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Woman accused in dismemberment slaying attacks her attorney
Topics in Legal News |
2023/02/14 10:43
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A woman accused in a grisly killing and dismemberment case in Wisconsin attacked her attorney Tuesday during a court hearing, moments after a judge agreed to delay her trial.
Taylor Schabusiness, 25, was seated in a Brown County circuit court when her attorney, Quinn Jolly, asked the judge for an additional two weeks for a defense expert to review his client’s competency to stand trial.
Moments after Judge Thomas Walsh reluctantly agreed to postpone her March 6 trial, Schabusiness attacked Jolly and was wrestled to the courtroom floor by a deputy, WLUK-TV reported. The courtroom was then cleared before the hearing resumed.
Schabusiness is charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and third-degree sexual assault in the killing of Shad Thyrion, 25, in February 2022. Authorities say she strangled Thyrion at a home in Green Bay, sexually abused him and dismembered his body, leaving parts of him throughout the house and in a vehicle.
Schabusiness has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. She is being held on a $2 million cash bond.
Following her courtroom outburst, the judge moved her competency hearing from Tuesday to March 6. The judge also proposed a May 15 trial date.
At the end of the hearing, Jolly told the court he would file a motion to withdraw from the case as Schabusiness’ attorney but the judge did not immediately rule on that matter. |
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North Dakota woman who brought raccoon to bar gets probation
Topics in Legal News |
2022/12/27 12:17
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A woman who brought a wild raccoon into a bar earlier this year will spend a year on probation.
On Tuesday, Erin Christensen of Maddock, 38, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of providing false information to law enforcement, tampering with evidence and unlawful possession of a live furbearer, reported the Bismarck Tribune.
Northeast District Judge Donovan Foughty gave her a suspended six-month jail sentence and a year on probation. He also ordered her to pay $1,100 in fines and fees.
She faced a maximum sentence of about two years in jail and $7,500 in fines.
According to court documents, Christensen said her family found the raccoon, nicknamed Rocky, on the side of a road and was nursing it back to health when she brought it into the bar on Sept. 6. A bartender said Rocky didn’t got loose nor did he bite anyone but state health officials still issued a warning about potential rabies exposure.
Authorities arrested Christensen on Sept. 14 after serving several search warrants in and around Maddock to find her and the raccoon. According to court documents, she wouldn’t disclose Rocky’s location.
Keeping a wild raccoon as a pet is illegal under state law — as is keeping a bat or skunk because they are known carriers of rabies, according to North Dakota’s Game and Fish website. Authorities ultimately euthanized the racoon, who tested negative for rabies.
Christensen has said Rocky’s fate has left her family traumatized.
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Hong Kong asks Beijing to step in into row over UK lawyer
Topics in Legal News |
2022/11/28 09:31
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Hong Kong’s leader said on Monday he will ask Beijing to rule whether to let foreign lawyers be involved in national security cases after the city’s top court allowed a prominent pro-democracy publisher to hire a British lawyer for his upcoming trial.
John Lee said the government would ask for a postponement of Jimmy Lai’s high-profile trial that was due to start Thursday. But he did not offer a timetable for the interpretation that could effectively preempt the court judgment.
“At present, there is no effective means to ensure that a counsel from overseas will not have conflict of interest because of his nationality. And there is also no means to ensure that he has not been coerced, compromised, or in any way controlled by foreign governments, associations or persons,” he said.
The move was targeting overseas counsels who do not have the general practice qualification to carry out legal service in Hong Kong, he added.
Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily and one of the most prominent figures in the city’s pro-democracy movement, was arrested after Beijing imposed a tough national security law to crack down on dissent following widespread protests in 2019. He faces collusion charges and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
While the city’s secretary for justice was appealing an earlier ruling that approved Lai to hire a veteran British lawyer at the top court, pro-Beijing politicians and newspapers also voiced objections over the last few days.
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Man granted new trial in 2006 triple murder freed after plea
Topics in Legal News |
2022/11/15 10:19
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An man granted a new trial in the murders of three men in Ohio more than a decade and a half ago has been released after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Stoney Thompson, 43, was originally sentenced in Lucas County to three consecutive life terms in the October 2006 slayings of Todd Archambeau, 44, Kenneth Nicholson, 41, and Michael York, 44, who were found shot and stabbed in a boarded-up house in Toledo.
Thompson, originally convicted of complicity to commit murder, was resentenced on involuntary manslaughter convictions under the plea agreement, The (Toledo) Blade reported. He submitted an Alford plea, in which a defendant does not acknowledge guilt but concedes that prosecutors have sufficient evidence for conviction.
Judge James Bates sentenced Thompson to six years for each involuntary manslaughter count to be served consecutively for a total of 18 years. The judge allowed his release but ordered him to remain on probation for the remaining two years of the sentence.
The Sixth U.S. District Court of Appeals in July had ordered a new trial for Thompson, citing evidence not turned over to the defense by prosecutors that included other potential suspects, recorded testimony of other parties, and a photo of a bloody shoe print that didn’t match Thompson’s own shoes. Thompson’s brother, Goldy, was acquitted in the same case following a separate trial in which the evidence hadn’t been withheld, the newspaper reported.
The appeals court judges also cited a lack of physical evidence tying the defendant to the crimes and noted as “strange” the jury’s decision to acquit Thompson of firearms specifications in each death, given that the victims were all shot and one died of a gunshot wound.
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Jackson, in dissent, issues first Supreme Court opinion
Topics in Legal News |
2022/11/07 12:43
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New Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has issued her first Supreme Court opinion, a short dissent Monday in support of a death row inmate from Ohio.
Jackson wrote that she would have thrown out lower court rulings in the case of inmate Davel Chinn, whose lawyers argued that the state suppressed evidence that might have altered the outcome of his trial.
Jackson, in a two-page opinion, wrote that she would have ordered a new look at Chinn’s case “because his life is on the line and given the substantial likelihood that the suppressed records would have changed the outcome at trial.”
The evidence at issue indicated that a key witness against Chinn has an intellectual disability that might have affected his memory and ability to testify accurately, she wrote.
Prosecutors are required to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. In this case, lower courts determined that the outcome would not have been affected if the witness’ records had been provided to Chinn’s lawyers.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only other member of the court to join Jackson’s opinion. The two justices also were allies in dissent Monday in Sotomayor’s opinion that there was serious prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of a Louisiana man who was convicted of sex trafficking.
Jackson joined the high court on June 30, following the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, her onetime boss.
The court has yet to decide any of the cases argued in October or the first few days of this month. Jackson almost certainly will be writing a majority opinion in one of those cases.
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