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Tag: Judicial appointments and nominations

  • Australia to prevent repeat of former leader’s power grab

    Australia to prevent repeat of former leader’s power grab

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    CANBERRA, Australia — An inquiry into a former Australian prime minister secretly appointing himself to multiple ministries recommended Friday that all such appointments be made public in future to preserve trust in government.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would recommend his Cabinet accept all of the retired judge ’s recommendations at a meeting next week.

    Albanese ordered the inquiry in August after revelations that his predecessor Prime Minister Scott Morrison had taken the unprecedented steps of appointing himself to five ministerial roles between March 2020 and May 2021, usually without the knowledge of the existing minister.

    The extraordinary power grab came to light after Morrison’s conservative coalition was voted out of office in May after nine years in power.

    Albanese blamed a culture of secrecy within the former government for its leader’s extraordinary accumulation of personal power.

    “We’re shining sunlight on a shadow government that preferred to operate in darkness, a government that operated in a cult of secrecy and a culture of coverup which arrogantly dismissed scrutiny from the Parliament and the public as a mere inconvenience,” Albanese told reporters.

    Retired High Court Justice Virginia Bell in her inquiry recommended laws be created to require public notices of ministerial appointments be published as well as the divisions of ministerial responsibilities.

    Morrison cooperated with the inquiry through is lawyers but did not personally give evidence.

    Opposition leader Peter Dutton has previously said his and Morrison’s Liberal Party would support legislation that would prevent a repeat of such a secret accumulation of power.

    Morrison, who is now an opposition lawmaker, maintains that he gave himself the portfolios of health, finance, treasury, resources and home affairs as an emergency measure made necessary by the coronavirus pandemic.

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  • Judge recuses himself from case of slain Indiana girls

    Judge recuses himself from case of slain Indiana girls

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    DELPHI, Ind. — A northern Indiana judge has recused himself from the case of two slain teenage girls, an Indiana Supreme Court spokeswoman said Thursday.

    The Indiana Supreme Court is in the process of appointing Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull as special judge in the case after Carroll Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Diener’s recusal, spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan said.

    “A judge does not have to explain a reason for recusal,” Dolan said in an email to the news media.

    Diener’s recusal came on the same day he approved a request from Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby to transfer Richard Allen, the suspect in the 2017 killings, to the Indiana Department of Corrections for safety reasons.

    In the order to transfer Allen, Diener wrote, “This FINDING is not predicated on any acts or alleged acts of the Defendant, since arrest, rather a toxic and harmful insistence on ‘public information’ about Defendant and this case.”

    Diener said the court found Allen to be in “imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, or represents a substantial threat to the safety of others.”

    He also addressed what he termed the “public bloodlust for information” in the case, calling it dangerous and saying all public servants working on the case do not feel safe or protected.

    The order went on to state the public’s desire to learn about the case and access court records was “inherently disruptive” to court operations

    Allen is being held on $20 million bond, online court records show.

    Allen, 50, was arrested Friday on two murder counts in the killings of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, in a case that has haunted Delphi.

    The deaths were ruled a double homicide, but police have never disclosed how they died or described what evidence they gathered. A relative had dropped them off at a hiking trail near the Monon High Bridge just outside their hometown of Delphi, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis. Their bodies were found the next day, Feb. 14, 2017, in a rugged, heavily wooded area near the trail.

    Diener entered a not-guilty plea for Allen at his initial hearing on Friday.

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  • Judge says he’ll appoint monitor for Donald Trump’s company

    Judge says he’ll appoint monitor for Donald Trump’s company

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    NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge said Thursday he will appoint an independent monitor for former President Donald Trump’s real estate empire, restricting his company’s ability to freely make deals, sell assets and change its corporate structure.

    Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the outside watchdog for the Trump Organization as he presides over a lawsuit in which New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges Trump and the company routinely misled banks and others about the value of prized assets, including golf courses and hotels bearing his name.

