Latest news with #JusticeSystem
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Hunlock Twp. man, 70, sentenced for online child solicitation
Jun. 27—WILKES-BARRE — An apology and a pledge to never do it again were not enough to keep a Hunlock Township man from being sentenced to state prison Friday for soliciting sex from a child. Martin Donald Sorber, 70, was sentenced by Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas to 18 months to four years in state prison on charges of criminal attempt to commit statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor and resisting arrest. Sorber was also sentenced to four years probation and required to lifetime registration of his address under the state's Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act. Sorber pleaded guilty to the charges on April 1. Sorber was arrested Sept. 20, 2024, in a joint investigation by Kingston Township police and Wyoming Area Regional Police in an online solicitation sting, according to court records. Court records say Sorber replied to an online post by a law enforcement officer on Sept. 9, 2024. During online conversations, Sorber expressed interest in having sexual relations with the girl, who was an undercover law enforcement officer, court records say. When Sorber arrived at a location believing he was to meet the girl, court records say, he punched an officer in the face when arrested. Sorber was in possession of condoms and lubrication when arrested, court records say. Before being sentenced, Sorber said, "I've never done anything like this before and I won't ever do it again...I'm sorry." Lupas noted Sorber had no criminal record and received a number of letters in Sorber's favor, but said the offense was serious enough to warrant a state prison sentence.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump hails 'monumental victory' after Supreme Court curbs nationwide injunctions that have slowed his agenda.
President Donald Trump hails a "monumental victory" after Supreme Court curbs nationwide injunctions that have slowed his agenda. The outcome was a victory for the Republican president, who has complained about judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.
CTV News
a day ago
- CTV News
Samurai sword murderer gets life in prison for a rampage that killed a U.K. schoolboy last year
Warning: This story contains graphic details LONDON — A man armed with a samurai sword who murdered a U.K. boy on his way to school during a rampage that seriously injured five other people was sentenced Friday to life in prison. Marcus Arduini Monzo was condemned as 'wicked' by Daniel Anjorin's father, who described the agony of finding his 14-year-old son crumpled in a pool of blood outside their London home shortly after he'd left for school on April 30, 2024. 'It has been the worst nightmare experience of our lives,' Dr. Ebenezer Anjorin said during the sentencing in the Central Criminal Court. 'To have to go through the pain of losing a child in such a cruel and savage way. No family should have to go through this.' Monzo, 37, was convicted Wednesday of Anjorin's murder, along with three counts of attempted murder and one count each of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, aggravated burglary and possessing a bladed article. Justice Joel Bennathan set the scene of the crime on the streets of east London, where he said people had just set out for work and children were headed to school, when Monzo plowed his van into a pedestrian and unleashed a 20-minute frenzied attack that came to an end only after police used a stun gun to immobilize him. 'That peaceful, busy scene was devastated as members of the public were attacked, police officers were gravely injured, a couple were terrified in their own home, and a clever, talented, much-loved young boy was killed by a savage blow with a sword,' Bennathan said. 'You, Marcos Arduini Monzo, did all of that.' Prosecutors said that drug use triggered the psychotic episode that turned violent when Monzo killed his cat, Wizard, after voices in his head told him the pet was sapping his energy and he needed to kill and eat it. Before he could do that, though, he said he was overcome by feeling that Armageddon was imminent and he left his home in his van for his parent's house. On the way, he rammed his car into security guard Donato Iwule, who he attacked with the sword and said he was going to kill him. He slashed the man's neck, but Iwule was able to get away. Monzo then ambushed Anjorin, who was wearing headphones, and didn't hear a neighbour warning him of the swordsman. 'We were shouting and waving towards Daniel as he came out,' Aiste Dabasinskaite said after the attack. 'It just happened right before our eyes, it was horrible.' Monzo nearly beheaded the teen with the 2-foot (60-centimetre) blade and stabbed him as he lay on the ground. When police officers arrived and tried to help the boy, Monzo sprang from bushes nearby and bolted. Constable Yasmin Mechem-Whitfield gave chase and suffered what police said were 'brutal and life-changing' injuries including a fractured skull and severe nerve damage when he lunged at her. Monzo then broke into a nearby home, where he awoke a couple who had been sleeping with their 4-year-old daughter. He shouted about believing in God and attacked the girl's father, wounding his neck and arm. In his final act of violence, he struck police Inspector Moloy Campbell once with the sword before he was subdued with a stun gun and arrested. Jurors determined Monzo was responsible for his actions after prosecutors argued that the attack was caused by his cannabis use, rather than an underlying mental health condition. Monzo, who has dual Spanish and Brazilian citizenship, said that an injury from mixed martial arts had led him on a spiritual quest and he consumed ayahuasca, a hallucinogen, and frequently smoked marijuana. Prosecutors said Monzo had an interest in violence, far-right extremism and conspiracy theories. He had shared vaccine misinformation and liked social media posts on X praising Adolf Hitler. Monzo told jurors he believed that the Earth was flat and that the 9/11 attack was 'probably' a conspiracy. He also spoke about his practice of drinking his own urine. Brian Melley, The Associated Press
