CURRENT News

SANTA CLARA Bar Assoc. Denounces Recall Effort of Judge Persky: Rule of Law Will Suffer

, , /

SANTA CLARA Bar Assoc. Denounces Recall Effort of Judge Persky: Rule of Law Will Suffer

A California appellate court has approved a ballot effort to go forward against Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, but now the local legal community is speaking out against the organized campaign against him. SCCBA heard presentations by both the recall and anti-recall organizers, and it voted to side with the latter stating, ‘Judges have a duty to apply the law to the facts and evidence before them, regardless of public opinion or political pressure. … If judges fear direct, personal repercussions as a result of their decisions in individual cases, the rule of law will suffer. Our judicial system and the freedoms it guarantees will be critically undermined if judges must test popular opinion before ruling.’

thecollegefix.com

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
BELIEVE The Wrongly Accused. Expelled John Doe is Railroaded at JWU. Now He’s Suing

, , , , /

BELIEVE The Wrongly Accused. Expelled John Doe is Railroaded at JWU. Now He’s Suing

 John Doe says the university refused to provide him with a copy of the complaint against him, failed to prepare him adequately for the hearing and conducted a biased investigation. Doe says he and ‘Mary Smith’ both consented to sex, and claims that Mary was pressured into reporting their consent sex as assault by her boyfriend.  Mary’s boyfriend then acted as her advisor duing the sex assault hearing.  Doe’s suit further alleges that Johnson and Wales University conducted a “fundamentally flawed” investigation and denied him “the most basic elements of fairness promised to him” in the school’s student handbook. The suit seeks a reversal of the university’s findings and sanction and calls for other measures that would allow him to continue his education at the school. Read the court filed JWU complaint.

usnews.com

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
OU FOOTBALL: Falsely Accused Anderson Passes Polygraph Test

, /

OU FOOTBALL: Falsely Accused Anderson Passes Polygraph Test

Oklahoma running back Rodney Anderson passed a three-hour, third-party polygraph test regarding his denial of a rape accusation, according to a report released from Derek Chance, Anderson’s attorney. “This week we have worked to demonstrate Mr. Anderson’s innocence- that work included a polygraph examination of Mr. Anderson, and as expected the results showed Mr. Anderson is honest and truthful in his denial of the allegations. As our work continues toward a final resolution, Mr. Anderson is incredibly thankful for the generous and overwhelming outpouring of support he has received from friends and family.”

tulsaworld.com By Stavenhagen

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
POMONA Gives the Finger to Calif. Judge and Constitutional Due Process

, , , /

POMONA Gives the Finger to Calif. Judge and Constitutional Due Process

As more and more schools  (72 since the Dear Colleague letter) have found themselves on the losing end of due process decisions, a handful of institutions have resisted in a troubling manner. Rather than acknowledge that court decisions showed the need to reform their unfair procedures, schools instead have maneuvered to neuter an accused student’s efforts to go to court…Regarding a Pomona case, Judge Strobel set aside Pomona’s guilty finding, stating that the lack of any opportunity for cross-examination raised “serious fairness questions,” and was so “prejudicial” to the accused, that the college denied him a “fair hearing.”  Pomona has the right to appeal an adverse ruling, but instead, Title IX coordinator Sue McCarthy informed the accused that Pomona was going to re-try him, using a different adjudicator but the exact same evidence from the original case, and under the same procedures that had produced the decision Judge Strobel set aside. The university did not inform Judge Strobel of this rather startling decision, which appears to violate existing Pomona procedures.

academicwonderland.com By KX Johnson

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
TAKEDOWN Title IX: The Fight over Federal Rules on College Sex Assault

, , /

TAKEDOWN Title IX: The Fight over Federal Rules on College Sex Assault

“There’s an old saying among lawyers: Justice is not the result, it’s the process.” Attorney Miltenberg says, “We give ourselves over to a system. We lose, we win. We hate losing, but you are able to at least say: ‘I couldn’t have asked the judge to do more than he did. He listened, he thought, he read.’ Here, [in campus Title IX proceedings] you are not having that experience.”.. In the past six months, two different professional attorneys’ associations have reviewed campus sexual-misconduct policy, and a third’s assessment is underway. They’ve come to different conclusions — one proposing higher standards of proof, another access to all evidence for accused students.

mobile.nytimes.com By K. Joyce   It’s Title IX Not Miranda 

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
STANFORD: Turner Files Appeal, Claims Due Process Violations

, , /

STANFORD: Turner Files Appeal, Claims Due Process Violations

Brock Turner, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a female is applying for an appeal. His lawyers called the initial trial “a detailed and lengthy set of lies.” Turner’s legal adviser, John Tompkins said they are appealing because the facts do not reflect the verdict. In the 172-page appeal, