The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father, who was arrested for allowing his son to have a weapon, will stay in custody after their lawyers decided not to seek bail Friday.
Colt Gray, who has been charged with four counts of murder, is accused of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. His father, Colin Gray, faces related charges in the latest attempt by prosecutors to hold parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings.
“You don’t have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,” District Attorney Brad Smith said outside the Barrow County courthouse. “Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.”
The father and son appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday morning with about 50 onlookers in the courtroom, where workers had placed boxes of tissues along the benches, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some victims’ family members in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal.
During his hearing, Colt Gray, wearing khaki pants and a green shirt, was advised of his rights as well as the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student. He was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles.
The judge then called the teen back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole.
Shortly afterward, Colin Gray was brought into court dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting and answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma.
Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting. Arrest warrants said he caused the deaths of others “by providing a firearm to Colt Gray with knowledge that he was threat to himself and others.”
The charges come five months after Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.
The hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week.
Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands after Maryland’s highest court Friday ordered a redo of the hearing that freed him. The court ruled that the earlier proceeding violated the rights of the victim’s family, marking the latest development in a legal saga that gained widespread attention through the hit podcast “Serial.”
The 4-3 ruling upheld an appellate court decision that reinstated Syed’s conviction last year. It comes about 11 months after the court heard arguments in a case that has been fraught with legal twists and divided court rulings since Syed was convicted in 2000 of killing his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
The justices said that Syed, who was released from prison in 2022, can remain free as the case heads to a new lower court judge to again consider whether his conviction should be tossed.
The court weighed the extent to which victims can participate in hearings where a conviction could be vacated. The majority of judges concluded that, in an effort to remedy what they deemed an injustice to Syed, prosecutors and a lower court “worked an injustice” against Lee’s brother. The court ruled that Young Lee was not treated with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity,” as required under Maryland law, because he wasn’t given reasonable notice of the hearing that freed Syed.
The court said those shortfalls would be corrected leading up to the new hearing.
But the exact next steps remain unclear, in part because Baltimore elected a new top prosecutor in 2022, which could change how that office handles the case. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said his office is reviewing the ruling and declined to immediately comment further.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michele Hotten argued the issue was moot because the underlying charges no longer exist.
“This case exists as a procedural zombie,” Hotten wrote. “It has been reanimated, despite its expiration. The doctrine of mootness was designed to prevent such judicial necromancy.”
The sprawling case has most recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the legal rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic issues, including historic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.
David Sanford, an attorney who represents the victim’s family, said the ruling “acknowledges what Hae Min Lee’s family has argued: Crime victims have a right to be heard in court.”
Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney, said in a statement that the court reached a decision “we could not disagree with more.”
“Wrongful convictions devastate the wrongly accused, their family, and the family of the victim,” Suter said. “Reinstating Adnan’s wrongful conviction does not provide Hae Min Lee’s family with justice or closure, and it takes a tremendous amount of emotional toll on Adnan’s family, who already lost a son and brother for more than two decades.”
Syed, 43, has maintained his innocence and has often expressed concern for Lee’s surviving relatives. The teenage girl was found strangled to death and buried in an unmarked grave in 1999. Syed was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years.
He was released from prison in September 2022 when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction in response to a request from Baltimore prosecutors who said they found flaws in the evidence.
However, in March 2023, the Appellate Court of Maryland, the state’s intermediate appellate court, ordered a redo of the hearing that won Syed his freedom and reinstated his conviction. The court said the victim’s family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend the hearing in person.
Suter, Syed’s lawyer, has argued that the state did meet its obligation by allowing Young Lee to participate in the hearing via video conference.
Syed appealed his conviction’s reinstatement, and the Lee family also appealed to the Maryland Supreme Court, arguing crime victims should be given a larger role in the process.
A federal appeals court revived Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times on Wednesday, citing errors by a lower court judge, particularly his decision to dismiss the lawsuit while a jury was deliberating.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s decision in February 2022 to dismiss the lawsuit mid-deliberations improperly intruded on the jury’s work.
