Lawyers for James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting suspect, took aim against the state's insanity defense laws in court documents made public Friday.
"Colorado's statutory scheme regarding the affirmative defense of insanity, and the introduction of any 'mental condition' evidence at trial or sentencing, is unconstitutional in many individual respects," they wrote in a 60-page motion and brief filed Thursday.
The lawyers said parts of the state's insanity defense laws are unconstitutional.
Among other issues, they cited the requirement that a defendant "cooperate" with examining psychiatrists as a violation of the defendant's privilege against compelled self-incrimination.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will pursue the death penalty against Holmes, who is charged with 166 counts, including murder, attempted murder and other offenses in the July 20 shooting rampage in a movie theater that left 12 people dead and scores injured.
Holmes is awaiting formal arraignment on the charges.
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Two former guests have filed suit against the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, where the body of a 21-year-old woman was found in mid-February in a rooftop water tank.
Steve and Gloria Cott filed suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Elisa Lam's decomposing body floated inside a water tank for as long as 19 days while guests used water from it to brushed their teeth, bathe and drink.
The hotel did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has just blocked a lawsuit over the federal government's sweeping electronic monitoring of foreigners suspected of terrorism or spying.
The 5-4 conservative majority on Tuesday morning concluded that the plaintiffs – a group of attorneys, journalists and others – lacked "standing" or jurisdiction to proceed, without a specific showing they have been monitored. The National Security Agency has in turn refused to disclose monitoring specifics, which detractors call "Catch-22" logic.
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The lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson's three children and mother that accuses a concert promoter of contributing to the pop icon's death can go to trial, a Los Angeles judge tentatively ruled Monday.
The trial for the wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live, filed by Jackson matriarch Katherine Jackson and his children, Prince, Paris and Blanket Jackson, is set for April. A final order on Monday's decision has not been issued yet.
Austin Sigg must face trial on 18 of 20 counts relating to the killing of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway and an attack on a jogger last year, a spokesman for Colorado’s courts said Friday in a Tweet.
Rob McCallum made the announcement after Sigg appeared before Jefferson County Judge Stephen Munsinger in a preliminary hearing. The arraignment is set for March 12; Sigg remains on no-bond hold.
The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a whistle-blower lawsuit against cyclist Lance Armstrong that was originally filed by a former teammate, an attorney for Armstrong said Friday.
Former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test, filed a suit in 2010 against their former team, which was sponsored the U.S. Postal Service.
The lawsuit accused the team's former management of defrauding the government of millions of dollars because the team management knew about team members' drug use and didn't do anything.
FULL STORYA New Hampshire jury on Thursday convicted a Rwandan woman of lying about her role in a 1994 genocide in her home country to acquire U.S. citizenship.
Beatrice Munyenyezi, 43, had her citizenship revoked and will face sentencing in June for two counts of lying on U.S. government applications, authorities said.
She faces up to 10 years behind bars, a $250,000 fine on each count and possible deportation, according to the Justice Department.
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Former Chicago-area police sergeant Drew Peterson was sentenced Thursday to 38 years in prison – with credit for nearly four years in jail – for the 2004 murder of his ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, a prosecution spokesman in Illinois said.
Peterson plans to appeal the sentence, one of this lawyers said.
Peterson was convicted of murder last September. Savio – Peterson's third wife – was found dead in her dry, clean bathtub on March 1, 2004
The headline-grabbing case did not arise until after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared in October 2007. It was during the search for Stacy Peterson – who has not been found – that investigators said they would look again into Savio's death, which was initially ruled an accidental drowning.
In February 2008, authorities altered their judgment and ruled Savio's death a homicide. Peterson was later arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
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Two days after a last-hour reprieve, it appears condemned Georgia murderer Warren Lee Hill will be spared execution for at least a few more weeks.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 30-day stay of execution for Hill (pictured), whose attorneys say he's mentally disabled.
Georgia had asked the justices to lift the stay, which was granted minutes before Hill had been scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday night. A federal appeals court in Atlanta halted the execution to give lawyers a month for written arguments on whether Hill should be spared under the federal ban on executions of the mentally disabled.
FULL STORYA class action lawsuit has been filed against Carnival Corp. surrounding the events that crippled the cruise ship Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico.
Filing on behalf of other tourists, passengers Matt Crusan and Melissa Crusan alleged in their lawsuit that "Carnival knew or should have known that the vessel Triumph was likely to experience mechanical and/or engine issues because of prior similar issues," the court filing said.
The suit, filed Monday, follows a lawsuit that an individual passenger filed against the company last week.
FULL STORYFormer U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is owning up to allegations that he used campaign funds for personal expenses – and now he might get prison time.
Jackson, dabbing at this eyes with a handkerchief, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and false statements.
Sentencing is set for June 28. That charge carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but though the judge noted that prosecutors and defense attorneys appeared to recommend a lighter sentence.
The state of Georgia Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the execution of condemned murderer Warren Lee Hill go forward after a last-minute stay that spared him from lethal injection.
Hill was within half an hour of execution Tuesday night when federal and state appeals courts stepped in to halt the procedure, his lawyer said. His lawyers say he's mentally retarded, with an IQ of 70, but state prosecutors say Hill has repeatedly failed to prove that claim in court.
