their confrontation in the back of a car.

Prosecutors said Jabbari was riding in a car with Majors in late March when she grabbed the actor’s phone out of his hand after seeing a text message, presumably sent by another woman, that said: “Wish I was kissing you right now.”

When Majors tried to snatch the phone back, he allegedly pulled her finger, twisted her arm behind her back and hit her in the face. After the pair got out out of the vehicle, he threw her back inside, Jabbari said.

Attorneys for Majors have maintained that Jabbari was the aggressor in the confrontation. They have suggested that prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office are targeting Majors because he is Black.

The arrest came weeks after the release of “Creed III,” a break-out role for Majors. He has also starred in the Marvel TV series “Loki” and the film “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” and was awaiting the release of another star vehicle, “Magazine Dreams,” which is now in limbo.

He could be sentenced to up to a year in jail if convicted.

Supreme Court justices and donors mingle at campus visits

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/11/17 17:18

When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas headlined a 2017 program at McLennan Community College in Texas, his hosts had more than a speech in mind. Working with the prominent conservative lawyer Ken Starr, school officials crafted a guest list for a dinner at the home of a wealthy Texas businessman, hoping an audience with Thomas would be a reward for school patrons -– and an inducement to prospective donors.

Before Justice Elena Kagan visited the University of Colorado’s law school in 2019, one official in Boulder suggested a “larger donor to staff ratio” for a dinner with her. After Justice Sonia Sotomayor confirmed she would attend a 2017 question-and-answer session at Clemson University and a private luncheon, officials there made sure to invite $1 million-plus donors to the South Carolina college.

The Associated Press obtained tens of thousands of pages of emails and other documents that reveal the extent to which public colleges and universities have seen visits by justices as opportunities to generate donations -– regularly putting justices in the room with influential donors, including some whose industries have had interests before the court.

The documents also reveal that justices spanning the court’s ideological divide have lent the prestige of their positions to partisan activity, headlining speaking events with prominent politicians, or advanced their own personal interests, such as sales of their books, through college visits.

The conduct would likely be prohibited if done by lower court federal judges. But the Supreme Court’s definition of banned fundraising is so narrow -– simply an event that raises more than it costs or where guests are asked for donations -– that it does not account for soliciting contributors later while reminding them of the special access they were afforded.

“The justices should be aware that people are selling access to them,” said University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, an ethics expert. “I don’t think they are naive, but they certainly have been putting themselves in situations where people can credibly claim, ’I’m giving you access,’ or ‘I’m going to fundraise off my claimed closeness or access.’ And that is a problem.”

In a statement responding to questions, the Supreme Court said: “The Court routinely asks event organizers to confirm that an event at which a Justice will speak is not a fundraiser, and it provides a definition of ‘fundraiser’ in order to avoid misunderstandings.”

“The Court then follows up with event organizers to elicit further information as appropriate,” the statement said. “The Court’s practice has been useful: Justices have declined to be featured at events even though event organizers expressly told Chambers that the events were not fundraisers, following additional inquiry by the Court that confirmed them to be fundraisers.”

Still, the revelations come at a fraught moment for the court, which by constitutional design settles disputes that set fundamental boundaries in American life. The court’s integrity is being questioned because of concerns about ethics abuses by justices and polarizing court rulings, including last year’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. A 2022 survey put trust in the court at a 50-year low, with just 18% expressing a great level of confidence.

Minnesota Supreme Court refusing to bar Trump from primary ballot

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/11/10 13:58

Former President Donald Trump will stay on the Minnesota primary ballot after the state supreme court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit seeking end his candidacy under a rarely-used constitutional provision that forbids those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to become the first in history to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to prevent someone from running for the presidency. The court dodged the central question of the lawsuit — does Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualify him from the presidency — by ruling that state law allows parties to put whomever they want on the primary ballot.

“There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” Chief Justice Natalie Hudson ruled.

The court left open the possibility that plaintiffs could try again to knock Trump off the general election ballot in November. The Minnesota challenge was filed by the liberal group Free Speech For People, which said it will continue its campaign to end Trump’s presidential bid.

“We are disappointed by the court’s decision,” said the group’s legal director Ron Fein, who argued before the court at its Nov. 2 hearing on the case. “However, the Minnesota Supreme Court explicitly recognized that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage. The decision isn’t binding on any court outside Minnesota and we continue our current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Donald Trump.”

The ruling is the first from a series of lawsuits filed by Free Speech For People and a second liberal group that are seeking to use Section 3 to end the candidacy of the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary.

Lawyers in Trump’s trial are ordered to clam up about judge’s communications

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/11/04 07:50

The judge in Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial barred attorneys in the case Friday from commenting on “confidential communications” between him and his staff, after the former president’s attorneys renewed claims that a clerk is poisoning the proceedings.

Threatening “serious sanctions” for any violations, Judge Arthur Engoron expanded on a prior gag order that prohibited parties in the trial from speaking publicly about court staffers. The earlier order didn’t mention the parties’ attorneys, but Engoron had suggested Thursday he might expand it.

The matter seized attention on a day when Eric Trump, one of the former president’s sons and a top executive in the family business, wrapped up his testimony. He said he relied completely on accountants and lawyers to assure the accuracy of financial documents that are key to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.

The state lawsuit accuses Trump and his company of deceiving banks and insurers by exaggerating his wealth on his annual financial statements. Trump and other defendants, including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., deny the allegations.

