Ahmaud Arbery: new focus on district attorney’s flawed prosecutions of black women

  • George Barnhill eventually recused himself from Arbery case
  • Prosecutions include woman wrongfully imprisoned for murder

The local prosecutor who argued two white men were legally justified in chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, has been at the center of aggressive and flawed prosecutions of at least two black women in recent years.

One of the women was wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade on a murder conviction secured by later discredited forensic evidence, and another woman was unsuccessfully tried twice for helping people vote.

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Supreme court grills Trump lawyers over president’s unreleased tax returns

Trump has refused to release documents but Sonia Sotomayor says there is a tradition of Congress ‘seeking records and getting them’

As the supreme court heard arguments concerning Donald Trump’s tax returns on Tuesday, justice Sonia Sotomayor told a lawyer for the president “there is a long, long history of Congress seeking records and getting them” from occupants of the Oval Office.

Related: McConnell tells Obama to 'keep his mouth shut' after Trump criticism

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US supreme court tackles politics’ most tantalising mystery: Trump’s tax returns

The president’s tax documents have been reported on by various outlets, even winning the New York Times a Pulitzer

The US supreme court is in its second week of working by telephone during the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday it will hear the highest-profile arguments so far presented remotely: regarding the release, or not, of Donald Trump’s tax returns.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, he bucked tradition by refusing to release such information. Saying he was under audit, which would not in fact have precluded action, he promised to release his returns in due course. He has not.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg in hospital for treatment on gallbladder

The key liberal US supreme court justice is resting comfortably and will be able to continue to work

US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has had a series of health scares, has undergone non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition and was resting comfortably, a court spokeswoman said.

Ginsburg, 87, had a gallstone that had caused an infection and was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a spokeswoman said. Ginsburg was expected to participate in the court’s oral arguments on Wednesday remotely from the hospital.

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Trump is seizing the courts – only a Democratic win in November can stop him

Trump’s transformation of the federal judiciary means the stakes have never been higher in an election than they are for Democrats

He is 37 and less than 10 years out of law school. He had never tried a case, nor served as co-counsel at trial, when he was tapped last year for America’s federal bench. But he did go on Fox News to push the cause of Brett Kavanaugh when Trump’s supreme court pick was mired in sexual abuse claims two years ago.

And now he is bound for the second highest court in the land.

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Former Fox executives indicted in Fifa bribery scheme

Multimillion dollar scheme involved kickbacks to Fifa officials for broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup

Two former senior executives at Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to Fifa officials in exchange for broadcast and marketing rights to some of the world’s biggest football tournaments.

The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels and Carlos Martinez, the former president of Fox Latin America, have been charged with wire fraud and money laundering offenses, marking another series of indictments in the US government’s sprawling investigation of corruption in world football.

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Prince Andrew won’t voluntarily cooperate in Epstein inquiry, prosecutor says

Despite public offer to help with investigation Andrew has ‘completely shut the door’, and New York attorney general is now considering other options

Prince Andrew has “completely shut the door” on cooperating with US investigators in the Jeffrey Epstein case and they are now “considering” further options, a New York prosecutor said on Monday.

Andrew was a friend of Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender whose death in custody while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in New York last year was ruled a suicide.

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Boeing’s ‘culture of concealment’ led to fatal 737 Max crashes, report finds

Preliminary findings conclude Boeing ‘jeopardized the safety of the flying public’ in its attempts to get Max approved by regulators

A “culture of concealment”, cost cutting and “grossly insufficient” oversight led to two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft that claimed 346 lives, a congressional report has concluded.

The preliminary findings, issued by Democrats on the House transportation committee, conclude that Boeing “jeopardized the safety of the flying public” in its attempts to get the Max approved by regulators.

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Supreme court hears first major abortion case since Trump appointees joined bench – live

Remade conservative majority will hear oral arguments in case that could result in grave new restrictions on abortion access – follow live

The session just ended, so we’re just getting some insight into what kinds of questions the justices asked.

Questions focused on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients.

The focus of a lot of the arguments at #SCOTUS today was on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients – a question of "standing". Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out overturning precedent on standing would draw into question 8 cases just in abortion law.

Oral arguments just ended at the Supreme Court – Chief Justice John Roberts is going to be the focus of a lot of analysis, as the liberal and conservative wings of the court appear to have already developed strong opinions on the case

Activist, actress and author Busy Phillips, who has been outspoken about the abortion she had when she was 15-year-old, gave an impassioned speech on the importance of protecting the right to abortion at the pro-choice rally in front of the Supreme Court.

“I will never stop talking about my abortion.” - @BusyPhilipps #MyRightMyDecision pic.twitter.com/LGGCW5kkkv

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US supreme court to hear Affordable Care Act appeal that could cast doubt on law

Lower court’s ruling that individual mandate was unconstitutional to be reviewed after 19 Democratic states appealed the decision

US supreme court to hear third Affordable Care Act challenge

The US supreme court has announced it will hear a case on whether a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional. A decision is not expected until after the 2020 election.

In December, a federal appeals court ruled that the ACA’s individual mandate, which requires every American to have health insurance, was unconstitutional. The ruling cast doubt upon the rest of the law, which is known colloquially as Obamacare.

