Daily Bar News

Todays Date: Click here to add this website to your favorites
  rss
Bar News Search >>>
law firm web design
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
D.C.
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Mass.
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
N.Carolina
N.Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
S.Carolina
S.Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
W.Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming


President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing in his hush money case in New York.

Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

The justices asked for a response from prosecutors by Thursday morning. Trump’s team sought an immediate stay of the scheduled sentencing, saying it would wrongly restrict him as he prepares to take office. While Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, Trump’s lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side effects.

The sentencing should be delayed as he appeals the conviction to “prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” they argued.

The emergency motion is from lawyers John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, who represents the government before the high court, and Todd Blanche, in line to be the second-ranking official at the Justice Department.

They also pointed to the Supreme Court ruling giving Trump and other presidents broad immunity from prosecutions over their actions in office, saying it supports their argument that his New York conviction should be overturned.

Their filing said the New York trial court “lacks authority to impose sentence and judgment on President Trump — or conduct any further criminal proceedings against him— until the resolution of his underlying appeal raising substantial claims of Presidential immunity, including by review in this Court if necessary.”

The Republican president-elect’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, called for the case to be dismissed in a statement. Trump simultaneously filed an emergency appeal in front of New York’s highest court.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, meanwhile, said it will respond in court papers. Trump’s convictions arose from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. He denies it.

The Supreme Court’s immunity opinion came in a separate election interference case against him, but Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. That includes testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.

Merchan has disagreed, finding they would qualify as personal business. The Supreme Court’s immunity decision was largely about official acts of presidents while in office.



Faced with the never-before-seen dilemma of how, when or even whether to sentence a former and future U.S. president, the judge in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s hush money case made a dramatic decision that could nevertheless bring the case to a muted end.

In a ruling Friday, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan scheduled the sentencing for 10 days before Trump’s inauguration — but the judge indicated that he’s leaning toward a sentence that would amount to just closing the case without any real punishment. He said Trump could attend the Jan. 10 proceeding remotely because of his transition duties.

Still, that would leave Trump headed back to the White House with a felony conviction.

Will it come to that? Trump wants the conviction thrown out and the case dismissed, and communications director Steven Cheung said the president-elect will “keep fighting.” But it’s tough to predict just what will unfold in this unprecedented, unpredictable case. Here are some key questions and what we know about the answers:

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying his business’ records. They pertained to a $130,000 payment, made through his former personal lawyer in 2016, to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from publicizing her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. He denies her claim and says he’s done nothing wrong.

Trump’s sentencing was initially set for July 11. But at his lawyers’ request, the proceeding was postponed twice, eventually landing on a date in late November, after the presidential election. Then Trump won, and Merchan put everything on hold to consider what to do.

That won’t be final until the judge pronounces it, and he noted that by law, he has to give prosecutors and Trump an opportunity to weigh in. The charges carry potential penalties ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

But the judge wrote that “the most viable option” appears to be what’s called an unconditional discharge. It wraps up a case without imprisonment, a fine or probation. But an unconditional discharge leaves a defendant’s conviction on the books.

And by law, every person convicted of a felony in New York must provide a DNA sample for the state’s crime databank, even in cases of an unconditional discharge.

Can Trump appeal to stop the sentencing from happening?

It’s murky. Appealing a conviction or sentence is one thing, but the ins and outs of challenging other types of decisions during a case are complicated.

Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said that under New York law, Friday’s ruling can’t be appealed, but that “doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have been trying to get a federal court to take control of the case. Prosecutors are due to file a response with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by Jan. 13, three days after Trump now is to be sentenced.

The defense also has suggested it would seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention if Merchan didn’t throw out the case. In a Nov. 25 letter to the judge, Trump’s attorneys contended that the U.S. Constitution permits an appeal to the high court because the defense is making arguments about presidential immunity.

Much of their argument concerns the Supreme Court’s July ruling on that topic, which afforded considerable legal protections to presidents. Trump’s attorneys might try to convince the Supreme Court that it needs to follow up by getting involved now in the hush money case.

A Trump spokesperson said no decision had been made on whether to challenge Merchan’s ruling.





Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a civil lawsuit accusing the privacy-minded company of deploying its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.

The proposed settlement filed Tuesday in an Oakland, California, federal court would resolve a 5-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.

The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn't seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, "Hey, Siri." Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.

The allegations about a snoopy Siri contradicted Apple's long-running commitment to protect the privacy of its customers — a crusade that CEO Tim Cook has often framed as a fight to preserve "a fundamental human right."

Apple isn't acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. Lawyers in the case have proposed scheduling a Feb. 14 court hearing in Oakland to review the terms.

If the settlement is approved, tens of millions of consumers who owned iPhones and other Apple devices from Sept. 17, 2014, through the end of last year could file claims. Each consumer could receive up to $20 per Siri-equipped device covered by the settlement, although the payment could be reduced or increased, depending on the volume of claims. Only 3% to 5% of eligible consumers are expected to file claims, according to estimates in court documents.

The settlement represents a sliver of the $705 billion in profits that Apple has pocketed since September 2014. It's also a fraction of the roughly $1.5 billion that the lawyers representing consumers had estimated Apple could been required to pay if the company had been found of violating wiretapping and other privacy laws had the case gone to a trial.

The attorneys who filed the lawsuit may seek up to $29.6 million from the settlement fund to cover their fees and other expenses, according to court documents.

ⓒ Daily Bar News - All Rights Reserved.

The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Daily Bar News
as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or
a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case or circumstance.

Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo