Court Watch - Legal News

Brawl erupts in NM courtroom after trio rushes homicide suspect

Court Watch - POSTED: 2025/02/07 14:46

by breakinglegalnews.com

A hearing in a New Mexico courtroom devolved into chaos when three people rushed the defendant in a homicide case, setting off a brawl with flying fists and kicks.

Courtroom video cameras recorded the Jan. 31 melee, which subsided as a law enforcement officer drew a stun gun and protected the defendant from further attack.

Felony charges were filed against two men: battery and assault on a public official.

A woman was also arrested on the same charges, Albuquerque TV station KRQE reported Thursday. The courtroom video showed her hitting the defendant and an officer with a chair.

The presence of corrections officers and other security details in courtrooms does not always keep the peace. Last year a defendant in a felony battery case in Nevada flung himself over a judge’s bench and grabbed her hair, sparking a bloody brawl with court officials.

Katina Watson, court executive officer at New Mexico’s Second Judicial District, told KRQE that “these are the types of things that we see regularly.”

She praised an officer for reacting to ensure safety, without mention of potential security enhancements.

General Historical Trends

Consistently Above National Averages
- New Mexico has historically experienced higher-than-average crime rates compared to many other U.S. states. This has been true for both property crimes (like burglary and vehicle theft) and violent crimes (like aggravated assault and homicide).
1990s
- Across the United States, including New Mexico, violent crime rates were relatively high in the early 1990s. New Mexico followed the national trend of a steady decline in violent crime through the mid-to-late 1990s.
- Property crime also began to decrease nationally during this time, although in some parts of New Mexico, it remained elevated compared to the U.S. average.
2000s
- Through the early 2000s, national crime rates continued a general downward trend. New Mexico’s crime rates mirrored that pattern to some extent, but the state consistently reported higher rates than the national average.
- Metropolitan areas—especially Albuquerque—tended to account for a sizable portion of reported offenses, including both violent crime and property crime.
Late 2000s to Early 2010s
- The national decline in crime continued in many states, though New Mexico had periods where certain offenses, particularly property crimes (like auto theft), rose.
- Violent crime rates in New Mexico also fluctuated. Some years saw moderate declines, but the overall rate stayed somewhat higher than the national level.
Mid-2010s
- Reports showed an uptick in violent crime in several parts of the country, including New Mexico. Cities such as Albuquerque saw increases in both violent incidents and property crimes.
- Factors contributing to local crime trends can include economic changes, fluctuations in drug activity, and broader social issues.
Late 2010s
- New Mexico began implementing various crime-prevention initiatives and criminal justice reforms to address consistently high rates.
- While certain categories of crime showed improvement, others—especially property crimes—remained challenges in specific regions.

Factors Influencing Crime in New Mexico

Socioeconomic Conditions: Poverty and unemployment can correlate with higher crime rates. Rural areas in New Mexico also face unique challenges, such as limited access to mental health and addiction resources.
Substance Abuse and Drug Trafficking: Drug-related offenses and activities tied to opioid or methamphetamine use have significantly impacted crime trends.
Policing and Criminal Justice Policies: Changes in law enforcement practices, sentencing guidelines, and community policing can all influence crime rates over time.
Population Density and Urban Centers: Higher crime rates typically cluster in urban areas. Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, often reports a significant share of New Mexico’s overall crime statistics.

Key Takeaways

Longstanding High Rates: New Mexico has commonly ranked above the national average in both violent and property crime for decades.
Variable Trends: Although the overall U.S. crime rate declined significantly from the 1990s through the mid-2010s, New Mexico’s rates have fluctuated, sometimes mirroring national trends and sometimes diverging.
Concentrated Hotspots: Urban centers, especially Albuquerque, account for a sizable portion of reported crimes in the state.
Complex Influences: Economic conditions, substance abuse, and changes in policing policies all play important roles in shaping crime rates.

Man Charged with Stalking Caitlin Clark Declares Guilt - BLOG

Court Watch - POSTED: 2025/01/19 18:49

[Image credit: Pexel]

by breakinglegalnews.com

A Texas man, Michael Thomas Lewis, 55, faces felony stalking charges for allegedly harassing Caitlin Clark, the WNBA rookie of the year and Indiana Fever star. During his initial court appearance on Tuesday, Lewis shouted, "guilty as charged," before exhibiting erratic behavior, including laughing and joking, as reported by WISH-TV Indianapolis. He also disclosed he had not been taking his medication while in custody or living in his car.

