Wire Stories

Jun 16, 2017

Judge rejects Castile jury request to hear cop’s testimony

The jury weighing the case of a Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a black motorist gave new sign Friday of their struggle to reach a verdict, asking a judge to have the officer's entire testimony re-read to them. Judge William Leary denied the request. He told jurors he could not grant it, but did not explain why, and sent them back to work. It was the fifth day of deliberations i[...]

Jun 15, 2017

Appeals court upholds $11M jury award in Toyota crash

An appeals court has affirmed an $11 million jury award related to a Minnesota crash that killed three people and resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of a driver. A jury in 2015 determined that Toyota was 60 percent to blame for the 2006 crash in St. Paul. A lawsuit alleged the crash was caused by a throttle design defect in a 1996 Camry that caused it to suddenly accelerate. Toyota argued th[...]

Jun 14, 2017

Uber CEO to take leave, diminished role

Uber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick told his staff he plans to take a leave of absence, without disclosing a return date. The company will be run by a management committee as it tries to navigate a wave of scandals. Upon Kalanick’s return, Uber will strip him of some duties and appoint an independent chair to limit his influence, according to an advance copy of a r[...]

Jun 14, 2017

What’s next for Comey? Maybe law, politics

WASHINGTON — So what’s next for James Comey? The former FBI director boldly challenged the president who fired him, accused the Trump administration of lying and supplied material that could be used to build a case against President Donald Trump. But after stepping away from the Capitol Hill spotlight, where he’s always seemed comfortable, the 56-year-old veteran lawman now confronts t[...]

Jun 12, 2017

Prosecutor: Connecticut lawyer’s death not a homicide

HARTFORD, Conn. — The death of a Connecticut attorney found shot in the head in a wrecked car in 2014 was not a homicide as his family believes, a state prosecutor said Tuesday in announcing the conclusion of a criminal investigation. Gugsa Abraham “Abe” Dabela, 35, crashed his Mercedes SUV near his home in Redding shortly after 1:30 a.m. on April 5, 2014, and died of what appeared to be [...]

Jun 9, 2017

Met Council to pay $1M in river pollution lawsuits

The Metropolitan Council in St. Paul has agreed to pay a manufacturing firm about $1 million to settle lawsuits over Mississippi River pollution. The settlement Monday ends the lawsuits between 3M Co. and the council, a regional planning and policy-making board for the Twin Cities metro area. The council and company blamed each other for chemicals found in the river in 2007, the Pioneer Press r[...]

Jun 8, 2017

Neighbors can sue pot grower for stink

DENVER — A pot farm's neighbor can sue them for smells and other nuisances that could harm their property values, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling revives a lawsuit between a Colorado horse farm and a neighboring marijuana-growing warehouse. The horse farm's owners, the Reillys, sued in 2015, claiming that the pot-growing warehouse woul[...]

Jun 8, 2017

High court suspends lawyer in case of ‘mistaken identity’

WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court suspended a prominent Massachusetts lawyer and threatened him with disbarment, it started a Boston legal drama that took two weeks to resolve. It ended May 30, when the court acknowledged it had the wrong guy in an order attributing its earlier action to “mistaken identity.” The wrong guy, it turned out, was Christopher Patrick Sullivan, a partner wi[...]

Jun 7, 2017

Unions face new challenge after 4-4 split

WASHINGTON — Conservative groups are wasting little time in trying to deal a crippling blow to labor unions now that Justice Neil Gorsuch has joined the Supreme Court. A First Amendment clash over public sector unions left the justices deadlocked last year after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But union opponents have quickly steered a new case through federal courts in Illinois and they[...]

Jun 7, 2017

Attorney who bilked government disappears

FRANKFORT, Ky. — An eastern Kentucky disability lawyer scheduled to be sentenced next month for defrauding the government of nearly $600 million has disappeared, the FBI said. Eric Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge. He was scheduled to be sentenced next month and had been ordered to pay the government tens of millions of dollars. But S[...]

Jun 5, 2017

Jury in officer’s trial hears different accounts of Philando Castile shooting

The trial of a Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black motorist opened Monday with attorneys offering sharply different accounts of whether the officer saw the motorist's gun before he began firing. Officer Jeronimo Yanez is charged with manslaughter in the July 6 death of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, in a St. Paul suburb. Castile's death in litt[...]

Jun 2, 2017

Social media raises the stakes on juror misconduct

BOSTON — A recent decision from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suggests that lawyers and judges need to take jurors’ use of social media a whole lot more seriously. The defendant in U.S. v. Zimny was convicted of multiple counts of wire and bank fraud tied to his use of an educational consulting company to bilk Chinese and South Korean parents out of hundreds of thousands of dollars [...]