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Kristian White did not give Clare Nowland ‘real chance to avoid being Tasered', prosecutors argue
An ex-police officer who 'rushed' to deploy his Taser against a 95-year-old woman during an encounter at a nursing home in Cooma should be sentenced to jail time after a 'manifestly inadequate' non-custodial sentence was imposed on him earlier this year, a court has heard. Kristian James Samuel White, while a New South Wales police constable, fired his Taser at Clare Nowland two minutes and 40 seconds after being called to the Yallambee Lodge nursing home. She died in hospital a week after the incident in the early hours of 17 May 2023. White, 35, was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury last year and handed a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered to complete community service in March. At the NSW court of criminal appeal in Sydney on Friday, crown prosecutors appealed against the sentence, with the director of public prosecutions, Sally Dowling SC, arguing that supreme court justice Ian Harrison made a number of errors when he decided not to send White to prison. 'The truly senseless, impatient, violent conduct of the respondent that resulted in the death of this very vulnerable victim requires a sentence that gives weight to the principle of denunciation,' she said. Dowling argued that the short period from White arriving at the scene to deploying his Taser, Nowland's obvious vulnerability and mobility issues and non-responsiveness to requests 'and of course, the respondent's comment of 'Nah, bugger it', made immediately before he tasered Mrs Nowland is, we say, clearly, evidence of his impatience with her'. 'This evidence goes to the objective seriousness of the offending,' she said. 'It illustrates how extremely vulnerable Mrs Nowland was, and it also illustrates the respondent did not give her any real chance to avoid being Tasered. 'There were many other options available to him.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Harrison had concluded that jailing White would be disproportionate to the seriousness of the offending, arguing that while the police officer had made a 'terrible mistake', his crime was less serious than other manslaughter offences. Dowling pointed to sentencing statistics in NSW, which showed that since sentencing reforms in 2018 allowed a community corrections order to be given as a penalty for manslaughter, only two sentences have involved a non-custodial sentence. 'In the crown submission, this is not such an exceptional case, and anything other than a custodial sentence was not capable of meeting the multiple purposes of sentencing,' Dowling said. The multiple purposes, she said, were adequate punishment for the offence, accountability and denunciation, and recognition of harm done to the community. In his judgment, Harrison decided the need to deter other police officers from committing similar offences played 'only a minor role' in his sentencing decision. But Dowling argued the issue of deterrence should have been more strongly considered in sentencing. White's barrister, Troy Edwards SC, said the issue of general deterrence should not be a principal concern in this case. 'Does general deterrence really follow in those circumstances? A police officer in the position of the accused, placed in a position of confrontation, who assesses a situation ultimately erroneously … will they be deterred by a stern sentence being imposed on Mr White? In my submission that simply can't work,' he said. Edwards told the court that White had already completed a 'significant proportion' of the community service hours he had been ordered to undertake as per the original sentence and that, significantly, he had been so affected by the trial and publicity that he had been 'an involuntary patient in a psychiatric institution as a consequence'. White had also experienced panic attacks within the last two days, while shopping at Aldi, his lawyer said. 'His worries and PTSD anxiety has worsened since the indexed offence because of fears of being stared at and spoken about,' he said. Edwards said that when considering the relevant seriousness of White's offending, his role as a police officer and duty to resolve the situation with Nowland needed to be considered. 'He was thrust into a confrontational situation that he was duty-bound to resolve. That is, he hadn't chosen to be there,' he said. 'There's no planning for him to commit this offence. It occurred within a short space of time in circumstances where he had a sworn duty to resolve the situation.' The barrister argued that the crown submissions that the judge had not adequately considered Nowland's extreme vulnerability due to her age and infirmity in the sentence was 'just not correct'. 'The age and vulnerability of the victim were undoubtedly part of the reason for the determination of guilt that is criminal liability in the first place,' he said. 'The jury … determined that the level of force was unreasonable, and they did so largely on the basis of the age and infirmity of the deceased.' The justices have adjourned to consider their decision.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
How Much Will the Supreme Court Let Trump Get Away With? We Got an Ominous Sign This Week.
