Background: The underlying action concerns a coastal parcel in Netanya that the applicant’s late grandfather and his business partner, later Netanya’s mayor, had owned equally. In 1965, the grandfather’s heirs transferred their rights to the Netanya Municipality under a sale agreement. The parcel was initially designated for public use, redesignated for private commercial use in 1974,…
Held: Justice Gila Canfy-Steinitz denied leave to appeal without requesting a response. The Court characterized the witness-summons ruling as a quintessential procedural decision lying at the core of the trial court’s discretion and found no basis for appellate intervention.
Background: D.P. entered Department for Children and Families custody in June 2023 after police found father in mother’s bedroom despite no-contact conditions and observed drug paraphernalia within the two-year-old child’s reach. Mother admitted using methamphetamine. After the family court found D.P. to be a child in need of care or supervision, it adopted a reunification plan…
Held: The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. It upheld the finding that mother’s progress had stagnated, explaining that her sober residence, daily AA or NA meetings, and work with a sponsor and recovery coach were important supports but were not equivalent to the substance-use treatment recommended by her provider. The record supported the finding that she was not actively engaged in that…
Background: Lance Dickinson pleaded guilty to murdering his former partner, Cheri-Lee Bell, on 20 June 2025 and to five breaches of a protection order made for her benefit, one of which was a representative charge covering thousands of electronic contacts. Their relationship had ended in April 2025 after escalating family-harm incidents. Despite the protection order, bail…
Held: Jagose J held that life imprisonment for the murder was not manifestly unjust. The case did not possess the exceptional circumstances required to displace the statutory presumption of a life sentence. The Court identified at least nine aggravating features, including unlawful entry, use of a weapon, an attack to the neck, particular cruelty and brutality, offending while on bail, family…
Background: The State alleged that Alika K. Amasiu assaulted his infant son on November 27, 2014. Five days before the three-year limitations period expired, the State filed a felony information in the Circuit Court of the Second Circuit charging first-degree assault. That same day, an authorized district court judge found probable cause, set bail, and issued…
Held: The Supreme Court of Hawaiʻi affirmed, although on reasoning that differed from the ICA’s. It held that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction over the first information and its probable-cause determination. Although HRS § 571-14(a)(1) gives the Family Court exclusive jurisdiction to try offenses committed against children by their parents, that trial jurisdiction did not invalidate the filing and probable-cause proceedings…
Background: The part-heard corporate dispute concerned cross-claims among Green Estate Australia Pty Ltd, OMP Management Pty Ltd, Yuqing Hu, CXF Development Pty Ltd and CXH Development Pty Ltd. The remaining issues included the beneficial ownership of approximately $20.5 million transferred through Green Estate’s bank account, alleged breaches of directors’ duties and knowing receipt, and the ownership…
Held: Black J disqualified himself from hearing the balance of the proceedings. He rejected the contention that the individual matters relied upon established a reasonable apprehension that he would decide the substantive dispute otherwise than on its legal and factual merits. His comments about possible money laundering or false company records reflected concern about collateral consequences and witnesses’ exposure to self-incrimination,…
Background: Christopher Cunningham, a serving prisoner, was transferred from HMP Wakefield to HMP Berwyn on 27 June 2025. Before departure, he underwent two X-ray body scans because the first was inconclusive; he was scanned again upon arrival at Berwyn. The second Wakefield scan was negative, and Cunningham did not object to any of the scans at…
Held: The High Court dismissed every ground of challenge. It held that Wakefield and Berwyn lawfully identified cohorts for scanning through security-committee decisions based on intelligence or reasonable suspicion, rather than randomly or routinely. The committees could assess the intelligence, necessity, benefits, health detriment, and proportionality for a cohort, while officers administering a scan confirmed that the prisoner belonged to that…
Background: On August 26, 2026, the director of the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct filed a certified copy of a judgment entry showing that Ohio attorney Matthew N. Currie had been convicted of a felony. The filing was made under Gov.Bar R. V(18), which governs disciplinary action following an attorney’s felony conviction.
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio ordered Currie suspended from practicing law on an interim basis, effective August 27, 2026, under Gov.Bar R. V(18)(A)(4). It referred the matter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel for investigation and the commencement of disciplinary proceedings.
Background: Six Baltimore County defendants were found incompetent to stand trial and dangerous and remained at the Baltimore County Detention Center while awaiting placement in Department of Health facilities. The Department did not admit them within the 10-business-day deadline in Maryland Criminal Procedure § 3-106(c)(2)(i).
Held: The Supreme Court granted the Department's petitions, vacated the circuit court's judgments, and remanded for reconsideration in light of Maryland Department of Health v. Boulden.
Background: Ernest Culp entered a merchant agreement under which Silverline Services purchased a portion of his business’s future receivables at a discount. The contract required daily remittances intended to represent an agreed percentage of actual revenue. Culp later alleged that Silverline misrepresented the calculation, inflated the daily withdrawal, and engineered a default. He sought damages for…
Held: The Second Department left the complaint intact. Culp pleaded fraud and breach of the implied covenant with adequate specificity by alleging that Silverline promised percentage-based withdrawals, secretly inflated them, induced execution of the agreement, and deprived him of the contract’s expected benefit. At the pleading stage, those factual allegations were enough to resist Silverline’s dismissal motion.
Background: The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed maximum, consecutive sentences totaling 22 years for Andrew Crossley’s rape and child-exploitation convictions. The court concluded that the calculated nature of the offenses, their devastating effect on the 16-year-old victim, and Crossley’s closely related criminal history outweighed his arguments based on mental illness, childhood trauma, homelessness, and employment. More…
Held: Applying Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B), the court held that the aggregate sentence was not inappropriate in light of both the nature of the offenses and Crossley’s character. Rule 7(B) permits appellate revision after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, but its purpose is to “leaven the outliers,” not to substitute the appellate panel’s preferred sentence. The two inquiries are…
Background: A. Tebele & Sons owned multiple commercial properties in Myrtle Beach and worked with Crescent Coast Insurance to obtain roughly $22 million in property coverage. Its application represented that a North Kings Highway building was fully sprinklered, although the sprinkler installation had not yet been connected to the city's water supply. The resulting policy included…
Held: The Court of Appeals affirmed across the board. The policy was not ambiguous merely because the endorsement used no special symbol next to the insured location or left the word “maintained” undefined. Read as a whole, the documents identified properties represented as fully sprinklered, and requiring a sprinkler system to be maintained in complete working order could not reasonably cover…
Background: A jury convicted William Arthur Parrott of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a methamphetamine mixture. Three witnesses testified about Parrott’s drug-trafficking activities, including sales from his residence and trips to obtain methamphetamine from his source. Text messages and GPS-tracking evidence also connected Parrott to drug transactions…
Held: The Eighth Circuit affirmed the conviction. It held that the district court acted within its discretion in admitting the drug-investigator expert’s testimony without a separate Daubert hearing, evidence concerning Parrott’s co-conspirators, firearm evidence, authenticated text-message reports, and GPS-tracking results. The GPS data were machine-generated and therefore were not hearsay, and their admission did not amount to plain Confrontation Clause error.…