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US supreme court blocks lawsuit by family of Mexican boy slain at border

Ruling marks the second involving cross-border incidents preventing cases by foreign nationals in US federal courts

The US supreme court has thrown out a lower court’s ruling that had let the family of a slain 16-year-old Mexican boy pursue a civil rights lawsuit against a US border patrol agent who shot the teenager from across the border in Arizona.

The justices took the action in light of their ruling last Tuesday in a similar case in which they decided on a 5-4 vote to bar a lawsuit against another border patrol agent for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Mexican boy from across the border in Texas.

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Trump claims he has ‘legal right’ to intervene in criminal cases

President reasserts his right to tweet on judicial issues following William Barr’s warning the posts ‘make it impossible for me to do my job’

Donald Trump has ignored a plea from his attorney general, William Barr, to not tweet about ongoing legal cases, by using his Twitter account to say he has a “legal right” to do so.

Barr delivered a remarkable public rebuke of the president just hours earlier, saying that Trump’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job” and that he would not be “bullied or influenced” over justice department decisions.

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Harvey Weinstein trial: witness details complex relationship with ex-producer

Rape trial continued with cross-examination of accuser who suffered a panic attack under questioning on Monday

The dramatic rape trial of Harvey Weinstein continued on Tuesday with the cross-examination of an accuser who suffered a panic attack under questioning the day before.

The 34-year-old witness alleges she was violently raped twice by the film producer in 2013. Her claims form a central pillar of the prosecution’s case.

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Trump impeachment: Republican Senate ‘coverup’ prompts backlash

Outraged by what they see as a coverup in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, grassroots activists are planning a massive “payback project” designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box.

Related: By denying witnesses, Republicans made clear even a smoking gun would not be enough

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Airbus to pay record £3bn in fines for ‘endemic’ corruption

UK court sanctions fines after firm admits using agents across world to bribe officials to land high-value contracts

Airbus, Europe’s largest aerospace multinational, is to pay a record £3bn in penalties after admitting it had paid huge bribes on an “endemic” basis to land contracts in 20 countries.

Anti-corruption investigators hailed the result as the largest ever corporate fine for bribery in the world after judges declared that the corruption was “grave, pervasive and pernicious”.

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Weinstein trial: witness says mogul screamed at her for refusing threesome

Dawn Dunning describes experience of Weinstein ‘towering over’ her and allegedly demanding she have threesome with assistant

A witness at the Harvey Weinstein rape trial in New York described on Wednesday the moment the movie mogul allegedly screamed at her that she would never make it in the film business, after she refused to have a threesome with him and his assistant.

Dawn Dunning, 40, told the jury at the New York supreme court how she had become very scared about what Weinstein might do to her after she tried to get away from the room. “He was screaming. He was a big guy, and he was towering over me. I was really scared.”

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Sopranos actor re-enacts alleged rape at Weinstein trial: ‘I was trying to fight’

Annabella Sciorra’s shocking testimony marks first time the Weinstein sex crimes trial directly heard from one of his accusers

In a packed courtroom in the New York supreme court in Manhattan on Thursday, the former Sopranos actor Annabella Sciorra held her arms above her head, wrists locked, in a physical re-enactment of the moment she alleged that the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein forcibly pinned her to her bed.

“He took my hands and put them over my head to hold them back,” the actor said, staring straight at the jury. Some 15ft away on the defense table, the defendant looked impassively at her.

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Trump lawyers argue impeachment case is ‘flimsy’ as trial looms

White House’s brief also claimed process has been a ‘charade’ and Trump did ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ in dealings with Ukraine

Lawyers acting on behalf of Donald Trump on Monday branded the impeachment case against him “flimsy” and a “dangerous perversion of the constitution”, setting the stage for the opening of his long-awaited Senate trial on Tuesday.

As the president prepared to jet off to Davos, where he is set to give a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, the White House submitted its formal trial defence brief, a 110-page document in which it also claimed the impeachment process has been a “charade” and insisted Trump did “absolutely nothing wrong” in his dealings with Ukraine.

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Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr join Trump impeachment legal team

Dershowitz is known for defending Jeffrey Epstein while Starr led the investigation that culminated in Bill Clinton’s impeachment

The White House has unveiled Donald Trump’s legal team for his Senate impeachment trial, a list of attorneys whose own ageing controversies threaten to overshadow their efforts to defend the president.

As the impeachment process enters a major new phase next week, Trump’s defense team will include Alan Dershowitz, known for defending the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and Kenneth Starr, the dogged prosecutor who led the investigation that culminated in the 1998 impeachment of former president Bill Clinton and lost a university post in 2016 for mishandling sexual assaults on campus.

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Weinstein trial: new chapter in #MeToo movement with high stakes for many

The trial is likely to be one of the most high-profile judicial events of the century, and will be closely watched by thousands

The rape trial of the fallen movie mogul Harvey Weinstein begins on Monday in a Manhattan courtroom, opening a critical new chapter in the #MeToo movement that seeks justice for victims of alleged sexual assault at the hands of powerful men.

Related: Weinstein set to face his toughest legal challenge yet in New York trial

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