Articles

Supreme Court remands sentence modification cases after new statute takes effect

The Indiana Supreme Court has remanded two cases that it previously granted transfer to back to the Indiana Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of a new statute addressing permissible sentence modifications. The cases of State v. Stafford and Rodriguez v. State were sent back to the lower appellate court on Thursday after the 2018 version of Senate Enrolled Act 64 took effect on July 1.

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Retention website created ahead of Slaughter, Altice November retention vote

Indiana’s state courts have established a website with information about two Indiana appellate judges facing retention on the November ballot. Voters will vote yes or no on retaining Indiana Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey G. Slaughter and Indianapolis Court of Appeals Second District Judge Robert R. Altice, Jr. in the November 2018 general election.

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Kavanaugh to address his past work involving Clinton, Bush

Before his Senate confirmation hearing, President Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court will need to provide information about his past experience investigating President Bill Clinton and working for President George W. Bush. Requests for that information are included in questionnaires sent to Brett Kavanaugh by the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, who will lead the confirmation hearing.

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AG Hill contests special prosecutor role in groping investigation

Lawyers for Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill have filed court papers challenging the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate whether he drunkenly groped a lawmaker and three legislative staffers. A document filed in Marion Superior Court also challenges the authority of the state’s Inspector General to build a case against him.

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Senate Democrats vow to block Trump SCOTUS pick Kavanaugh

Democratic senators from Connecticut and Michigan on Friday announced opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, saying Brett Kavanaugh’s judicial record clearly shows that he would limit access to health care and curtail environmental protections.

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12 Russians accused of hacking in 2016 U.S. election

The Justice Department on Friday indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges they hacked into Democratic email accounts during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and released stolen information in the months before Americans headed to the polls.

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Northern District flags at half-staff for late Judge Lozano

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana announced Friday that federal courthouses in Fort Wayne, Hammond, Lafayette and South Bend would lower flags to half-staff through Monday in honor of the late Senior Judge Rudy Lozano, who died Wednesday at 76 years old.

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Federal Judge Rudy Lozano, ‘an institution,’ dies at 76

Rudy Lozano served on the federal bench for 30 years, making landmark rulings in a Hammond courtroom that his peers said was known for its collegiality. Before that, Lozano was a leading practitioner who helped unify the legal community in northwest Indiana.

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Consent decree gives Marion County more early voting sites

The Marion County Election Board has agreed to open five additional satellite locations for early in-person voting starting with the 2018 general election, settling a lawsuit brought in 2017 by Common Cause Indiana and the NAACP. Senior judge Sarah Evans Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana signed on Tuesday a consent decree offered by the plaintiffs and defendants.

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Nursing home fraud scheme’s ‘CFO’ gets 5 years in prison; lesser player gets 4 months

A federal judge on Monday sentenced Steven Ganote, a key player in the massive American Senior Communities overbilling and and kickback scheme, to five years in prison and ordered him to pay $7 million in restitution. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt also doled out punishment to Joshua Burkhart, sentencing him to four months in prison and ordering him to pay $420,000 in restitution for his role in the scheme.

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Supreme Court enjoys relatively high public confidence

The next Supreme Court justice will join the bench at a time when the public has more confidence in the high court than in Congress or the presidency. A Gallup survey in June found 37 percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the court, while another 42 percent have “some” confidence. Only 18 percent have little or no confidence in the court.

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