It also found that the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury tainted the jury’s decision to rule against Palin. It declined, however, to grant Palin’s request to force Rakoff off the case on grounds he was biased against her. The 2nd Circuit said she had offered no proof.
The libel lawsuit by Palin, a onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, centered on the newspaper’s 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting, which Palin asserted damaged her reputation and career.
The Times acknowledged its editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected errors it called an “honest mistake” that were never meant to harm Palin.
Shane Vogt, a lawyer for Palin, said in an email that Palin was “very happy with today’s decision, which is a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public in general.”
“The truth deserves a level playing field, and Governor Palin looks forward to presenting her case to a jury that is ‘provided with relevant proffered evidence and properly instructed on the law,’” Vogt added, quoting in part from the 2nd Circuit ruling.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said the decision was disappointing. “We’re confident we will prevail in a retrial,” he said in an email.
The 2nd Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge John M. Walker Jr., reversed the jury verdict, along with Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit while jurors were deliberating.
Despite his ruling, Rakoff let jurors finish deliberating and render their verdict, which went against Palin.
The appeals court noted that Rakoff’s ruling made credibility determinations, weighed evidence, and ignored facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly find supported Palin’s case.
It also described how “push notifications” that reached the cellphones of jurors “came as an unfortunate surprise to the district judge.” The 2nd Circuit said it was not enough that the judge’s law clerk was assured by jurors that Rakoff’s ruling had not affected their deliberations.
“Given a judge’s special position of influence with a jury, we think a jury’s verdict reached with the knowledge of the judge’s already-announced disposition of the case will rarely be untainted, no matter what the jurors say upon subsequent inquiry,” the appeals court said.
Voters in Arizona and Montana will be able to decide in November whether they want to protect the right to an abortion in their state constitutions.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 200-word summary that abortion advocates used to collect signatures for a ballot measure is valid, clearing the way for the issue to remain on the ballot.
Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen on Tuesday certified Montana’s constitutional initiative for the November ballot.
Under both measures, abortions would be allowed until fetal viability — the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks.
In Arizona, there are some exceptions for post-viability abortions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. Montana’s measure allows later abortions if needed to protect the mother’s life or health.
Montana’s initiative would enshrine in the constitution a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling that found the constitutional right to privacy includes the right of a patient to receive an abortion from a provider of their choice. Supporters sought to protect the right as Republican lawmakers passed bills to restrict abortion rights.
Voters in more than a half-dozen states will be deciding abortion measures this fall. The U.S. Supreme Court removed the nationwide right to abortion with a 2022 ruling, which sparked a national push to have voters decide.
The fraud trial against former U.S. Rep. George Santos, slated to start in a matter of weeks, is coming into focus after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that jurors will have their identities kept secret from the public.
They won’t, however, be required to fill out a written questionnaire gauging their opinions of Santos when they arrive for jury selection Sept. 9, as his lawyers had requested.
Judge Joanna Seybert said during a brief hearing in federal court on Long Island that she agreed with the government’s assessment that a questionnaire would only bog the proceedings down.
She said questioning each potential juror in person would allow her and both sides to ask more varied and probing questions to elicit more truthful responses.
Prosecutors told the judge the trial could last three weeks because they expect to call at least three dozen witnesses, including some victims of Santos’ alleged crimes.
Santos has pleaded not guilty to a range of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working, and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses such as designer clothing.
Seybert urged both sides to work together to “streamline” the proceedings where possible.
“Make me hopeful. Seriously,” she said. “Sit down and discuss what is absolutely necessary.”
Santos, who was dressed in a blue suit, declined to speak with reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing, the last expected before the trial.
But when asked whether he believed his client could receive a fair trial, Santos’ lawyer Robert Fantone said, “I think we’re going to be alright.”
In court, Santos’ lawyers pushed back at claims prosecutors made in prior legal filings that they’re not participating fully in the required pretrial document-sharing process known as discovery.
