Category Archives: Law (US)

Elizabeth Holmes: from Silicon Valley’s female icon to disgraced CEO on trial

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Once the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire, the former head of Theranos is facing fraud charges and possible jail time

The rise and fall of the blood testing startup Theranos turned the tech world upside down and captured the attention of millions beyond Silicon Valley, inspiring multiple books, documentaries and a television series.

Theranos set out to revolutionize the medical testing space, reaching a valuation of $10bn before the capabilities of its core technology were revealed to be largely fabricated. Now, its founder and former leader, Elizabeth Holmes, is about to face the music.

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Cybersleuths find men who allegedly attacked officer during US Capitol riot

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David Walls-Kaufman and Taylor F Taranto appeared to target Jeffrey Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable, suit says

A group of cybersleuths have tracked down two men who allegedly attacked police officer Jeffrey Smith at the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection, leaving him with injuries that have been linked to his death days later.

In a new complaint, attorney David P Weber – who represents Smith’s widow, Erin – wrote that David Walls-Kaufman and and Taylor F Taranto appeared to specifically target Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable.

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Former model Carré Sutton sues Gérald Marie over rape accusation

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Lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, says Sutton was ‘trafficked’ by ex-Elite Model boss to ‘wealthy men across Europe’

Ex-model Carré Sutton has filed a lawsuit alleging that Gérald Marie, the French former modeling agency boss, repeatedly raped her at his Paris apartment when she was just 17 years old.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, also maintains that Sutton was “trafficked by Marie to other wealthy men around Europe”.

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Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to rape and sexual assault in LA trial

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The convicted rapist is serving a 23-year prison term in New York and now faces the possibility of another sentence in California

Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.

The 69-year-old convicted rapist appeared in court in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and face mask. Attorney Mark Werksman entered the plea a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, where he was serving a 23-year prison term.

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‘Tragic’: Justice Elena Kagan’s scorching dissent on US voter suppression

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The supreme court’s conservative wing considerably weakened section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and Kagan didn’t hold back

There may have been no supreme court decision this year more important this year than the one in Brnovich v Democratic National Committee.

In a 6-3 ruling that broke down along ideological lines, the court’s conservative justices upheld two Arizona voting restrictions and considerably weakened section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law.

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Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer asks to resign from conservatorship

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Samuel Ingham has faced intense scrutiny for his representation of Spears, who has said she’s been unable to choose her own lawyer

Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer has asked to resign from the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years.

The news of lawyer Samuel D Ingham’s decision to step down comes after the singer’s emotional courtroom testimony prompted the resignation of her manager and the withdrawal of a wealth management firm involved in her conservatorship. The legal arrangement, which has been in place since 2008, has given Spears’s father and other parties intense authority over her career, finances, personal life and medical care.

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Arkansas man given life for robbing taco shop with water pistol set to be freed

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Governor announces intent to make Rolf Kaestel, who robbed a Fort Smith shop of $264 in 1981, eligible for parole

The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has said he intends to commute the sentence of a man serving life in prison for robbing a taco shop in 1981 with a water pistol.

Hutchinson announced he intended to make Rolf Kaestel immediately eligible for parole. There is a 30-day waiting period to receive public feedback before the governor’s decision can become final.

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After Britney Spears testimony, lawmakers push changes to conservatorship laws

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Disability rights activists say proposed reforms don’t go far enough and that flaws in the system trap people in abusive arrangements

Last week, Britney Spears testified in court about the conservatorship that has long controlled her life, and noted there were a thousand people stuck in “abusive” arrangements like hers.

In California, lawmakers have responded to the international outcry about the singer’s peculiar legal arrangement with proposed reforms that aim to expand the rights and due process of people in conservatorships.

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Obama says Trump violated ‘core tenet’ of democracy with election ‘hooey’ – as it happened

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– Maanvi Singh and Vivian Ho

As the United States has become more diverse, it has also become more racially segregated, according to a new nationwide analysis from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

More than 80% of America’s large metropolitan areas were more racially segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, the researchers found, even though explicit racial discrimination in housing has been outlawed for half a century. The levels of residential segregation appeared highest not in the American south, but in parts of the north-east and midwest: the most segregated metropolitan area in the US according to the study is New York City, followed by Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.

