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Appeals court overturns ex-49er Dana Stubblefield’s rape conviction
Stock Market News |
2024/12/26 19:49
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A California appeals court has overturned the rape conviction of former San Francisco 49er Dana Stubblefield after determining prosecutors made racially discriminatory statements during the Black man’s trial.
The retired football player was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in October 2020 after being convicted of raping a developmentally disabled woman in 2015 who prosecutors said he lured to his home with the promise of a babysitting job.
The Sixth Court of Appeals found Wednesday that prosecutors violated the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, a law passed during a summer of protest over the police killing of George Floyd. The measure bars prosecutors from seeking a criminal conviction or imposing a sentence on the basis of race.
Prior to the law, defendants who wanted to challenge their convictions on the basis of racial bias had to prove there was “purposeful discrimination,” a difficult legal standard to meet.
The appeals court said prosecutors used “racially discriminatory language” that required them to overturn Stubblefield’s conviction.
The case was “infected with tremendous error from the minute we started the trial,” said Stubblefield’s lead attorney, Kenneth Rosenfeld.
In April 2015, Stubblefield contacted the then-31-year-old woman on a babysitting website and arranged an interview, prosecutors said.
According to a report by the Morgan Hill Police Department, the interview lasted about 20 minutes. She later received a text from Stubblefield saying he wanted to pay her for her time that day, and she went back to the house.
The woman reported to the police that Stubblefield raped her at gunpoint, then gave her $80 and let her go. DNA evidence matched that of Stubblefield, the report said.
During the trial, prosecutors said police never searched Stubblefield’s house and never introduced a gun into evidence, saying it was because he was famous Black man and it would “open up a storm of controversy,” according to the appellate decision.
By saying Stubblefield’s race was a factor in law enforcement’s decision not to search his house, prosecutors implied the house would’ve been searched and a gun found had Stubblefield not been Black, the appeals court said. The reference to controversy also links Stubblefield to the events after the recent killing of Floyd based on his race.
Defense attorneys said there was no rape, and Stubblefield said the woman consented to sex in exchange for money.
“The trial had a biased judge who didn’t allow the evidence from the defense, the fact that she was a sex worker, to be heard in front of a jury,” Rosenfeld said. He called the incident a “transactional occasion” between Stubblefield and the woman.
He remains in custody until a hearing next week, during which his attorneys will ask a judge to approve a motion to release him. Prosecutors have several options, including asking the court to stay their decision so they can appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, or refile charges.
The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office said it was “studying the opinion.”
Stubblefield began his 11-year lineman career in the NFL with the 49ers in 1993 as the league’s defensive rookie of the year. He later won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He returned to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-01 and the Raiders in 2003.
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TikTok asks Supreme Court to temporarily block law that could ban site in U.S.
Stock Market News |
2024/12/15 06:47
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TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it.
Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S.
“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.
President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation.
“As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. His campaign saw the platform as a way to reach younger, less politically engaged voters.
Trump was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.
The case could attract the court’s interest because it pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.
The request first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals from courts in the nation’s capital. He almost certainly will seek input from all nine justices.
On Friday, a panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency plea to block the law, a procedural ruling that allowed the case to move to the Supreme Court.
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Court will hear arguments over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care
Stock Market News |
2024/12/01 11:51
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Advocates for transgender rights are turning to a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
The justices on Wednesday are taking up the issue of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which has been banned by Tennessee and 25 other Republican-led states.
The fight over whether transgender adolescents can access puberty blockers and hormonal treatments is part of a broader effort to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.
Trump backed a national ban on such care as part of his 2024 campaign in which he demeaned and mocked transgender people.
In its waning days, the Biden administration, along with families of transgender adolescents, will appeal to the justices to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
“The stakes are high, of course, for transgender adolescents, but also for the parents who are watching their children suffer, who are just trying to do right by their kids,” Chase Strangio, who represents the families at the Supreme Court, said in an interview. Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, will be the first openly transgender person to argue before the high court.
