Supreme Court rejects appeal by convicted killer of 11
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a Cleveland man sentenced to die for killing 11 women and hiding the remains in and around his home.
At issue were arguments by 58-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl) over the closure of an evidence hearing during his trial and his rejected offer to plead guilty.
Sowell lost the argument in the Ohio Supreme Court and then appealed to the nation's high court, which turned down the appeal Monday.
Sowell's attorneys objected to the trial judge's closing of a pre-trial hearing over the admissibility of Sowell's videotaped police interrogation of more than 11 hours.
The judge ultimately allowed the use of the video, and most of it was played during Sowell's trial.
A message was left with Sowell's attorney.
Justices uphold verdict against south Alabama timber company
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The Alabama Supreme Court is upholding a multi-million dollar verdict against a south Alabama timber processing company.
The justices ruled Friday that Monroe County-based Alabama River Group Inc. and its chief executive, George Landegger, must pay about $6 million to six wood dealers.
The companies filed suit claiming they were cheated into accepting lower prices based on Alabama River Group's participation in a federal subsidy program. A jury in Monroeville awarded the companies more than $8 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
A judge reduced the verdict to $6.4 million and Alabama River Group appealed. The Supreme Court rejected claims that the verdict wasn't based on the law and was excessive.
The court's opinion says Landegger was under house arrest for a tax-related conviction during the civil trial in 2015.
2 Texas inmates set to die this month lose at Supreme Court
HOUSTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused appeals from two convicted killers facing execution in Texas this month.
The high court, without comment, declined to review appeals from death row inmates Robert Pruett and Anthony Shore.
The 38-year-old Pruett is set to die Oct. 12 for the 1999 fatal stabbing of a corrections officer at a South Texas prison where he already was serving a 99-year sentence for his involvement in another slaying. The 55-year-old Shore is set for lethal injection Oct. 18 for the 1992 slaying of a 20-year-old woman in Houston. He has confessed to that killing and three others.
The justices Monday also refused three other condemned Texas inmates, including Kwame Rockwell, of Fort Worth; Jaime Cole, an Ecuadoran convicted in Houston; and Garcia White, also from Houston.
Court upholds man's conviction over violent Facebook post
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who posted violent rap lyrics on Facebook that took aim at his estranged wife, an elementary school and law enforcement.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up for a second time the case of Anthony Elonis. The court ruled in 2015 that a jury should have weighed Elonis' intent and not just the lyrics when convicting him of making threats. The Supreme Court then sent the case back to an appeals court.
The appeals court upheld Elonis' conviction saying no jury would have found that he didn't intend to threaten his targets or didn't know his targets would view the lyrics as a threat.
U.S. Supreme Court won't hear assisted suicide case
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a national group convicted of assisting in the 2007 suicide of a Minnesota woman.
The high court's decision means the 2015 conviction will stand against Final Exit Network Inc., which was found guilty of assisting in the suicide of 57-year-old Doreen Dunn, of Apple Valley. She took her own life with advice from the group after a decade of chronic pain. The group was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay funeral expenses.
Florida-based Final Exit Network argued that Minnesota's law making it a crime to help other people kill themselves violates the freedom of speech.
But Minnesota's appellate courts disagreed, saying the state's assisted-suicide law is constitutional and that "assisting" suicide can include speech instructing another person on methods.
Supreme Court declines to hear Megaupload case
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place lower court rulings against internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom and others associated with his now defunct file-sharing website Megaupload.
The Supreme Court said Monday it would not take a case in which a lower court ordered the forfeiture of bank accounts, cars, and a property in New Zealand linked to the group.
U.S. authorities shut down Megaupload in 2012 and filed charges against Dotcom and several colleagues, alleging they conspired to commit copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering. Two years later, officials moved to have assets forfeited that the government said were proceeds of the alleged conspiracy.
Courts found that Dotcom, who lives in New Zealand, and others were fugitives avoiding prosecution in the United States and ordered the assets forfeited.
Supreme Court declines to hear NM tree clearing dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has left in place a lower court ruling that prevents New Mexico from greenlighting tree clearing on federal land in the state in the name of fire prevention.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a dispute between New Mexico and the federal government.
The issue dates back to 2001 when New Mexico passed a law saying the U.S. Forest Service had failed to reduce the threat of forest fires by not clearing undergrowth and removing trees on Forest Service land. The law then gave counties in the state permission to do the work.
When Otero County moved to cut trees on land in the Lincoln National Forest without federal approval in 2011, the United States government sued. Lower courts sided with the federal government.
Supreme Court won't hear lawsuit about fishing monitor cost
SEABROOK, N.H. (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition filed by a New England fishing group over the cost of at-sea monitors.
Monitors are workers who gather data that inform fishing regulations. The government shifted the cost of paying for them to fishermen in some Northeast fisheries in 2016.
New Hampshire cod fisherman David Goethel led the lawsuit. He says the cost shift adds hundreds of dollars to the daily cost of fishing and is driving people out of business.
Attorneys for Goethel say on Monday that they're disappointed the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case. They say they'll look for new ways to challenge the cost shift, which they contend is unlawful.
The suit named the U.S. Department of Commerce, which includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Court won't hear case of man who shot student
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place a 70-year prison sentence for a Montana man convicted of shooting a German exchange student who was trespassing in his garage.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case of Markus Kaarma.
Kaarma was convicted of the 2014 death of 17-year-old Diren Dede, who had apparently gone into Kaarma's garage in Missoula to steal beer. Kaarma had argued the shooting was in self-defense. Prosecutors said Kaarma and his girlfriend were trying to lure a burglar into the garage by leaving the garage door open despite having been burglarized twice before.
Kaarma told the Supreme Court that he didn't get a fair trial because media coverage of the case prejudiced the outcome.
Supreme Court won't weigh in on Cliven Bundy lawyer issue
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is declining to weigh in on conservative activist Larry Klayman's efforts to represent state's rights figure Cliven Bundy during a trial over the 2014 standoff near Bundy's Nevada ranch.
The court said Monday that it won't address a dispute in which Klayman claims he was improperly prevented from joining Bundy's defense team. Bundy, two sons and four other defendants are scheduled to go on trial Oct. 10.
Bundy and his sons were among 19 people arrested in early 2016, nearly two years after the armed standoff with federal authorities near his Nevada ranch. The standoff near Bunkerville happened after federal authorities attempted to roundup roughly 1,000 of Bundy's cows from public lands following a decades-long dispute over grazing rights.
Court won't upend senator's corruption conviction
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has left in place the conviction and prison sentence of a former Democratic state senator from New York who wanted to run for mayor of New York City as a Republican.
The justices did not comment Monday in rejecting an appeal from former Sen. Malcolm Smith.
Prosecutors said Smith authorized about $200,000 in bribes to secure Republican leaders' backing to avoid a crowded Democratic field and run on the GOP line in the 2013 mayoral race.
Smith had served in the state Senate for more than a decade before his arrest in 2013. He is serving a seven-year prison term after his conviction on conspiracy, bribery and other charges.
Published: Tue, Oct 03, 2017