Prosecutors this month said they’ve turned over more than 1.3 million pages of records, while defense lawyers have produced just five pages. But when pressed by the judge, Santos’ lawyers maintained that they’ve turned over every document in their possession.
“We’re not stonewalling,” said Joe Murray, another Santos lawyer. “Trial by ambush is not how I operate.”
The New York Republican’s lawyers had argued in recent court filings that a questionnaire addressing potential jurors’ “knowledge, beliefs, and preconceptions” was needed because of the extensive negative media coverage surrounding Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December after an ethics investigation found “overwhelming evidence” he had broken the law and exploited his public position for his own profit.
They cited more than 1,500 articles by major news outlets and a " Saturday Night Live " skit about Santos. They also noted similar questionnaires were used in other high-profile federal cases in New York, including the trial of notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“For all intents and purposes, Santos has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion,” read the defense memo filed last week.
Donald Trump has lost his latest bid for a new judge in his New York hush money criminal case as it heads toward a key ruling and potential sentencing next month.
In a decision posted Wednesday, Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step aside and said Trump’s demand was a rehash “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” about his ability to remain impartial.
It is the third time that Merchan has rejected such a request from lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee. They contend the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a political consultant for prominent Democrats, including Kamala Harris when she sought the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination. Harris is now the party’s nominee against Trump.
The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, met Harris occasionally in 2019 but never “developed an individual relationship” with her, consulting firm founder Mike Nellis told the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in a letter Tuesday. The firm, Authentic Campaigns Inc., has not worked for Harris’ campaign, President Joe Biden’s now-ended reelection bid or the Democratic National Committee in the 2024 election cycle, Nellis said.'
A state court ethics panel said last year that Merchan could continue as the judge on Trump’s case. The panel wrote that a relative’s independent political activities are not “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality.”
Merchan, a state court judge in Manhattan, acknowledged last year that he made several small donations to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Biden. But Merchan has repeatedly said he is certain he can handle Trump’s case fairly and impartially. In his ruling, Merchan wrote he will continue to base decisions “on the evidence and the law, without fear or favor, casting aside undue influence.”
“With these fundamental principles in mind, this Court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear — innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote in his three-page decision. “Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required.”
But with Harris now Trump’s opponent, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche argued in a letter to the judge last month that the defense’s concerns have become “even more concrete.”
Prosecutors called the claims “a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate” the issue.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, citing Merchan’s donation to Biden and Loren Merchan’s consulting work, slammed him as a “highly-conflicted judge” who “should have long ago recused himself from this case.”
Merchan “has proved to be biased against President Trump and beholden to not only Democrat partisan interests, but also to the glaring financial interests of an immediate family member,” Cheung said.
Trump railed against Merchan on his Truth Social platform for continuing to keep him under a partial gag order — an issue that was not part of the recusal decision. Earlier this month, a state appeals court upheld the gag order, which bars Trump from making public comments about the prosecution team, court staffers or their families, including Merchan’s daughter.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He’s also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.
The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Biden’s court proposal, one that appears to have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with just 99 days to go before Election Day.
Still, Democrats hope it’ll help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has sought to frame her race against Republican ex-President Donald Trump as “a choice between freedom and chaos,” quickly endorsed the Biden proposal. She added that the changes are needed because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
The White House is looking to tap into the growing outrage among Democrats about the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issuing opinions that overturned landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory powers that stood for decades.
Liberals also have expressed dismay over revelations about what they say are questionable relationships and decisions by some members of the conservative wing of the court that suggest their impartiality is compromised.
“I have great respect for our institutions and separation of powers,” Biden argues in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Harris later issued a statement saying the American people must have confidence in a Supreme Court blighted by ethics scandals and decisions overturning long-standing precedent. She said the reforms being proposed “will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law.”
The president planned to speak about his proposal later Monday during an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court. He argues term limits would help ensure that court membership changes with some regularity and adds a measure of predictability to the nomination process.
He also wants Congress to pass legislation establishing a court code of ethics that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Breaking Legal News - POSTED: 2024/09/04 18:06