    James’ office says the Trump Organization is continuing to engage in fraud and has taken steps to dodge potential penalties from the lawsuit, such as incorporating a new entity in Delaware named Trump Organization LLC — almost identical to the original company’s name — in September, just before the lawsuit was filed.

    Engoron, in an 11-page order, barred the Trump Organization from selling or transferring any noncash assets without giving the court and James’ office 14 days notice. The to-be-named monitor will be charged with ensuring the company’s compliance and will immediately report any violations to the court and lawyers for both sides.

    The Trump Organization must also grant the monitor access to its financial statements, asset valuations and other disclosures, must provide a full and accurate description of the company’s structure and must give the monitor at least 30 days notice of any potential restructuring, refinancing or asset sales, Engoron said.

    The company must also pay for the monitor, he said.

    Engoron’s decision to appoint a monitor is just the latest ruling he’s made against Trump or his interest. While presiding over disputes over subpoenas issued in James’ investigation, the judge, a Democrat, held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 after he was slow to turn over documents, and he forced him to sit for a deposition. In that testimony, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.

    James, a Democrat, is seeking $250 million and a permanent ban on Trump, a Republican, doing business in the state. In the interim, she wants an independent monitor to review and sign off on some of the company’s core business decisions, including any asset sales or transfers and potential corporate restructuring.

    “Our goal in doing this is not to impact the day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization,” said James’ senior enforcement counsel, Kevin Wallace. He said the desired oversight would be “limited” and wouldn’t involve intricacies, such as how many rounds of golf or hotel rooms they were booking in a given year.

    “The Trump Organization has a persistent record of not complying with existing court orders,” Wallace said. “It should not be incumbent on the court or the attorney general to spend the next year looking over their shoulder, making sure assets aren’t sold or the company restructured.”

    Trump sued James in Florida on Wednesday, seeking to block her from having any oversight over the family trust that controls his company. Trump’s 35-page complaint rehashed some claims from his previously dismissed lawsuit against James in federal court in New York, including that her investigation of him is a “political witch hunt.”

    Wallace said at Thursday’s hearing that James’ office is seeking to stop “fraudulent activities that are ongoing at the Trump Organization” and wants safeguards in place so that the company can’t just sell off assets, such as Trump Tower and an office building at 40 Wall Street, that could eventually be used to pay a potential lawsuit judgment.

    Trump Organization lawyer Christopher Kise responded that the company has “no intention” to divest those properties, which together he says conservatively have a value of at least $250 million. The “Trump entities are not going anywhere,” he added.

    Kise argued that James’ lawsuit was much ado about common, good-faith disagreements in the real estate industry. If banks that loaned Trump money felt he or the company had acted improperly, they would have spoken up, Kise said.

    “There’s no problem. There’s no case here,” Kise said. “It’s mind-numbing that we’re going to have a receiver insert himself or herself into these complex transactions instead of the owner of this real estate.”

    Engoron took issue with at least one aspect of Kise’s reasoning, asking him if there was really a “good-faith disagreement” when Trump claimed his Trump Tower penthouse was three times its actual size, and $200 million more valuable.

    As for the new Trump entity that drew concern from James’ office, Kise said the company — listed in a New York corporate filing as Trump Organization II — had nothing to do with dodging potential penalties from James’ lawsuit, but rather “consolidation of payroll issues that have arisen in other contexts.”

    Kise didn’t offer additional details. The Trump Organization’s payroll practices are among the issues being raised at the company’s Manhattan criminal fraud trial, which was halted Tuesday and is expected to resume Monday after a witness tested positive for COVID-19.

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    Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak

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  • Inmate who severed penis asks court to end restraints

    Inmate who severed penis asks court to end restraints

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    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An attorney for a death row inmate in Tennessee who cut off his penis shortly after asking to be placed on suicide watch filed a complaint against prison officials Friday.

    Kelley Henry filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in Nashville’s Davidson County Chancery Court, asking the judge to declare that the prison’s treatment of Henry Hodges violates his constitutional rights.

    Hodges returned to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution from the hospital on Oct. 21. Since then, he has been held naked in 4-point and 6-point restraints on a thin mattress over a concrete slab, according to the complaint.