The former president and current Republican 2024 front-runner is due to testify Monday in the case, which threatens the real estate empire that launched him into the public eye and, eventually, politics.

Like the earlier gag order, the new one was sparked by criticism of the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield. She has unexpectedly become a lightning rod during the trial.

“The First Amendment right of defendants and their attorneys to comment on my staff is far and away outweighed by the need to protect them from threats and physical harm,” wrote Engoron. He said his office has gotten “hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voice mails, emails, letters and packages” during the trial.

In response, a spokesperson for Trump lawyer Alina Habba called the case “an attempt to silence the left’s top political opponent.”

“There should be no doubt at this point that politics is now permeating our courts,” the spokesperson, Erica Knight, wrote in a statement. She warned of “a dangerous precedent which diminishes the integrity of the judicial system.”

Hours earlier, Trump attorney Christopher Kise had recapped complaints that the defense team has raised for over a week about the clerk’s notes to the judge during testimony.

The contents of the notes have not been disclosed. But Trump’s lawyers say the messages are more frequent when the defense is questioning witnesses, and the attorneys suggest the notes are tilting the process against their case.

Alabama court says state can execute inmate with nitrogen gas

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/11/02 15:14

A divided Alabama Supreme Court said the state can execute an inmate with nitrogen gas, a method that has not previously been used carry out a death sentence.

The all-Republican court in a 6-2 decision Wednesday granted the state attorney general’s request for an execution warrant for Kenneth Eugene Smith. The order did not specify the execution method, but the Alabama attorney general indicated in filings with the court that it intends to use nitrogen to put Smith to death. The exact date of the execution will be set later by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

The decision moves Alabama closer to being the first state to attempt an execution with nitrogen gas, although there is likely to be additional litigation over the proposed new execution method. Three states — Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but no state has attempted to use it.

Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama’s Colbert County. “Elizabeth Sennett’s family has waited an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served. Today, the Alabama Supreme Court cleared the way for Kenneth Eugene Smith to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote. “Though the wait has been far too long, I am grateful that our capital litigators have nearly gotten this case to the finish line.”

An attorney for Smith did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Lawyers for Smith had urged the court to reject the execution request.

“The state seeks to make Mr. Smith the test subject for the first ever attempted execution by an untested and only recently released protocol for executing condemned people by the novel method of nitrogen hypoxia,” Smith’s attorneys wrote in a September court filing.

Sen. Menendez enters not guilty plea to a new conspiracy charge

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/10/30 12:49

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez returned to Manhattan federal court Monday to challenge a new criminal charge alleging that he conspired to act as an agent of the Egyptian government when he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Not guilty,” Menendez, 69, said when Judge Sidney H. Stein asked him for a plea to the charge. It was his first appearance before Stein, who is expected to preside over a trial tentatively scheduled for May.

Stein said the plea was the sole purpose for the hearing and adjourned the proceeding after less than five minutes. The New Jersey Democrat left the courthouse minutes later without speaking to reporters waiting outside. At an arraignment before a magistrate judge last month, Menendez was released on a $100,000 bond.

In a statement issued after the hearing, Menendez repeated his claim that the new charge “flies in the face of my long record of standing up for human rights and democracy in Egypt and in challenging leaders of that country.”

He again called it “as outrageous as it is absurd” and said he has been loyal only to the United States his entire life.

“The facts haven’t changed. The government is engaged in primitive hunting, by which the predator chases its prey until it’s exhausted and then kills it. This tactic won’t work,” he said. “I will not litigate this case through the press, but have made it abundantly clear that I have done nothing wrong and once all the facts are presented will be found innocent.”

Menendez was forced to step down from his powerful post leading the Senate committee after he was charged last month. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car over the past five years from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.

The other defendants entered not guilty charges to a superseding indictment last week. The senator was permitted to delay his arraignment so he could tend to Senate duties. He has said that throughout his life he has been loyal to the United States and that he will prove he is innocent.

Trump Georgia election case: Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleads guilty

Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2023/10/22 22:19

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.

Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal, with prosecutors agreeing to dismiss the other charges. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts.

In Chesebro’s case, he was sentenced to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, write an apology letter to Georgia’s residents and testify truthfully at any related future trial.

The two guilty pleas — along with a third for a bail bondsman last month — are major victories for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. They allow her to avoid a lengthy trial of just two defendants — which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy — and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.

Unlike Powell, who was involved in strategy talks with the former president after the election, the indictment does not indicate direct contact between Chesebro and Trump. This could potentially limit any information he could offer prosecutors that would be helpful to them in their case against Trump.

Chesebro’s lawyer, Scott Grubman, said it is entirely up to prosecutors whether his client will be called to testify against others in the case, but he would be surprised if it happens. Asked if Trump should be worried about any testimony Chesebro might offer, Grubman said, “I don’t think so.”

Chesebro, who lives in Puerto Rico, was initially charged with felony racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The indictment alleges Chesebro coordinated and executed a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

Grubman said after the plea hearing that his client has been “inaccurately described as the architect of some plan to overturn democracy.” He said the plea deal contradicts that.

“I think this plea deal absolutely shows and proves that he was not and never was the architect of any sort of fake elector plan or anything like that,” Grubman told reporters.

For prosecutors, the plea deal assures that Chesebro publicly accepts responsibility for his conduct in the case and removes the uncertainty of a trial by a jury of his peers. It also compels him to testify in future trials in the case. Based on court filings by prosecutors, that could include communications he had with Trump’s campaign lawyers and close associates, including co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump attorney.

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