Donald Trump won the presidency in part on promises to deport immigrants who have criminal records and lack permanent legal status. But his earliest executive orders—trying to undo birthright citizenship, suspending critical refugee programs—made clear he wants to attack immigrants with permanent legal status too. In our series Who Gets to Be American This Week?, we'll track the Trump administration's attempts to exclude an ever-growing number of people from the American experiment. For the past six months, President Donald Trump and his administration have contorted, stress-tested, and outright violated law to achieve his delusional 1 million deportations goal. The judicial system has been a critical check, forcing the federal government to follow the law—and at times it has worked as intended. But the Supreme Court has been throwing wrenches in our legal machinery that often seem to defy logic. In an order released this week, the court's conservative justices signaled they are unwilling to stand up to the Trump administration and would rather allow the White House to simply defy our justice system as it pleases. Meanwhile, one victim of the Trump administration's lawlessness, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was finally brought back to the U.S. after being mistakenly deported four months ago. But thanks to a newly unveiled criminal indictment and a pending immigration detainer, it's highly unlikely that he will be returning home to his wife and children anytime soon. Here's the immigration news we're keeping an eye on this week: Less than three months after the Supreme Court shot down an injunction preventing deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, it released another historic shadow docket decision. The majority of the justices chose to lift a lower court judge's injunction that had, up until Monday, prevented the federal government from removing immigrants from the U.S. to third countries, instead of their home country of origin, without at least giving them advance notice and allowing them to object on the grounds that they face torture there. 'The court's order is certainly apt to have immediate and devastating consequences for all those in the crosshairs of the administration's chaotic and increasingly random deportation campaign,' Deborah Pearlstein, director of Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Policy and a professor of law and public affairs, told me. 'Moreover, it sends a really frightening signal about whether the court is going to stand up to what are increasingly blatant instances of administration defiance of court orders.' The Supreme Court's intervention comes after the Trump administration repeatedly violated U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's orders by attempting to send migrants to South Sudan, Libya, and El Salvador. The targets of this scheme argue that they will be tortured and killed if removed to these countries, making their expulsions unlawful under the Convention Against Torture and various federal laws. Murphy ruled that, at a minimum, the government must tell migrants where they are being sent, and give them an opportunity to object, with the assistance of counsel, on the grounds that they'll be tortured there. Roughly two weeks after Murphy issued his injunction mandating this due process, the Trump administration defied it. And yet, on Monday, SCOTUS rewarded the government by sweeping away the injunction and allowing these potentially lethal removals to resume. The high court's decision shocks the conscience, as it effectively allows the federal government to get away scot-free with defying a lower court judge's order, establishing an extraordinarily dangerous precedent. It also subjects thousands of migrants to potential torture and death overseas in clear violation of federal law. And the justices offered zero explanation, since they issued their order on the shadow docket. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote a scathing dissent. 'Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable,' Sotomayor wrote, 'than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled.' The Supreme Court's decision is especially alarming in light of a new whistleblower complaint, Pearlstein noted. In the complaint, a Justice Department lawyer accused Emil Bove III, Trump's former personal attorney who has been named principal associate deputy attorney general, of telling subordinates he was willing to ignore court orders to fulfill Trump's mass deportation agenda. (Trump has nominated Bove to a federal appeals court; at his Senate hearing on Thursday, Republicans dismissed the complaint as partisan retribution.) 