U.S. May Sue Arizona Over New Immigration Law

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Justice Department may sue Arizona over a new state law that authorizes police to question the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

"I'm very concerned about the wedge it could draw between communities that law enforcement is supposed to serve and those of us in law enforcement," Holder said.

And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the new state law could siphon away federal money and staff needed to hunt down dangerous immigrants.

The critical comments by the nation's top law enforcement official and the Cabinet secretary responsible for enforcing immigration laws came four days after Arizona's governor signed into law the measure designed to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backed off his pledge to fast-track an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws after fellow Democrats voiced skepticism and a key Republican supporter abandoned the effort.

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Judiciary Licenses Special Process Servers

The job is known as a "Special Process Server" because under Guam law, certain documents must be served by "a person specially appointed for that purpose."

Until very recently, only special process servers could serve a complaint. In 2007 changes were made to the Guam Rules of Civil Procedure that eliminated this requirement, and now any person over 18 who is not related to a party can serve the lawsuit on the person being sued. However, there are still a number of official court documents that have to be served by a special process server, mostly technical documents required by law to be served by a person with special training.

Until recently, a person could be appointed as a special process server on Guam by asking the court for the designation. However, most state courts require special training for licensees. Guam has followed this trend, and now requires that people who make their living by serving special court documents be trained and tested.

After developing, discussing and implementing the Process Server Regulations, the Judiciary will train its first class of special process servers in Spring 2010. The Judiciary also will issue new identification badges that a special process server must use in serving documents, so that the public is aware the person has been trained and licensed pursuant to Judiciary regulations.

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Accused Killer, Former Process Server, Attempts Suicide In Jail

LAS VEGAS -- The bizarre saga of Gregory Hover, the former process server accused of killing two people, took another turn Thursday morning when he missed a court appearance following a suicide attempt in jail.

That’s according to a Clark County Court bailiff, who could not confirm Hover’s condition or describe what took place while he was in custody.

Hover, 38, was moved to isolation earlier this month after allegedly stabbing a fellow inmate with a pair of scissors.

Despite repeated inquiries, authorities have not said why he was given access to scissors.
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Blagojevich Wants Obama to Testify at Trial

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has asked a federal judge to subpoena President Barack Obama to testify at his corruption trial this June.

In a motion filed Thursday, Mr. Blagojevich contends that "President Obama has direct knowledge to allegations made in the indictment."

Mr. Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to sell the Senate seat left vacant by Mr. Obama after he was elected president.

In the 11-page motion, Mr. Blagojevich's attorneys say that Mr. Obama has said no representatives of his had anything to do with alleged deals for the Senate seat. Those statements "contradict the testimony of an important government witness," according to the motion.

The alleged contradictory information had been redacted in Thursday's filing.

Mr. Obama is "the only one who can say if emissaries were sent on his behalf, who those emissaries were, and what, if anything, those emissaries were instructed to do on his behalf," the motion says.

Mr. Blagojevich contends that Mr. Obama may also have pertinent information about Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a government witness in the trial, who was found guilty in 2008 on charges of bribery fraud and money laundering but has not yet been sentenced.

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Senate Committee Subpoenas Fort Hood Documents

In a rare public dispute between a Democratic-led Congress and the White House, a Senate committee on Monday subpoenaed the Obama administration for secret documents and access to witnesses in last year's mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.

Congress has been largely supportive of President Barack Obama's policies and the White House prides itself on increased government transparency. Nonetheless, the chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have alleged that the administration is covering up critical details on the case, including whether the government had access to information that could have prevented the shooting.

"Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to avoid reaching the conclusion that the departments simply do not want to cooperate with our investigation," wrote Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, in a letter accompanying the subpoena.

The Defense and Justice departments say that release of the disputed data would compromise the prosecution of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the disgruntled Army doctor charged with killing 13 people.

"We'll obviously be reviewing it and determining the department's next steps," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said of the subpoena.

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Metro Police Adopt Electronic Subpoena System

After years of inaction, Louisville Metro Government has signed a $454,000 contract to adopt an electronic subpoena system to replace the county's cumbersome system of hand-delivering papers and help make sure officers show up for court.

“Everybody's going to benefit from this,” especially police, said Bruce McMichael of the Louisville Metro Criminal Justice Commission.

Metro Police Lt. Col. Vince Robison, responsible for overseeing court attendance, said the department is “very optimistic this will help us eliminate” the problem of officers missing court.

In recent years, an estimated 10 percent of the approximately 100,000 paper subpoenas issued annually to Louisville police never reached the officers, according to department officials. They and others cite the process as one reason why officers miss court.

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Beaten College Student John McKenna Will Sue Police, Lawyer Says

The University of Maryland student whose beating was caught on video plans to sue the police officers he has accused of assaulting him, his lawyer said today.

John McKenna, 21, is still recovering from the physical injuries he received last month when he got caught up in a celebration of his school basketball team's win over Duke. Newly released video shows three Prince George's County police officers in riot gear ramming the student and then beating him with batons.

Left unconscious in the street, McKenna suffered a concussion and defensive-type bruises on his arms. He needed eight staples in his skull to close his head wound, his lawyer, Chris Griffiths, told "Good Morning America."

"He's a young man ... and he's recovering from the physical injuries," he said, "but obviously there was quite a bit of emotional distress he suffered in the incident."