FULL STORY[Updated at 7:21 p.m. ET] A federal appeals court has granted a stay of execution to convicted killer Warren Lee Hill, who was to have been put to death at 7 p.m. Tuesday in a Georgia prison, a staff attorney for the Georgia Resource Center told CNN.
Hill's lawyers had argued that his IQ of 70 meant he should be spared under a 2002 decision that barred the execution of the mentally disabled.
[Updated at 6:54 p.m. ET] The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for convicted murderer Warren Lee Hill, who is slated to be executed at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Jackson, Georgia.
His defenders say he should be spared because he is mentally disabled. Georgia's Supreme Court denied a request for a stay earlier today.
[Updated at 5:02 p.m. ET] The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles said it has denied the request for clemency from Warren Lee Hill. Hill is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday for the 1990 killing of Joseph Handspike.
[Updated at 3:16 p.m. ET] In a 5-to-2 decision, Georgia's Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a stay of execution for convicted murderer Warren Lee Hill.
Hill, 53, is scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m. by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Hill was convicted of beating fellow inmate Joseph Handspike to death in 1990 with a nail-studded board while already serving a life sentence in the 1985 killing of his girlfriend, Myra Wright.
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Famed Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius appears in a South African court today seeking bail after being accused of murdering his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day. We are live blogging the appearance. Read the full story
[Updated at 7:55 a.m. ET] The Pistorius hearing has adjourned. The prosecutor said he needs time to process the affidavits filed today. Court will reconvene at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Pistorius will spend the night in a local jail.
[Updated at 7:40 a.m. ET] The defense is reading a statement from Steenkamp's friend Samantha Grevenstein that describes Pistorius as humble and the epitome of a true gentleman. Grevenstein said Steenkamp told her that she loved Pistorius and would have likely married him if he'd have asked.
Former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor allegedly told the IRS that she won $1 billion by gambling but lost even more over nine years. And when the losses piled up, she took a couple million dollars from her late husband's charity, prosecutors say.
O'Connor, the first woman mayor of San Diego, has acknowledged in court that she misappropriated more than $2 million from the foundation to fund her casino gambling habit. Her attorney said a brain tumor affected O'Connor's judgment at the time.
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[Updated 8:20 p.m: To clarify the nature of the filed court document]
Federal prosecutors Friday filed felony charges against former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., alleging the illegal misuse of about $750,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses and gifts.
The formal charges of conspiracy, making false statements, and mail and wire fraud, were made public in federal court only days after Jackson had signed a plea deal with prosecutors who were investigating potential financial improprieties.
After the charges were filed Friday, Jackson issued a statement accepting responsibility for making mistakes and bad decisions. He did not dispute prosecutors' allegations.
[Original post, 4:05 p.m.]
Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and a co-conspirator have admitted to concealing about $750,000 in campaign funds for their personal use, according to a plea deal filed in federal court Friday.
Jackson, D-Illinois, admitted to conspiracy and other charges related to the misappropriated campaign funds, according to the court documents.
CNN reported last week that Jackson had signed a plea deal with prosecutors investigating potential financial improprieties, but the details of the alleged improprieties weren't then available.
Jackson, who represented Illinois' 2nd Congressional District beginning in 1995, resigned in late November after winning election to a tenth term in the House. He had not been seen in Washington or his district since last spring, and his office slowly revealed that he was receiving treatment for a mood disorder, depression and gastrointestinal issues at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
FULL STORYNot even 24 hours after reaching land, a passenger on this week's infamously crippled Carnival cruise in the Gulf of Mexico has filed a lawsuit.
Passenger Terry Cassie of Texas has filed a lawsuit against Carnival in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida. The suit describes Carnival's Triumph cruise ship as a "floating hell."
The Triumph was towed into port in Alabama late Thursday night, five days after it lost power in a engine-room fire. More than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew members lived in squalid conditions after the outage, with overflowing commodes splashing floors with waste as the ship listed, passengers reported.
FULL STORYA court hearing in Philadelphia took an unforeseen turn when a witness, testifying about the consequences of losing his left eye in an alleged assault, began crying and his prosthetic eyeball popped out of its socket and into his hand, unsettling the jury and resulting in a mistrial, according to attorneys involved.
"I've been a prosecutor for 26 years and I've never seen anything like that happen. It was unusual; it was shocking," said Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson, who is prosecuting Mathew Brunelli, 23, charged with aggravated assault, for allegedly stabbing John Huttick in the eye during a bar fight in August 2011.
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A 21-year-old Bangladeshi man accused of planning to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with what he allegedly believed was a 1,000-pound bomb is expected to plead guilty Thursday, federal prosecutors said.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda.
He was arrested during a sting operation October 17 and is expected to make his plea during a noon court appearance in New York, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
FULL STORYThe Texas prosecutor shot to death in broad daylight outside a courthouse had feared for his life and carried a gun to work, according to a Dallas attorney describing herself as his friend.
Colleen A. Dunbar told CNN that she spoke with Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on January 24, and he told her he began carrying a gun in and out of the county courthouse on a daily basis.
Hasse was gunned down in the parking lot while going to work Thursday. Investigators on Friday were reviewing his caseload for possible clues about what led to his killing.
"He told me he would use a different exit every day because he was fearful for his life," Dunbar told CNN.
She said that Hasse offered no specifics on why he felt threatened, but only that he did. Dunbar said she was "shocked" by the killing.
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