Tag: conviction
Pistorius Starts Five-Year Jail Term For Killing Girlfriend

Pistorius Starts Five-Year Jail Term For Killing Girlfriend

Pretoria — South African star athlete Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday for killing his girlfriend, in the climax to his sensational trial watched around the world.

The Paralympian sprinter, known as the “Blade Runner”, was led from the dock down to the cells to start his sentence for shooting model Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.

“Count one, culpable homicide: the sentence imposed is five years,” Judge Thokozile Masipa told Pistorius in the Pretoria courtroom.

It was a stunning fall from grace for the 27-year-old who made history by becoming the first double amputee Paralympian to compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, inspiring millions.

But during his trial, the prosecution painted a darker picture of the sports star, presenting a dangerously volatile young man with a penchant for guns, beautiful women and fast cars.

Lawyers said however that Pistorius will probably not serve the full term for the offense of culpable homicide, equivalent to manslaughter, and perhaps as little as 10 months.

Pistorius, who had wept and vomited at times during his trial, stood stock-still as he was sentenced, veins bulging in his forehead and his jaw muscles clenched.

He was also sentenced to three years, suspended for five years, for accidentally firing a pistol under a table at a restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013.

Pistorius had testified that he shot Steenkamp, 29, four times through a locked bathroom door at his upmarket Pretoria home after he mistakenly believed she was an intruder.

Prosecutors had argued that he murdered her in a fit of rage after an argument.

– Verdict hotly debated –

As the court adjourned, Pistorius turned to look at the public gallery, then briefly took the hands of his family members before being led by police to the cells.

Amid a media frenzy, he was later taken to a police van which was escorted to Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru prison.

“He is already accommodated at Kgosi Mmapuru, in Pretoria,” said correctional services spokesman Manelisi Wolela.

Steenkamp’s family welcomed the sentence, the dramatic end to a trial televised globally that began in March but was repeatedly adjourned.

Steenkamp’s ailing father Barry said he was “very glad” the trial was over and a lawyer for the family said the sentence was “welcome”.

Oscar Pistorius’s uncle said the sprinter’s family accepted the court’s judgement.

“Oscar will embrace this opportunity to pay back to society,” Arnold Pistorius said.

The verdict and the sentence have been hotly debated in South Africa, with many expressing the opinion that Pistorius literally got away with murder.

The Steenkamps’ lawyer Dup de Bruyn told AFP that the sentence will likely be served as two years in prison and three years under house arrest.

A member of Pistorius’s legal team, Roxanne Adams, said he would likely serve a sixth of the five-year term — 10 months — before being transferred to house arrest.

– No decision on appeals –

Neither side indicated immediately whether they would appeal against either the September verdict or Tuesday’s sentence.

State prosecution spokesman Nathi Mncube said they had been disappointed with the conviction for culpable homicide rather than murder.

But he added: “We have not made up our minds whether we are going to appeal or not.”

Adams said the defense had “no comment” on whether it will appeal.

The International Paralympic Committee said Pistorius — who won sprint gold medals at three Games — would not be allowed to compete in the next event in 2016 even if he was released early.

Masipa said she wanted to find a balance between retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation, dismissing defense claims that the disabled athlete would face particular suffering in prison.

“It would be a sad day for this country if an impression were to be created that there was one law for the poor and disadvantaged and another for the rich and famous,” said Masipa.

She also weighed the ability of Pistorius to cope with incarceration given his physical disability.

“Yes the accused is vulnerable, but he also has excellent coping skills,” she said.

Discussing the gravity of Pistorius’s crime, the judge said he had been guilty of “gross negligence”.

“Using a lethal weapon, a loaded firearm, the accused fired not one, but four shots into the door,” said Masipa.

“The toilet was a small cubicle and there was no room for escape for the person behind the door,” she said.

The prosecution had called for 10 years in jail for the athlete, while the defense pleaded for house arrest and community service.

But Masipa said a community service order “would not be appropriate”.