One officer has been suspended and authorities have promised a thorough investigation into the incident on a College Park, Md., street, which was documented in a police report that Griffiths called a "cover-up." But Griffiths said he and his client want to make sure the officers involved are held accountable in civil court.

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Fla. Man Sued For $15K Over Negative eBay Remark

Can posting your opinion on eBay cost you in real life?

So far Michael Steadman has spent $7,000 for his, and he isn't yet done defending himself in a $15,000 defamation lawsuit brought by the man who sold him a reportedly defective time clock.

Steadman bought the clock for $44 in 2008, and said it arrived in three pieces that didn't fit together or even seem to be the same model. He got a refund through PayPal's buyer protection plan and sent the merchandise back, but wanted other potential buyers to beware.

So on the profile of emiller1313, he wrote: "Bad seller; he has the ethics of a used car salesman."

Steadman thought that was the end of it until a process server arrived with a court summons.

It turned out that emiller1313 was a Miami Beach lawyer, and he wanted damages for ruining his 100 percent customer approval rating and "commercial reputation."

"The laws don't work for us. Because I don't have the money to fight them, I'm losing," Steadman said. "It's not right. I'm speechless."

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Celebrities Subpoenaed in Shaver Trial

In its second day of testimony, the trial of Billy Joe Shaver has attracted several big name celebrities to the courtroom.

Reportedly, actor Robert Duvall, best know for his performance in "The Godfather," along with Grammy Award winning country singer Willie Nelson, arrived at the McLennan County Courthouse Thursday morning.

Actor and San Saba native Tommy Lee Jones is rumored to appear Friday.

The first witness called by the defense was Shaver's wife, Wonda. She is expected to continue testifying Friday.

The owner of Pappa Joe Saloon, the scene of the alleged crime, testified about what she saw the night of the incident.

In March 2007, Shaver allegedly shot 53-year-old Billy Coker in the face, injuring his cheek, at Pappa Joe's Saloon in Lorena, about 15 miles south of Waco.

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Process server firm fined, ceases operations

A Brockport process server company has been shut down and ordered to pay $10,000 in fines, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday.

We Serve It For You Process Service Agency LLC has agreed to cease operations and cooperate with ongoing investigations, Cuomo’s office said in a statement.

The business and its owners must also pay fees, costs and penalties totaling $10,000, and employee John Coy must surrender his notary public commission, the statement said.

The firm is operated by Coy, Joanne Marie Coy, Theresa Buehler and Wesley Converse, the statement said.

The company repeatedly claimed in legal affidavits that its employees made proper service of legal documents to thousands of consumers when, in fact, it had not, the statement said.

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Human Rights Watch Fights Subpoenas in Genocide Case

Human Rights Watch and a former researcher are fighting subpoenas from a Kansas man accused of participating in genocide in Rwanda, arguing their research notes and informants' identities are protected by the First Amendment and reporters' newsgathering privileges.

The international human-rights organization filed a motion on April 5 seeking to quash subpoenas issued to it and Timothy Longman, the former director of its field office in Rwanda. Longman, now director of Boston University's African Studies Center, is the government's expert witness on Rwanda in the Kansas case.

Lazare Kobagaya, 83, is charged in federal court in Wichita with fraud and unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006. The government has said its prosecution of Kobagaya is believed to be the first in the U.S. involving proof of genocide. His trial is set for Oct. 12. He faces deportation if convicted.

An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed in ethnic violence in Rwanda between April and July 1994.

The Justice Department alleges in its 2009 indictment that Kobagaya lied during naturalization proceedings in Wichita, claiming he lived in Burundi from 1993 to 1995. It claims he was in Rwanda in 1994 and participated in the slaughter of hundreds of people.

The subpoena issued to Human Rights Watch seeks research done for a 1999 report, "Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda," including a chapter on Nyakizu, Rwanda, where some of Kobagaya's alleged crimes occurred. The subpoena sent to Longman also seeks any additional material relating to his expert testimony.

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Under Subpoena, Oklahoma Killer Lester Hobbs’ Kin Finally Reveal Past of Threats

In the abduction case of Aja Johnson, where every minute possibly meant the difference between life and death, the relatives of her abductor proved "uncooperative,” investigators said.

Five of Lester Hobbs’ relatives refused to take polygraph tests, said Richard Goss, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent in charge. Those relatives were forced by subpoena to appear in Comanche County court on March 26 for questioning behind closed doors.

District Attorney Fred Smith and two of his assistants conducted the questioning. Among those questioned was Mildred Anderson of Geronimo — Hobbs’ sister and matriarch of the family, Smith said.

"There was some unusual conduct that raised some red flags for the OSBI, so they requested the polygraphs to clear up a few matters,” Smith said. "They initially agreed to take the polygraph tests, but then failed to show up. Then they refused ... at that point OSBI began to see them as uncooperative.

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Google's Stand for Digital Due Process

In a recent blog post from the Official Google Blog, they outlined their opinion on Digital Due Process. In their post, they explain how the current privacy laws are outdated (they were written in 1986) and that they feel they should be updated to keep up with our new technology. They have created their own collation website, and have stated their intent to meet with, "lawmakers, law enforcement officials and others to help build support for modernizing the law." Below is their short and fun, but extremely informative video.


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