Recent Updates
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Supreme Court considers if Pistorius guilty of murder
Political and Legal News 11/04/2015South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal grilled Oscar Pistorius' attorney and a prosecutor on Tuesday as it weighed whether to convict him of murder for killing his girlfriend, uphold a lower court's manslaughter conviction or order a retrial. P...
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'Whitey' Bulger's lover heads to court on contempt charge
Political and Legal News 10/19/2015The longtime girlfriend and fugitive companion of James "Whitey" Bulger is expected in federal court to face a contempt charge for refusing to tell whether other people helped the Boston mobster during his 16 years on the run. Catherine Greig i...
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Connecticut court stands by decision eliminating execution
Political and Legal News 10/12/2015The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday stood by its decision to eliminate the state's death penalty, but the fate of capital punishment in the Constitution State technically remains unsettled. The state's highest court rejected a request by p...
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Georgia man accused in hot car death to appear in court
Political and Legal News 10/12/2015A Georgia man accused of killing his toddler son by leaving him in a vehicle on a hot day is set to appear in court for a hearing.Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley is set to hear arguments on pretrial motions Monday in the case of Justin R...
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US court upholds Oklahoma death row inmate's sentence
Political and Legal News 09/17/2015A divided federal appeals court panel upheld the murder convictions and death sentence Tuesday of a 54-year-old man who went on a multistate crime spree in 2003.The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to affirm the death sentence of Scott Ei...
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Appeals court overturns county's longest-ever drug sentence
Political and Legal News 09/04/2015Pennsylvania Superior Court has overturned the longest drug sentence ever imposed in a central Pennsylvania county as "manifestly unreasonable and excessive."Blair County Senior Judge Thomas Peoples imposed the 104½- to 216-year sentence four years a...
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Court rules against St. Louis police in ticket scandal
Political and Legal News 08/20/2015The St. Louis police department will have to turn over records from its probe into a scandal over 2006 World Series tickets now that the Missouri Supreme Court has thrown out a final appeal that sought to block the documents' release.The state high c...
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Court fines Washington state over education funding
Political and Legal News 08/14/2015Washington officials are considering a special legislative session after the state Supreme Court issued daily fines a of $100,000 until lawmakers comply with a court order to improve the way the state pays for its basic education system. Thursd...
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Man charged with killing Memphis officer to appear in court
Political and Legal News 08/14/2015An ex-convict charged with fatally shooting a Memphis police officer during a struggle is scheduled to appear in county court Wednesday.Twenty-nine-year-old Tremaine Wilbourn is being held on $10 million bond on a first-degree murder charge in the Au...
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Court hearing set for Alabama inmate who wants abortion
Political and Legal News 07/23/2015A federal judge is considering a lawsuit filed by an Alabama inmate who wants out of jail temporarily so she can get an abortion. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Monday on behalf of a female inmate, identified only as Jane Doe, who is i...
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Doctor with hundreds of fraud victims faces sentencing
Political and Legal News 07/07/2015A Harvard medical professor says patients of a Detroit-area cancer doctor were at high risk of infection because of excessive doses of powerful, expensive drugs.Dr. Farid Fata will be sentenced in federal court for fraud. But a judge first is hearing...
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In Supreme Court loss, death penalty foes see an opening
Political and Legal News 07/07/2015A strongly worded dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court's narrow decision this week upholding the use of an execution drug offered a glimmer of hope to death penalty opponents in what they considered otherwise a gloomy ruling. One advocate went so far Tu...