With the conviction and sentence, Pistorius has lost his glittering sports career, lucrative contracts and — above all — his hero status, tarnished forever.

AFP Photo/Kim Ludbrook

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California Bans Paparazzi Drones

California Bans Paparazzi Drones

Los Angeles (AFP) — California approved a law which will prevent paparazzi from using drones to take photos of celebrities, among a series of measures aimed at tightening protection of privacy.

Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a string of legislative bills also including an expansion of one against so-called “revenge porn,” when former lovers share nude photos of their exes online.

The drone ban bill, which is aimed at shoring up privacy for the general public but will work equally well for celebrities, was authored by lawmaker Ed Chau.

“As technology continues to advance and new robotic-like devices become more affordable for the general public, the possibility of an individual’s privacy being invaded substantially increases,” he said.

“I applaud the governor for signing (the law) because it will ensure that our state’s invasion of privacy statute remains relevant even as technology continues to evolve,” he added on his website.

California passed a “revenge porn” law last year, making it illegal to post naked pictures of an ex-partner online and setting a jail term of up to six months for anyone convicted.

The new law signed Tuesday allows victims of revenge porn to seek damages in civil court, and also to seek a restraining order to get the offending photos taken down from the Internet.

The bill also expands the ban to include “selfie” photos.

“Rather than having to argue in court on the grounds of invasion of privacy… lawyers can now pursue relief by directly showing the images were sent without the consent of the victim,” said the bill’s author Bob Wieckowski.

AFP Photo/Michel Comte

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Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Appeals Corruption Conviction

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Appeals Corruption Conviction

By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — Almost a year into his lengthy prison term, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is asking a federal appeals court to toss his conviction and grant him a new trial.

The disgraced ex-mayor, who is serving a 28-year prison term for public corruption, argued in court documents filed Wednesday that he didn’t get a fair trial for three reasons:

— He was forced to go to trial with a lawyer he didn’t want — and shouldn’t have had — due to a conflict of interest.

— The nearly $4.7 million he was ordered to pay in restitution was not authorized under federal law.

— The judge erred in allowing two FBI agents to offer their opinions to jurors about what Kilpatrick’s and others’ text messages meant and how texts and phone calls showed the ex-mayor was involved in crooked contracts.

“Kilpatrick was denied a fair trial because the court allowed the two case agents to testify 23 times and ‘spoon-feed’ the jury the prosecution theory of the case based on the agents’ review of all the text messages, recorded calls, and documents, (which) the jury never had the opportunity to review on their own and to use to draw their own conclusions,” Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Harold Gurewitz, argued in the filing with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 80-page filing focused heavily on Kilpatrick’s longtime defense attorney James Thomas, whom Kilpatrick tried to get thrown off the case at the start of his trial, citing a conflict of interest. Thomas and his associate were working for a law firm that was suing Kilpatrick for the same alleged crimes of which Thomas was defending him.

At Kilpatrick’s request, Thomas asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds to withdraw from the case. But Edmunds denied it, noting that when Kilpatrick ran out of money and couldn’t afford a lawyer, he requested Thomas, so he got him. Edmunds also found that Thomas had been a good and effective lawyer for Kilpatrick.

Thomas represented Kilpatrick throughout the six-month trial, which ended with Kilpatrick getting convicted in March 2013 on 24 counts for crimes including racketeering, extortion, and bribery. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Thomas was not readily available for comment.

Two months after the guilty verdict, Kilpatrick officially dumped Thomas, telling Edmunds that “a grave error” occurred in his case and that he needed a new lawyer.

Thomas agreed that it was time for him to step down.

Edmunds appointed Gurewitz to handle Kilpatrick’s case.

“Among the basic duties owed by a criminal defense lawyer to his client are the duty of loyalty, the duty to avoid conflicts of interest, and the overarching duty to advocate the defendant’s cause,” Gurewitz wrote in the latest filing.