Related: ‘Where you live determines everything’: why segregation is growing in the US

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Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for murder of George Floyd

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Four members of the Floyd family, including his seven-year-old daughter Gianna, gave statements before the sentencing

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd, has been sentenced to 22 years and six months for second-degree murder, closing one chapter of a case that thrust the issue of race and American policing back into the global spotlight.

Related: Protests erupt in Minneapolis over man fatally shot by deputies

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Harvey Weinstein to be extradited to California for sexual assault charges

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Judge said there was no reason to delay transfer any longer and denied lawyer’s request to keep him at a state prison in New York

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will be extradited to California after a New York judge’s approval, where he faces additional sexual assault charges.

The extradition order ends a legal fight, prolonged by the pandemic, the defense’s concerns about Weinstein’s failing health, and a squabble over paperwork.

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The Great Dissenter review: a superb life of John Marshall Harlan, champion of equality

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not the only great supreme court justice to have made her name with dissent in the name of progress

The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent collar is a small part of a larger history. Unlike some other high courts, the US supreme court accepts strong dissent. Ginsburg stood in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan – the only justice with the courage, foresight, humanity and constitutional vision to object to the odious 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision that approved racial segregation.

Related: How the Word is Passed review: After Tulsa, other forgotten atrocities

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‘Disgusting slap in the face’: California governor slams judge as assault rifles ban overturned

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Gavin Newsom responds after Judge Roger Benitez compares AR-15s to Swiss army knives ‘good for both home and battle’

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, slammed a federal judge’s decision to overturn his state’s three-decade-old ban on assault rifles as “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians”.

Related: America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery | Carol Anderson

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‘Outrageous’: why was a US health worker charged with spreading Covid?

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Attempt to hold a worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid resulted in Josefina Brito-Fernandez losing her license to work, fearing deportation

Prosecutors in Camden, New Jersey, charged a home health aide accused of inadvertently exposing an elderly patient to Covid-19 early in the pandemic in what appears to be the only case of its kind. The patient, an 80-year-old woman, died of the illness in May last year.

The attempt to hold an essential worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid-19 resulted in the worker, 51-year-old Josefina Brito-Fernandez, permanently losing her license to work and entering a probation program for fear she would be deported.

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Will rule of law succeed where Congress failed and hold Trump accountable?

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If the grand jury goes against him, Trump would be the first former US president charged with a crime

Standing in court, the former president pleaded not guilty to -harges of financial crimes that he insists are part of a politically motivated witch hunt. Jacob Zuma, once the populist leader of South Africa, cut a humbled figure on Wednesday – and offered a potential glimpse of America’s future.

A similar fate for Donald Trump became significantly more likely with reports that New York prosecutors have convened a grand jury to decide whether to indict him on criminal charges.

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New York district attorney convenes grand jury in Trump criminal inquiry

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Investigation includes matters such as hush-money payments to women on Trump’s behalf, property valuations and employee pay

New York prosecutors have convened a special grand jury to consider evidence in a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s business dealings, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

The development signals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office was moving toward seeking charges as a result of its two-year investigation, which included a lengthy legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax records.

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Anti-abortion movement bullish as legal campaign reaches US supreme court

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A case that could undermine the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and a punitive Texas law are the culmination of a decades-long push

The anti-abortion movement in the US is emboldened and optimistic after the supreme court announced it would hear a direct challenge to laws underpinning the right to abortion in the US, and Texas enacted a law intended to ban abortion after six weeks.

The high court decision to take up the case and the Texas move come during the most hostile year for reproductive rights in the nearly half-century since pregnant people won the constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy in the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade.

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Ordered online, assembled at home: the deadly toll of California’s ‘ghost guns’

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Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communities

When Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.

“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied.

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US supreme court agrees to consider major rollback of abortion rights

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Court will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a 15-week ban on abortion, setting up a showdown

The US supreme court agreed on Monday to consider a major challenge to reproductive rights, saying it will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Related: ‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court

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Ghislaine Maxwell makes first in-person court appearance since arrest

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Former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein appears in blue scrubs in court in Manhattan, and pleads not guilty to sex-trafficking charges

When Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in Manhattan federal court on Friday, her appearance was a far cry from that of the jet-setter who once socialised with the rich and powerful.

Related: Judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to dismiss charges that she recruited girls

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