Prosecutors allege Lewis began harassing Clark on December 16, repeatedly contacting her and posting disturbing messages on social media. Some posts were sexually explicit and included threats, which authorities say caused Clark to feel terrorized and intimidated. In one post, Lewis mentioned driving by Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Fever play, and joked about being close to a stalking charge.

Lewis allegedly traveled from Texas to Indianapolis to be near Clark, prompting prosecutors to request a higher bond. The court set his bond at $50,000, with conditions requiring him to wear an ankle monitor and stay in Indiana if released. He is also barred from coming within 500 feet of the Fever’s home arenas.

The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, with Judge Angela Davis advising him to remain silent and communicate only with his attorney. A remote pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 31.

College students charged in TikTok-inspired ‘catch a predator’ plot appear in court

Court Watch - POSTED: 2025/01/16 15:56

Five Massachusetts college students made their first appearances in court Thursday, accused of plotting to lure a man to their campus through a dating app and then seizing him as part of a “Catch a Predator” trend on TikTok.

The students, all teens at Assumption University, a private, Roman Catholic school in Worcester, were arraigned on conspiracy and kidnapping charges in Worcester District Court. Automatic not guilty pleas were entered for all of them, and they are due back in court March 28 for a pre-trial conference.

The defendants in the case are Kelsy Brainard, 18; Easton Randall, 19; Kevin Carroll, 18; Isabella Trudeau, 18; and Joaquin Smith, 18. There is a sixth defendant who is a juvenile who was expected to be arraigned separately.

Police said Brainard’s Tinder account was used to correspond with the man. She faces an additional charge of witness intimidation. A male student in the group also faces a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

The target — a 22-year-old active-duty military service member — told police that he was in town for his grandmother’s funeral in October and “just wanted to be around people that were happy,” according to a campus police report. He said a student whose Tinder profile said she was 18 invited him over and led him into a basement lounge.

A few minutes later, “a group of people came out of nowhere and started calling him a pedophile,” accusing him of wanting sex with 17-year-old girls, according to the report.

The man told police that he broke free and was chased by at least 25 people to his car, where he was punched in the head and his car door was slammed on him. He fled and called city police.

Campus surveillance video shows a large group of students, including the woman, “all with their cellphones out in what seems to be a recording of the whole episode,” the police statement said. They are seen “laughing and high fiving with each other” in what appeared to be “a deliberately staged event,” and there was no evidence to indicate the man was seeking sexual relations with underage girls, the police report said.

After the assault, Brainard reported the man to police as a sexual predator and said she was frightened by him. She said he had come to campus uninvited and that she texted a male friend who chased him away. All of this was false, campus police concluded after reviewing surveillance recordings and finding that “first person perspective videos” were being circulated among students.

The teens were ordered in court to have no contact with the targeted man. A lawyer for Brainard, Christopher Todd, said, “We’re just looking forward to having the process play out.” The lawyer for Trudeau, Robert Iacovelli, said afterward his client is innocent and he filed a motion seeking dismissal of the charges against her. Other attorneys were not immediately reached for comment about their pleas.

Trump’s sentencing is set for Jan. 10. Here’s what could happen next

Court Watch - POSTED: 2025/01/05 15:56

Faced with the never-before-seen dilemma of how, when or even whether to sentence a former and future U.S. president, the judge in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s hush money case made a dramatic decision that could nevertheless bring the case to a muted end.

In a ruling Friday, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan scheduled the sentencing for 10 days before Trump’s inauguration — but the judge indicated that he’s leaning toward a sentence that would amount to just closing the case without any real punishment. He said Trump could attend the Jan. 10 proceeding remotely because of his transition duties.

Still, that would leave Trump headed back to the White House with a felony conviction.

Will it come to that? Trump wants the conviction thrown out and the case dismissed, and communications director Steven Cheung said the president-elect will “keep fighting.” But it’s tough to predict just what will unfold in this unprecedented, unpredictable case. Here are some key questions and what we know about the answers:

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying his business’ records. They pertained to a $130,000 payment, made through his former personal lawyer in 2016, to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from publicizing her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. He denies her claim and says he’s done nothing wrong.

Trump’s sentencing was initially set for July 11. But at his lawyers’ request, the proceeding was postponed twice, eventually landing on a date in late November, after the presidential election. Then Trump won, and Merchan put everything on hold to consider what to do.