Photo via WikiCommons

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Britain’s Phone-Hacking Trial Ends With Just One Conviction

Britain’s Phone-Hacking Trial Ends With Just One Conviction

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

LONDON — A jury failed to reach a verdict Wednesday on the remaining counts against two defendants in Britain’s phone-hacking trial, bringing to a close one of the longest court proceedings in British history in a case that lifted the lid on the sometimes unsavory nexus of media, celebrity and politics.

Jurors deadlocked on whether former tabloid editor Andy Coulson and reporter Clive Goodman bribed someone on the British royal family’s security detail for a phone directory of the royal household. A judge at London’s Old Bailey courthouse thanked the panel members for their service and dismissed them; a decision on whether to order a retrial is expected Monday.

The hung jury means that the high-profile, eight-month trial ended with just a single conviction among the seven co-defendants variously accused of phone hacking, corruption and obstruction of justice. Coulson, 46, was found guilty Tuesday of conspiracy to commit phone hacking and faces up to two years in prison.

But the political reverberations of that lone conviction continued Wednesday with Prime Minister David Cameron defending himself in Parliament over having hired Coulson as his chief spin doctor.

The onetime editor had already been associated with illegal phone hacking when Cameron brought him into his inner circle; one of Coulson’s reporters was sent to jail in 2007 for illegally intercepting private voicemail messages. But the prime minister said he believed Coulson’s reassurances of having personally done nothing wrong.

“I always said if those assurances turned out to be wrong, I would apologize fully and frankly to this House of Commons, and I do so again today,” Cameron told lawmakers, repeating an apology he made Tuesday after the guilty verdict against Coulson was delivered. “I am sorry. This was the wrong decision.”

Opposition leader Ed Miliband blamed Cameron for an inexcusable lapse in judgment and for “willful negligence” in ignoring warnings from others about Coulson, the former editor of the now-defunct News of the World. Coulson was seen as someone able to help the Oxford-educated, upper-class Cameron connect with the millions of Britons who read the country’s popular scandal sheets.

“When it came to Andy Coulson, he just didn’t want to know the evidence,” Miliband said of Cameron. “The prime minister will always be remembered as being the first-ever occupant of his office who brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street.”

Cameron faced another headache Wednesday when the judge in the phone-hacking trial rebuked him for speaking out about Coulson’s conviction and issuing his first apology the day before. The judge said that those comments might have unfairly swayed jury members before they reassembled Wednesday morning to try to reach agreement on the outstanding charges against Coulson and Goodman.

But there was relief among Cameron’s team that the most prominent of the seven co-defendants, Rebekah Brooks, had been acquitted of all charges against her. Brooks, 46, was head of media baron Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers, which made her one of the country’s most influential figures.

She and her husband, Charlie, who was also acquitted Tuesday, are friends of Cameron and his wife, Samantha. The two couples belong to an upper-crust, powerfully connected social set that goes horseback riding together, owns country homes and throws lavish parties.

Cameron has distanced himself from the Brookses since the phone-hacking scandal erupted three years ago. Public outrage followed revelations that, in 2002, the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail account of a missing teenage girl who was later found slain.

The incident occurred when Rebekah Brooks was the paper’s editor. but she testified in court that she was not aware of it and that she did not know her reporters were engaged in phone hacking on a sweeping scale in their pursuit of sensational scoops. Police say hundreds of actors, politicians, athletes and even crime victims had their cellphones hacked.

Three senior journalists at the News of the World have pleaded guilty to phone hacking and await sentencing.

Asst. Commissioner Cressida Dick of Scotland Yard, which has assigned dozens of officers to the ongoing investigation into phone hacking and bribery by journalists, said that “those found not guilty have been exonerated after a thorough police investigation and a fair trial. It was right that the issues were aired in a court of law.”

She added that the police have been “acutely conscious of the sensitivities of investigating a newspaper and people employed by a newspaper …. This investigation has never been about an attack on press freedom but rather establishing who may have committed criminal offenses.”