At a Glance ...

LAD to conduct expungement clinic

Legal Aid and Defender Association Inc. (LAD) will conduct a free clinic on expungement of criminal records for residents of Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties on Saturday, January 25 at Fellowship Chapel in Detroit.

The clinic is scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon; the chapel is located at 7707 W. Outer Drive.

Michigan allows for expungement, or removal from the public record, of records of single criminal convictions after five years, according to LAD’s legal rights handbook for former offenders.

Not all convictions can be expunged, including those for crimes that carry possible life sentences and traffic convictions such as drunk driving, or where there is lifetime probation, the handbook says.

For information, call 313.967.5625.

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Police officer shoots man with BB gun

GRAND RAPIDS (AP) — Grand Rapids police say an officer critically wounded a man who threatened officers with what turned out to be a BB gun.

Capt. Jeff Hertel says a 19-year-old man contacted authorities saying he couldn’t “take it anymore” and not to “send anyone because everyone will ... die.”

Hertel said the man opened the apartment door and spoke with officers before running inside. Officers entered the apartment and the man came downstairs with a “very realistic-looking” black gun, he said.
Hertel says the man refused to drop the weapon, the officers retreated to a bathroom before one of them shot him twice.

The captain says the officer is on paid leave during an investigation.

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Judge: $1.17B patent verdict for CMU stands

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A U.S. judge has declined to reduce a $1.17 billion patent infringement verdict that Carnegie Mellon University won against a California technology firm in 2012.

U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer previously rejected Marvell Technology Group’s bid for a retrial in the case involving the university’s 1998 patent on noise reduction technology in chips manufactured for computer hard drives.

In a 73-page opinion, the judge also rejected Marvell’s argument that that the amount should be reduced by $620 million because of the university’s lack of diligence in protecting its patents.

Fischer said the university “inexcusably” waited five years before suing, but that delay was offset by Marvell’s “deliberate and sustained” infringement. She has yet to rule on university motions to increase damages.

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Appeals court hears flag desecration case

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The constitutionality of Missouri’s flag desecration law is under consideration by a federal appeals court panel in St. Louis.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard oral arguments in the case of Cape Girardeau resident Frank Snider III.

Snider was arrested in 2009 for cutting up an American flag, throwing it into the street and trying to set it on fire. When that failed he used a knife to shred it.

Police arrested Snider, citing Missouri’s flag desecration statute. Prosecutors dismissed the charge after learning of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed a similar law in Texas unconstitutional.

In 2012, a federal judge in St. Louis ruled Missouri’s law was unconstitutional. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed to the 8th Circuit.

The high court, in an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, overturned that decision and sent the case back.

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