A lawyer for Tennessee will argue that the “life-altering gender-transition procedures” are risky and unproven and that it’s the state’s role to protect children.
Trump nominated three justices in his first term who pushed the court in a more conservative direction that included the decision in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years.
Yet one of Trump’s appointees, Justice Neil Gorsuch, also authored a ruling in 2020 that protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace under federal civil rights law.
The administration and transgender families both rely on that decision to bolster their arguments.
After Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, it’s possible the new administration could weigh in on the case, which is not expected to be decided until the spring.
There are about 300,000 people between age 13 and 17, and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics to inform laws and public policy decisions.
Most Republican-controlled states have adopted a ban similar to the one in Tennessee, and those laws mostly are in effect, despite legal challenges. The Tennessee case is the first time the nation’s top court will consider the constitutionality of the bans.
Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz, a 20-year-old college student in Massachusetts who is transgender, said his life would have been very different if he were just a few years younger and living in one of the states.
“These bans are denying people the opportunity to live and excel,” he said in an interview. “There are thousands of transgender youth across the country that are thriving just like me because we’ve had the love and understanding of our families and because we’ve had access to proper care.”
The bans in Tennessee and elsewhere have put families in the position of deciding whether to travel for ongoing health care, go without or wait until their children turn 18.
Erin Friday, a leader of Our Duty, an international group that supports the bans on gender-affirming care for minors, said the case is going to be as important as Roe v. Wade. She said upholding the Tennessee law would bolster the cases for the laws restricting sports participation and bathroom use. |
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Romanian court orders a recount of presidential election first round
Stock Market News |
2024/11/28 10:57
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A top Romanian court on Thursday asked the official electoral authority to recount and verify all of the ballots cast in the first round of the presidential election, which was won by a far-right outsider candidate, sending shockwaves through the political establishment.
The Constitutional Court in Bucharest approved the recounting of the more than 9.4 million ballots, and said its decision was final. The Central Election Bureau is expected to meet on Thursday afternoon to discuss the request.
Calin Georgescu, a little-known, far-right populist and independent candidate, won the first round, beating the incumbent prime minister. Georgescu was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi, the leader of the Save Romania Union party, in a Dec. 8. runoff.
Georgescu’s unexpected success has prompted nightly protests by people concerned with previous remarks he made in praising Romanian fascist and nationalist leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and believe he poses a threat to democracy.
Without naming Georgescu, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ office said following a Supreme Council of National Defense meeting in Bucharest on Thursday that an analysis of documents revealed that “a presidential candidate benefited from massive exposure due to preferential treatment granted by the TikTok platform.”
Earlier this week, Romania’s National Audiovisual Council asked the European Commission to investigate TikTok’s role in the Nov. 24 vote. Pavel Popescu, the vice president of Romania’s media regulator Ancom, said he would request TikTok’s suspension in Romania if investigations find evidence of “manipulation of the electoral process.”
The vote recount was prompted by a complaint made by Cristian Terhes, a former presidential candidate of the Romanian National Conservative Party who garnered 1% of the vote. Terhes alleged that Lasconi’s party had urged people to vote before some diaspora polls had closed on Sunday, saying it violated electoral laws against campaign activities on polling day.
After Thursday’s court ruling, Terhes’ press office posted on Facebook that the court ordered the recount “due to indications of fraud,” and alleged that valid votes cast for Ludovic Orban — who had dropped out of the race but remained on the ballot — had been reassigned to Lasconi.
It is the first time in Romania’s 35-year post-communist history that the country’s most powerful party, the Social Democratic Party, did not have a candidate in the second round of a presidential race. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu resigned as party leader after he narrowly lost to Lasconi by just 2,740 votes.
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New Hampshire courts hear 2 cases on transgender girls playing girls sports
Stock Market News |
2024/11/22 06:21
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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.
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Investment Fraud Litigation |
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Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws. Securities Arbitration. Generally speaking, securities fraud consists of deceptive practices in the stock and commodity markets, and occurs when investors are enticed to part with their money based on untrue statements.
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The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Securities Law News as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case. | Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo |
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