That won’t be final until the judge pronounces it, and he noted that by law, he has to give prosecutors and Trump an opportunity to weigh in. The charges carry potential penalties ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

But the judge wrote that “the most viable option” appears to be what’s called an unconditional discharge. It wraps up a case without imprisonment, a fine or probation. But an unconditional discharge leaves a defendant’s conviction on the books.

And by law, every person convicted of a felony in New York must provide a DNA sample for the state’s crime databank, even in cases of an unconditional discharge.

Can Trump appeal to stop the sentencing from happening?

It’s murky. Appealing a conviction or sentence is one thing, but the ins and outs of challenging other types of decisions during a case are complicated.

Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said that under New York law, Friday’s ruling can’t be appealed, but that “doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have been trying to get a federal court to take control of the case. Prosecutors are due to file a response with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by Jan. 13, three days after Trump now is to be sentenced.

The defense also has suggested it would seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention if Merchan didn’t throw out the case. In a Nov. 25 letter to the judge, Trump’s attorneys contended that the U.S. Constitution permits an appeal to the high court because the defense is making arguments about presidential immunity.

Much of their argument concerns the Supreme Court’s July ruling on that topic, which afforded considerable legal protections to presidents. Trump’s attorneys might try to convince the Supreme Court that it needs to follow up by getting involved now in the hush money case.

A Trump spokesperson said no decision had been made on whether to challenge Merchan’s ruling.

Adnan Syed’s lawyers seek to reduce his prison sentence

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/12/25 19:27

Attorneys for Adnan Syed, whose complex legal case was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” are seeking to have his prison sentence reduced as he awaits further court decisions. Syed was released from prison in 2022 and has remained free ever since, though his court case is ongoing. His lawyers are seeking to reduce his sentence under a Maryland law that allows people who have been imprisoned for at least 20 years for crimes committed when they were minors to seek a change in sentence.

Syed was released when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction in response to a request from prosecutors who said they found flaws in the evidence. But in August, Maryland’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that reinstated Syed’s conviction while allowing him to remain free pending a new hearing about whether he should have been released.

The court said the victim’s family didn’t receive adequate notice to allow them to attend the original hearing in person.

The defense attorneys’ filing on Friday seeks to maintain Syed’s freedom until the new hearing.

“This filing is a small step toward ensuring that Adnan’s custody status is stabilized and his freedom is safeguarded,” said Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney and an assistant public defender who directs the Innocence Project Clinic at University of Baltimore Law School.

“We maintain his innocence and our mission of proving that hasn’t changed,” Suter said in a statement.

She also said Syed’s accomplishments and good conduct, both during his incarceration and since release, support reducing his sentence. Since his release, Syed has been working at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative. His lawyers, including Brian Zavin, who is chief attorney of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender’s Appellate Division, also noted in Friday’s filing in Baltimore City Circuit Court that Syed has been caring for his elderly parents since his release and that his father recently died.

The filing also said Syed has cared for his spouse’s aging parents.

The Maryland Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling in August came about 11 months after it 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.

She was found strangled to death and buried in an unmarked grave in 1999. Syed was 17 at the time and was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years.

David Sanford, an attorney who represents Lee’s family, said in a statement Monday that “if there is new and compelling evidence to support vacating the conviction of Adnan Syed, we will be the first to call for Mr. Syed’s freedom.”

However, he said the state has not “presented a shred of new, let alone compelling, evidence which would warrant overturning a murder conviction that has withstood appeals for over two decades.”

“The State of Maryland engaged in a charade in 2022: it recycled old evidence and, in the process, bamboozled the trial court and the public into believing that Mr. Syed was likely innocent,” Sanford said, adding that attorneys will confer with the family and present their position in court in the days ahead.

Syed, who is now 43, has maintained his innocence.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates is weighing how to proceed given the Maryland Supreme Court’s decision.

Syed’s case was chronicled in the “Serial” podcast, which debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives. The show, hosted by veteran radio producer Sarah Koenig, transformed the true-crime genre as it shattered podcast-streaming and downloading records, revealing little-known evidence and raising new questions about the case.

Court will hear arguments over the law that could ban TikTok in the US if it’s not sold

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/12/19 14:11

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear arguments next month over the constitutionality of the federal law that could ban TikTok in the United States if its Chinese parent company doesn’t sell it.

The justices will hear arguments Jan. 10 about whether the law impermissibly restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment.

