Background: A jury convicted Luis Cotto, Keith Cotto, and Isaiah Fraticelli of first-degree murder in the drive-by shooting of Gabriel Irizarry on a Springfield highway. Keith drove a Honda carrying the three defendants and a fourth man. Evidence showed the Honda followed Irizarry's pickup after an encounter downtown, maneuvered alongside it, and remained positioned while passengers…
Held: The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed all three defendants' convictions. It concluded that the evidence permitted a rational jury to find that each defendant knowingly participated in the murder and shared the required lethal intent. The coordinated pursuit, the positioning of the car, the use of three firearms to send twenty bullets toward the pickup, and the participants' conduct supported deliberate…
Background: A married couple, both over age 54, had a child in 2023 through an overseas surrogacy arrangement. The child was conceived using the husband’s sperm and a donated egg. After the Family Court declared the husband the child’s genetic father, the couple sought a judicial parentage order establishing the wife—who had no genetic connection to…
Held: The Supreme Court granted leave to appeal because the case presented an important general question, but unanimously dismissed the appeal and directed that the judicial parentage order issue. President Isaac Amit held that a social-work report in judicial-parentage proceedings ordinarily should focus on whether the child resulted from the intended parents’ genuine joint intention and planning and whether the conception…
Background: Rio Property Maintenance Limited operated an office cleaning, maintenance and management business. In July 2020, its director, Enilson Antonio Vieira Da Silva, applied for the maximum £50,000 government-backed Bounce Back Loan, stating that the company’s 2019 turnover was £202,321. Yet accounts he had approved less than three weeks earlier recorded annual turnover of £83,844 and…
Held: ICC Judge Barber found that Da Silva completed the loan application, understood that the company’s entitlement depended on its actual 2019 turnover, and ought to have known that the stated figure materially overstated that turnover. Although the court did not find dishonesty, it characterised his conduct as, at best, grossly negligent or incompetent to a very marked degree. The misrepresentation…
Background: Jason E. Wilson was charged with DUI and related offenses arising from incidents in January and September 2024. At the September DUI trial, an officer testified that Wilson drove through a stop sign and nearly collided with a marked police vehicle. Wilson was later found about fifty feet from his truck, smelled of alcohol, had…
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed. It held that the Superior Court properly terminated Wilson’s self-representation during trial after he repeatedly disregarded evidentiary and procedural rulings, made inappropriate comments before the jury, spoke over others, and disrupted the proceedings despite detailed warnings. Because the right of self-representation does not permit serious obstructionist misconduct or noncompliance with courtroom rules, requiring standby counsel…
Background: On April 28, 2019, the Court of El Eulma in Algeria granted the divorce of Mme [M] and M. [S]. Although she lived in France and was not compelled to proceed in Algeria, the wife herself had applied for the divorce under Article 54 of the Algerian Family Code. That provision permits a wife to…
Held: The Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal. It held that a foreign divorce granted under a law that denies one spouse equal access to divorce on grounds of sex may nevertheless be recognized in France when the disadvantaged spouse sought the divorce, was able to assert that spouse’s rights, and no other substantive or procedural violation of international public policy…
Background: A Philadelphia dependency proceeding produced a finding against the father of Z.P., a minor. The Superior Court affirmed in an unpublished memorandum, relying on Section 6381(d) of Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law. That provision permits proof that a child suffered abuse of a kind that ordinarily would not occur absent the acts or omissions of…
Held: The Supreme Court vacated the Superior Court’s order and reversed. Its citations identify two limits on Section 6381(d). First, under In the Interest of L.Z., a caregiver may rebut the presumption with evidence that the caregiver did not inflict the abuse—for example, by showing that the child was entrusted to another person whom the caregiver had no reason to fear,…
Background: Three transgender individuals obtained Oklahoma state-court orders directing that the sex designations on their birth certificates be changed to match their gender identities. The Oklahoma State Department of Health denied their applications under Governor Kevin Stitt’s Executive Order 2021-24, which directed the agency to stop making birth-certificate amendments not authorized by Oklahoma law.
Held: The Oklahoma Supreme Court answered that § 1-321, as amended by subsection (H), prohibits changing the sex designation on an Oklahoma birth certificate. The court reasoned that subsection (A) permits amendments only as authorized by the vital-statistics statutes or implementing regulations. Those provisions authorize specified changes involving names, paternity, surnames, and errors in nonmedical information, but do not authorize changing…
Background: In March 2024, incarcerated requester Lionel Harris used a contraband cellphone to email the Put-in-Bay Police Department a public-records request covering ten categories of records. The email, sent from an account bearing another person’s name, was diverted to the department’s spam folder and was not seen. Harris did not follow up.
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio denied the writ. The department submitted affidavits attesting that it had produced every responsive record, and Harris offered only speculation—not clear and convincing evidence—that additional records existed. Because the department had fulfilled the requests, Harris did not establish a clear legal right to further production or a corresponding duty to provide more records.
Background: PT Industri Nabati Lestari commenced an action in rem against the vessel then known as the “QIAN TAI 1,” alleging that a cargo of palm olein had been misdelivered in India without production of the original bills of lading. When the alleged misdelivery occurred on 5 September 2022, Star Dragon Shipping Ltd owned the vessel…
Held: The High Court held that the intervention and jurisdictional challenge were not barred by the earlier default judgment. Although Aquilo had not included a standalone prayer directed specifically at that judgment, it sought to set aside the originating claim and all subsequent proceedings and orders. If admiralty jurisdiction had not properly arisen, setting aside the default judgment was a necessary…
Background: Blue Dog Group Pty Ltd brought a representative proceeding alleging breaches of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) arising from insider trading in shares of Blue Sky Alternative Investments Ltd around 28 March 2018. The defendants included three brokers, two Oasis entities, and individuals allegedly connected with the publication of a report sharply critical of Blue…
Held: Williams J held that the requirements for ordering security under rules 670 and 671 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld) were satisfied. Objective circumstances provided a rational basis for believing that Blue Dog might be unable to pay adverse costs, including its failure to provide requested financial information, the complexity and likely expense of the representative proceeding, the…
Background: Copper City Gaming alleged that Eric Allen and former shareholder Russ Allen arranged a fraudulent storage-space lease in 2022. According to the complaint, Russ authorized four payments of $3,600, totaling $14,400, to Eric for space Copper City never used; the lease allegedly used an incorrect address and corporate name, and Eric either lacked sublease authority…
Held: The Montana Supreme Court reversed and remanded. The settlement materials did not conclusively establish that the prior proceeding actually or necessarily decided the factual issues underlying Copper City's claims against Eric, including his alleged representations, authority, performance, receipt and retention of the payments, and agreement with Russ.
Background: Missouri disciplinary authorities charged William Patrick Hogan with trust-account violations and misconduct in representing B.B. in a Texas personal-injury case. A prior 2021 admonition had addressed similar trust-account problems. During a later audit, Hogan failed to provide records needed for a three-way reconciliation, commingled earned fees with client funds, made improper trust-account withdrawals, and repeatedly…
Held: After de novo review, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that the preponderance of the evidence established Hogan's violations of multiple Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct. The court found he violated trust-account safekeeping, reconciliation, recordkeeping, fee-withdrawal, and disciplinary-cooperation rules, as well as rules concerning competence, diligence, communication, limited-scope representation, protection of client interests, dishonesty, and conduct prejudicial to the administration…