    “Mr. Hodges treatment by Defendants places him at risk of permanent nerve damage, paralysis, pain, suffering, bed sores, sepsis, malnutrition, and death,” Henry states.

    According to the complaint, Hodges periodically suffers from psychotic episodes. One of those began around Oct. 3, when Hodges started smearing feces on the walls of his cell. Rather than provide him with mental health treatment, prison officers began withholding food from Hodges, according to the complaint.

    On Oct. 7, Hodges broke a window out in his cell and used a razor to slit his left wrist. In the infirmary, he told the treatment provider he needed to go on suicide watch. However, he was returned to the cell with the broken window. Less than an hour later, he severed his penis from his body with a razor blade, according to the complaint.

    Hodges was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where surgeons reattached his penis. Despite holding Hodges’ medical power of attorney, Henry was not allowed to see him during the two weeks he was there.

    When he returned to the prison, he was placed naked in restraints in a cell with “no television, radio, or any other means of mental stimulation” that is lit up day and night. He was left to lie in his own defecation and has stopped eating, according to the complaint.

    Henry is asking the court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to release him from his restraints, provide him with clothing, and appoint an independent monitor of his mental and physical health treatment.

    Hodges was sentenced to death in 1992 by a Nashville jury that found him guilty of murdering telephone repairman Ronald Bassett in May 1990. He also was sentenced to 40 years in prison for robbing Bassett.

    He was convicted of a separate murder in Fulton County, Georgia, for the killing of a North Carolina chemical engineer in an Atlanta hotel, shortly after Bassett’s killing.

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  • Nobel season is here: 5 things to know about the prizes

    Nobel season is here: 5 things to know about the prizes

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    COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The beginning of October means Nobel Prize season. Six days, six prizes, new faces from around the globe added to the world’s most elite roster of scientists, writers, economists and human rights leaders.

    This year’s Nobel season kicks off Monday with the medicine award, followed by daily announcements: physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the economics award on Oct. 10.

    Here are five other things to know about the coveted prizes:

    WHO CREATED THE NOBEL PRIZES?

    The prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. The first awards were handed out in 1901, five years after Nobel’s death.

    Each prize is worth 10 million kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out with a diploma and gold medal on Dec. 10 — the date of Nobel’s death in 1896.

    The economics award — officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel — wasn’t created by Nobel, but by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.

    Between 1901 and 2021, the Nobel Prizes and the prize in economic sciences have been awarded 609 times.

    WHO KNOWS WHO WILL WIN AND WHY?

    The Nobel statutes prohibit the judges from discussing their deliberations for 50 years. So it’s probably going to be a while before we know for sure how judges made their picks for 2022 and who was on their short lists.

    The judges try hard to avoid dropping hints about the winners before the announcements, but sometimes word gets out. Bookies in Europe sometimes offer odds on possible peace prize and literature Nobel winners.

    WHO CAN NOMINATE A CANDIDATE?

    Thousands of people around the world are eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Prizes.

    They include university professors, lawmakers, previous Nobel laureates and the committee members themselves.

    Although the nominations are kept secret for 50 years, those who submit them sometimes announce their suggestions publicly, particularly for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    WHAT ABOUT THE NORWEGIAN CONNECTION?

    The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Norway while the other awards are handed out in Sweden. That’s how Alfred Nobel wanted it.

    His exact reasons are unclear but during his lifetime Sweden and Norway were joined in a union, which was dissolved in 1905. Sometimes relations have been tense between the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, which manages the prize money, and the fiercely independent peace prize committee in Oslo.

    WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN A NOBEL?

    Patience, for one.

    Scientists often have to wait decades to have their work recognized by the Nobel judges, who want to make sure that any breakthrough withstands the test of time.

    That’s a departure from Nobel’s will, which states that the awards should endow “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.” The peace prize committee is the only one that regularly rewards achievements made in the previous year.

    According to Nobel’s wishes, that prize should go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

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    Follow all AP stories about the Nobel Peace Prize at https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

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