The law, enacted in April, set a Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok to be sold or else face a ban in the United States. The popular social media platform has more than 170 million users in the U.S.

It’s unclear how quickly a decision might come. But the high court still could act after the arguments to keep the law from taking effect pending a final ruling, if at least five of the nine justices think it’s unconstitutional.

Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance had urged the justices to step in before Jan. 19. The high court also will hear arguments from content creators who rely on the platform for income and some TikTok users.

The timing of the arguments means that the outgoing Biden administration’s Justice Department will make the case in defense of the law that passed Congress with bipartisan support and was signed by Democratic President Joe Biden in April.

The incoming Republican administration might not have the same view of the law.

President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” has said his administration would take a look at the situation. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Monday.

The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about one-third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.

The case pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.

“We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights,” TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said in a statement.

Free-speech advocates also praised the court’s decision to step in.

The government should not be able to restrict speech “without proving with evidence that the tools are presently seriously harmful. But in this case, Congress has required and the DC Circuit approved TikTok’s forced divestiture based only upon fears of future potential harm. This greatly lowers well-established standards for restricting freedom of speech in the U.S.,” David Greene, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a statement.

A panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the law on Dec. 6, then denied an emergency plea to delay the law’s implementation.

Without court action, the law would take effect Jan. 19 and expose app stores that offer TikTok and internet hosting services that support it to potential fines.

Idaho’s strict abortion ban faces scrutiny in federal appeals court hearing

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/12/11 14:34

A federal appeals court scrutinized the impact of Idaho’s strict abortion ban on emergency medical care on Tuesday, weighing whether the ban criminalizing abortions should be enforceable in life- and health-threatening situations.

John Bursch, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom representing Idaho, asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel of 11 judges to urgently lift the injunction preventing the state from enforcing its abortion ban in emergency room settings, saying it “harms Idaho sovereignty, harms women, (and) harms unborn children.”

“It’s here before you now, you should decide it,” he said.

Idaho’s law makes it a felony to perform an abortion unless the procedure is necessary to prevent the death of the patient.

President Joe Biden’s administration sued Idaho two years ago, contending the law violates a federal rule called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, because it prevents doctors from performing abortions that save their patients from serious infections, organ loss or other major medical issues.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case earlier this year but bounced it back to the lower court on a procedural issue, leaving unanswered questions about the legality of the state abortion ban. That will be determined at a later date, but the 9th Circuit’s ruling could decide whether the law can be enforced while the lawsuit is still working its way through court.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the judges raised a number of hypothetical situations as they tried to determine whether the ban can coexist with EMTALA.

Judge Lawrence VanDyke raised the hypothetical of a doctor presented with an organ that would save a patient’s life but which was unethically harvested under state law. If a state has outlawed the use of questionably harvested donor organs, he asked, can the federal government require that treatment?

“Do you think a state’s ethical concerns … have any role to play?” asked VanDyke.

Catherine Carroll, an attorney for the U.S. government, said it was difficult to grapple with the hypothetical since organ transplants do not occur in emergency rooms, but said state ethical concerns about medical treatments could come into play only if the treatments did not violate EMTALA.

Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. said that he lives in eastern Washington, not far from the Idaho border. The only obstetrics department in the nearby city of Sandpoint, Idaho, shut down after the abortion ban was passed, he noted, leaving no available medical services for women who are “bleeding out” from pregnancy complications, he said.

“That’s the very thing that Congress was trying to avoid” by establishing EMTALA, Mendoza said. “They were trying to set a baseline of medical care for the country.”

But Taylor Meehan, an attorney for the Idaho Legislature, said EMTALA is “not the statute to solve that particular circumstance.” She said an Idaho Supreme Court ruling in another lawsuit over the state’s abortion law made clear that abortion is allowed when patients are experiencing catastrophic bleeding.

Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after ‘alarming blood test,’ attorney says

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/12/03 14:20

Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday following an “alarming blood test,” his attorney said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious jail complex.

Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for an “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention,” his attorney, Imran Ansari, said in a statement.

“It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilizes,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional rights.”

A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.

Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction in the state. The case is set to be retried in 2025. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.

In a legal filing last week, Weinstein’s attorneys accused the city of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical afflictions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.

“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IV’s, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear — hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Ansari said in a statement that likened Rikers Island to a “gulag.”

The troubled jail complex, located on an island in New York City’s East River, has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover of the jail system, finding the city had placed its incarcerated population in “unconstitutional danger.”

