Free Republic

A federal judge yesterday ordered the Justice Department to give him documents concerning allegations of misconduct by the team that prosecuted former senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on corruption charges. The order by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan comes days after the Justice Department said it would ask Sullivan to throw out Stevens's conviction and indictment....During Stevens's trial, Sullivan repeatedly chastised prosecutors for their handling of witnesses and evidence. A jury convicted the senator in October of lying on financial disclosure forms to hide gifts and free home renovations. But since then, an FBI agent has filed a whistleblower complaint...

MIKE BAKER Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. - Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home - and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor. Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, particularly recalls the time neighbor Monty Johnson brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way off his property. The Edwards family has yet to meet Johnson in person. "I wouldn't be nice to him anyway," Edwards said in an interview. "I don't want my kids anywhere...

WINSTON-SALEM -- A Greensboro lawyer once nationally recognized for her pro bono work with immigrants was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in federal prison for breaking the law for immigrant clients. Minutes after hearing her fate from Judge James A. Beaty in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem, Manlin Chee, 53, plopped down in her chair, looked up at her lawyer and smiled. Shortly after, she walked over to the front row of the courtroom, where her 15-year-old daughter, Leia, sobbed. "It's OK," she told her daughter. "At least it's ended." Chee pleaded guilty on Nov. 23 to...

50 bench advertisements and three signs urge voters not to vote for him. A copy of the controversial $100,000 check paid to state Rep. Jaime Capelo by lawyer Rene Rodriguez is now available for viewing on billboards. The Good Government Political Action Committee, established by a local law firm in November, paid for a billboard near the Lipan Street exit of the Crosstown Expressway. The billboard attacks Capelo, who is running for re-election in the 34th District. The PAC also paid for billboards with the same message on Interstate 37 at Corn Products Road and Texas Highway 44 near the...

A visiting judge from Kerrville(Texas) will preside over a local district court case that names local lawyer Rene Rodriguez and involves state Rep. Jaime Capelo - whose financial records were subpoenaed - according to court records made public Tuesday. Judge Karl Prohl has presided over hearings in Nueces County before. In April 2000, he led a court of inquiry in a matter involving former Corpus Christi Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra and a few board members. After the court of inquiry, a local lawyer criticized Prohl. That lawyer was Rodriguez. Representing two of the trustees, Rodriguez criticized the judge's...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The lawyer who represented Al Gore in his Supreme Court challenge of Florida results in the 2000 presidential election has been accused of ethics violations in another case. A Florida Bar grievance committee found probable cause that David Boies violated rules of misconduct by giving money to a client and improperly supervising other lawyers. The committee's July 10 finding is similar to an indictment. The case will be heard by a judge appointed by the Florida Supreme Court. The allegations stem from his involvement in a legal battle between the owners of two Palm...

<p>For illegal aliens, lawyer Javier Lopera offered an enticing promise: permanent residency.</p> <p>But those promises were false, said the federal authorities who arrested Lopera on Thursday. In approximately 1,500 cases since July, they said, he lied to officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as well as his clients.</p> <p>Lopera, 36, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Miami on 11 counts of conspiring to make false representations in INS petitions. He faces up to 10 years in prison on each charge, along with a $250,000 fine.</p>