A South Korean court ruled Wednesday that a 14th century Korean Buddhist statue should be sent back to a Japanese temple from where it was stolen in 2012.
The statue’s return had been put on hold for years after a South Korean temple claimed ownership of it, insisting that it was likely looted by medieval Japanese pirates before it ended up at a temple on Tsushima island, presumably in 1527.
The South Korean temple is likely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said his government will encourage Seoul to facilitate the statue’s swift return to Japan.
The 50-centimeter (20-inch) gilt bronze Buddha statue was one of two stolen from Tsushima’s Kannonji temple by thieves who attempted to sell them in South Korea.
South Korea’s government returned the other statue to the temple soon after police recovered the items from the thieves, who were arrested and prosecuted.
But Buseoksa temple in the western coastal city of Seosan filed a lawsuit to prevent the government from sending back the other statue, saying Buseoksa is the rightful owner. Korean historical records indicate that the statue, which is being kept at a state research institute in the central city of Daejeon, was created about 1330 to be enshrined at Buseoksa.
The Daejeon District Court ruled in 2017 that the government should return the statue to Buseoksa, saying it was likely taken to Japan through theft or pillage.
But the Daejeon High Court overturned the ruling on Wednesday, saying Japan’s Kannonji had acquired legal ownership of the statue through continuous possession.
The Colorado baker who won a partial U.S. Supreme Court victory after refusing to make a gay couple’s wedding cake because of his Christian faith lost an appeal Thursday in his latest legal fight, involving his rejection of a request for a birthday cake celebrating a gender transition.
The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that that the cake Autumn Scardina requested from Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop, which was to be pink with blue frosting, is not a form of speech.
It also found that the state law that makes it illegal to refuse to provide services to people based on protected characteristics like race, religion or sexual orientation does not violate business owners’ right to practice or express their religion.
Relying on the findings of a Denver judge in a 2021 trial in the dispute, the appeals court said Phillips’ shop initially agreed to make the cake but then refused after Scardina explained that she was going to use it to celebrate her transition from male to female.
John McHugh, one of the lawyers who represent Scardina, said the court looked carefully at all the arguments and evidence from the trial.
“They just object to the idea of Ms. Scardina wanting a birthday cake that reflects her status as a transgender woman because they object to the existence of transgender people,” he said of Phillips and his shop.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had acted with anti-religious bias in enforcing the anti-discrimination law against Phillips after he refused to bake a cake celebrating the wedding of Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins in 2012. The justices called the commission unfairly dismissive of Phillips’ religious beliefs.
The high court did not rule then on the larger issue of whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to LGBTQ people, but it has another chance to do so.
State and military police were sent Tuesday to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads, and officials kept counting fatalities three days after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations.
Amid some signs of progress — suburban roads reopened and emergency response service was restored — County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that police would be stationed at entrances to Buffalo and at major intersections to enforce a ban on driving within New York’s second-most populous city.
“Too many people are ignoring the ban,” Poloncarz, a Democrat, said at a news conference.
The National Weather Service predicted that as much as 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) more snow could fall Tuesday in Erie County, which includes Buffalo and its 275,000 residents. County Emergency Services Commissioner Dan Neaverth Jr. said officials also were somewhat concerned about the potential for flooding later in the week, when the weather is projected to warm and start melting the snow.
The rest of the United States also was reeling from the ferocious winter storm, with at least an additional two dozen deaths reported in other parts of the country, and power outages in communities from Maine to Washington state.
A woman who was imprisoned without parole for killing her daughter by throwing the infant in the trash after giving birth at her college sorority house should be resentenced, a divided Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.
The justices also ordered that a different judge should handle the resentencing of Emilie Weaver, now 27. She was convicted of aggravated murder and several other counts stemming from the child’s death in April 2015. Weaver could have been sentenced to life with a chance for parole in as little as 20 years, which was requested by her attorney, but Judge Mark Fleegle said he wasn’t convinced Weaver was remorseful.
Weaver sought post-conviction relief in 2017, arguing her lawyer didn’t present a complete explanation of neonaticide and she could have received a lesser sentence. Neonaticide is the murder of an infant within 24 hours of birth.
Fleegle, who also handled the post-conviction relief hearing, discredited an expert witness who tried to explain Weaver’s condition. An appellate court upheld the sentencing, but in their 4-3 decision announced Thursday, the state Supreme Court found Weaver had ineffective counsel at her sentencing.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor noted in the majority opinion that Fleegle demonstrated an arbitrary and unreasonable attitude toward evidence of both neonaticide as well as “pregnancy-negation syndrome,” where a person is in denial about their pregnancy.
The Supreme Court ’s conservative majority sounded sympathetic Monday to a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for gay couples, a dispute that’s the latest clash of religion and gay rights to land at the highest court.
The designer and her supporters say that ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their faith. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black customers, Jewish or Muslim people, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants, among others.
The lively arguments at the Supreme Court ran well beyond the allotted 70 minutes.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three high court appointees of former President Donald Trump, described Lorie Smith, the website designer, as “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites, (but) that she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive.”
The issue of where to draw the line dominated the questions early in Monday’s arguments at the high court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a photography store in a shopping mall could refuse to take pictures of Black people on Santa’s lap.
“Their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict,” Jackson said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly pressed Kristen Waggoner, the lawyer for Smith, over other categories. “How about people who don’t believe in interracial marriage? Or about people who don’t believe that disabled people should get married? Where’s the line?” Sotomayor asked.
Former Tucson police Officer Ryan Remington, who was indicted on a manslaughter charge in the shooting of a shoplifting suspect, will have his case heard again by a grand jury.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Danelle Liwski granted a defense request Friday to remand the case to a grand jury. She agreed with Remington’s attorney that state prosecutors presented misleading statements to an initial panel but did not do so intentionally.
The prosecution said Friday that a full and factual picture was presented to the grand jury.
Remington was fired in early January for what police determined was excessive use of force. Remington was off duty and working security at a Walmart store when he approached Richard Lee Richards, whom an employee had accused of shoplifting.
Authorities said Richards, who was in a mobility scooter, pulled a knife on a worker as he was leaving.
Remington allegedly ordered Richards to drop the knife and not to enter another store. Richards ignored the officer before Remington shot him multiple times, and he fell out of his scooter, authorities have said.
Remington, who pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, is scheduled to appear in court again in January.
A woman charged in a Wisconsin murder plans to argue that she is not guilty because she was a coerced victim of human trafficking — after the state Supreme Court ruled in July that such a defense could be used in homicide cases.
Tanya Stammer is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and armed robbery in connection with the March 2021 death of Brian Porsche in Kaukauna. She is scheduled to stand trial next summer.
WLUK-TV reports that Stammer’s attorneys have said they intend to offer evidence that shows Stammer was a victim of human trafficking. That comes after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in July that a 2008 law that absolves trafficking victims of criminal liability for offenses committed as a direct result of being trafficked extends to first-degree intentional homicide. However, to use that as a defense, defendants must show that the crime was connected to being a victim of trafficking.
On Thursday, Stammer’s attorneys submitted copies of the law to the court. They said in a previous court filing that the “events described in the allegations were only possible because of her role as a victim of human trafficking.”
A trial date has not been set for Stammer’s co-defendant, Dontae Payne. According to the criminal complaint, Payne and Stammer targeted Porsche, with Payne allegedly shooting Porsche. The two then tried to make the scene look like a robbery, and tossed his phone & keys into Lake Winnebago.
Nearly 40 states have passed laws that give trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity, according to Legal Action of Wisconsin, which provides legal help for low-income people.
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