A publicist for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, echoed the allegation in a statement Monday.

“Mr. Weinstein, who is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not,” he said. “In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

New Hampshire courts hear 2 cases on transgender girls playing girls sports

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/11/22 13:42

Two New Hampshire fathers who were barred from school district events for wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” to represent female chromosomes insisted at a federal court hearing Thursday that they didn’t set out to harass or otherwise target a transgender soccer player at the game they attended.

But a judge hearing the case suggested the message the parents sent may matter more than their intentions.

Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote sued the Bow school district after being banned from school grounds for wearing the wristbands at their daughters’ soccer game in September. The no-trespass orders have since expired, but a judge is deciding whether the plaintiffs should be allowed to wear the wristbands and carry signs at upcoming school events, including basketball games, swim meets and a music concert, while the case proceeds.

Testifying at Thursday’s hearing, both men said that they did not view the wristbands as a protest against Parker Tirrell, a transgender girl on the opposing team, but rather as a show of support for their daughters and their teammates. U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe questioned whether there is a meaningful distinction and whether their intentions matter.

“Sometimes the message you think you’re sending might not be the message that is being sent,” he said.

McAuliffe asked Foote whether it occurred to him that a transgender person might interpret the pink XX wristbands as an attempt to invalidate their existence.

“If he’s a trans female, pink might be a color he likes,” Foote said.

McAuliffe also noted that while both plaintiffs said they had no problem with transgender people outside the issue of sports, they repeatedly referred to the athlete in question as a boy.

“You seem to go out of your way to suggest there’s no such thing as a trans girl,” McAuliffe said. Foote disagreed, saying it was “like learning a new language” to refer to transgender people.

In a separate courtroom earlier Thursday, another judge held a hearing on a lawsuit brought by Parker Tirrell and another student challenging the state law that bans transgender athletes in grades 5 to 12 from teams that align with their gender identity. It requires schools to designate all teams as either girls, boys or coed, with eligibility determined based on students’ birth certificates “or other evidence.”

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty ruled earlier this year that the teens can try out for and play on girls school sports teams. The order only applies to those two individuals for now as they seek to overturn the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act on behalf of all transgender girl students in New Hampshire.

Lawyers for the teens said in court Thursday they hoped the matter could go to trial and be resolved before the start of the next school year in September. They said the teens’ school districts and others in the state have asked for guidance regarding the statute. Lawyers for the state said they needed more time to prepare.

Judge Talesha Saint-Marc suggested the timing of the trial was ambitious and asked that both sides talk further about scheduling. Gov. Chris Sununu, who signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act into law in July, has said it “ensures fairness and safety in women’s sports by maintaining integrity and competitive balance in athletic competitions.” About half of states have adopted similar measures.

In the Bow case, school district officials have said they acted appropriately in sanctioning the parents for conduct they knew violated school policy at athletic events. They’ll explain their evidence on Friday. On Thursday, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Endel Kolde, accused the district of “breathtaking” overreach by asserting that the wristbands target transgender students in general, regardless of whether such students were present at the events.

Judge delays ruling on whether to scrap Trump’s conviction in hush money case

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/11/13 14:06

A judge has postponed a decision on whether to undo President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction as prosecutors consider how to proceed in light of last week’s election and his lawyers argue for dismissal so he can run the country.

The postponement announced Tuesday comes at a dramatic and dynamic point in the New York case, which focused on how Trump accounted for payments to a porn actor before the 2016 election and produced a first-ever conviction of a former commander-in-chief.

Sentencing had been set for Nov. 26. But Manhattan prosecutors now say they’re reassessing, and they appear open to the possibility that the proceedings can’t go as planned.

“These are unprecedented circumstances,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo wrote in an email to the court. He said prosecutors need to consider how to balance the “competing interests” of the jury’s verdict and the presidency.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove, meanwhile, argued the case must be thrown out altogether “to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern.”

The messages were exchanged over the weekend and released Tuesday, when Judge Juan M. Merchan had been set to rule on Trump lawyers’ earlier request to toss his conviction for a different reason — because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer on presidential immunity.

Instead, Merchan told Trump’s lawyers he’d halt proceedings and delay the ruling until at least Nov. 19 so that prosecutors can suggest a way forward. Both sides agreed to the one-week postponement.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung heralded the delay. He said in a statement that the president-elect’s win makes it “abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should have never been filed.”

Prosecutors declined to comment. A jury convicted Trump in May of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payout was to buy her silence about claims that she had sex with Trump.