'I feel less confident in the court's willingness to stand up for an independent judiciary than at any point since Trump's inauguration,' Pearlstein said. After being mistakenly deported to El Salvador, denied due process, and placed in the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center for roughly three months, 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia was finally brought back to the U.S. this month. Now he faces a dubious federal indictment and is in federal custody. And despite U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes declaring he's eligible for pretrial release, it's unlikely he'll be going back to his family in Maryland anytime soon. On June 13, Abrego Garcia saw his wife and mother for the first time since before his March deportation, in a Tennessee courtroom where his lawyers argued against the Department of Justice's allegations that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang and smuggled migrants across the country. During a hearing over whether he should be held in pretrial detention, Abrego Garcia's defense attorney insisted he doesn't pose a serious flight risk, arguing that the government provided 'zero' facts to prove that his client has a history of evading arrest or engaging in willful international travel recently, or has strong relations in countries that cause him to seek refuge there or any prior felony convictions. Over the weekend, Judge Holmes ultimately agreed. She noted that the government's evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 'consists of general statements, all double hearsay, from two cooperating witnesses,' both of whom have serious criminal histories and hope to avoid deportation or prison time if they cooperate with prosecutors. The very same day that Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia's release, government lawyers filed a motion to stay her decision. Homeland Security has an active immigration detainer against Abrego Garcia, which the Department of Justice says means 'he will remain in custody pending deportation and Judge Holmes' release order would not immediately release him to the community under any circumstance.' Abrego Garcia says he was fleeing death threats and extortion by a local gang when he first entered the U.S. in 2012 at 16 years old. In 2019, he was arrested for loitering but had no previous criminal record, and a judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he allegedly faced persecution. Despite that, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March—a move that officials admitted was an error—on flights that took off in defiance of a judge's restraining order. And despite the Supreme Court ruling in April that the government must 'facilitate' the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. so he could receive due process, he was not flown back until June. In recent weeks, masked federal agents have raided car washes and other businesses in Southern California, even stationing themselves outside Dodger Stadium. (The team denied Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entry to the stadium itself.) In one incident, according to the Los Angeles Times, a man stopped his unmarked car in the middle of an intersection, took out his pistol, and aimed it at a group of pedestrians. He did not hurt anyone, eventually getting back into the car and driving off with red and blue emergency lights flashing. After reviewing surveillance footage, Pasadena police Chief Gene Harris told the newspaper his department concluded the man was in fact an ICE agent. 'They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a press conference. 'Who are these people? And frankly, the vests that they have on look like they ordered them from Amazon. Are they bounty hunters? Are they vigilantes? If they're federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?' Similar scenes have been playing out in other parts of the country in recent months. Back in March, Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested by federal agents dressed in plainclothes and face masks and forced into an unmarked van. In Chicago earlier this month, masked ICE agents raided a building where an immigrant supervision program operates. At least 10 people were taken away in vans, with no clear understanding of why they were detained. 'We don't know who is arresting our brothers and sisters, because they are hiding behind masks,' Michael Rodriguez, a city alderman, told CBS News. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who himself was arrested last week, witnessed immigrants getting arrested at a Manhattan immigration court 'by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' he told CBS News. California state Sen. Scott Wiener compared federal agents' tactics to 'Nazi-level thuggery,' and has introduced legislation that would ban local, state, and federal law enforcement from covering their faces when interacting with the public—with some exceptions. Violations would amount to a misdemeanor charge. ICE acting director Todd Lyons defended the agency's use of masks, arguing it protects agents from people who 'don't like what immigration enforcement is.' He also blamed sanctuary jurisdictions, where local authorities do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, suggesting masks would not be necessary if they 'would change their policy.'