Trump says they didn’t have sex, denies any wrongdoing and maintains the prosecution was a political tactic meant to harm his latest campaign. Trump is a Republican. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case, is a Democrat, as is Merchan.

Just over a month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for actions they took in the course of running the country, and prosecutors can’t cite those actions even to bolster a case centered on purely personal conduct.

Trump’s lawyers cited that ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some evidence it shouldn’t have, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from some White House aides.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.

Trump’s criminal conviction was a first for any ex-president. It left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of a fine, probation or up to four years in prison.

Arizona high court won’t review Kari Lake’s appeal over 2022 governor’s race defeat

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/11/08 16:01

The Arizona Supreme Court has declined to hear Republican Kari Lake’s latest appeal over her defeat in the 2022 governor’s race, marking yet another loss in her attempt to overturn the race’s outcome.

The court made its refusal to take up the former TV anchor’s appeal public on Thursday without explaining its decision.

Lake, now locked in a U.S. Senate race against Democrat Ruben Gallego, had lost the governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by over 17,000 votes.

The courts had previously rejected Lake’s claims that problems with ballot printers at some Maricopa County polling places on Election Day in 2022 were the result of intentional misconduct and that Maricopa County didn’t verify signatures on mail ballots as required by law. A judge also turned down Lake’s request to examine the ballot envelopes of 1.3 million early voters. In all, Lake had three trials related to the 2022 election.

Despite her earlier losses in court and a ruling affirming Hobbs’ victory, Lake had asked the Arizona Supreme Court to review her case, claiming she had new evidence to support her claims. Lawyers for Maricopa County told the court that Lake failed to present any new evidence that would change the courts’ findings.

Lake is among the most vocal of Republican candidates promoting lies that Donald Trump had won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign for governor. While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races, Lake did not.

The Lake campaign didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on the Supreme Court’s latest decision.

Pennsylvania court loosens mail ballot rules, but a fast-track appeal is likely

Court Watch - POSTED: 2024/10/31 14:02

A divided Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Wednesday that the envelopes voters use to send in mail ballots do not need to have been accurately hand-dated, weighing in after the state Supreme Court sidestepped the issue and six days before the end of voting in the presidential election.

The 3-2 decision by Commonwealth Court upheld a Philadelphia judge’s ruling that 69 mail ballots should be counted in a pair of single-candidate state House of Representatives special elections held in September.

The majority said the mandate for exterior envelope dates, which are not needed to determine if a ballot has arrived in time, violates a state constitutional provision that says elections must be free and equal and no civil or military power can interfere with the “free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

The majority opinion by Judge Ellen Ceisler said the envelope dating rules “restrict the right to have one’s vote counted in the special election to only those voters who correctly handwrite the date on their mail ballots and effectively deny the right to all other qualified electors who sought to exercise the franchise by mail in a timely manner but made minor mistakes or omissions.”

Ceisler, in a footnote, urged the national and state Republican parties, which lost the case, “to proceed expeditiously should they wish to appeal this decision.”

A lawyer for the Republican parties, Linda A. Kerns, said an appeal will be filed in the coming days.

“We know that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has already spoken on this issue,” Kerns said Wednesday. “Pennsylvania law requires voters to sign and date mail ballots — that is an important election integrity safeguard.”

Lawyers for the two Philadelphia voters who sued to have their ballots counted hailed the decision but acknowledged it may not be the last word.

“We hope that every county will abide by this ruling in its processing of mail ballots next month,” Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center, said in a statement. She advised voters to still date their return envelopes and fix any balloting mistakes if they can.

In a dissent, Judge Matthew Wolf said his colleagues should have simply forwarded the case to the state Supreme Court or at least waited until after the election.

“The majority, in no uncertain terms, concludes that any county board of elections’ decision not to count undated or incorrectly dated mail-in and absentee ballots violates the free and equal elections clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” Wolf wrote.

Another dissent, by Judge Patricia McCullough, called the majority decision “a substantial change to voting rules at the eleventh hour and on specious grounds.”

“Wrong decisions issued at the wrong time are doubly threatening to the integrity of Pennsylvania’s elections and the public’s confidence in them,” McCullough said.

The state Supreme Court earlier this month rejected a request by voting rights and left-leaning groups to stop counties from throwing out mail-in ballots without the accurate, handwritten dates, citing earlier rulings that courts should avoid confusing voters close to elections.

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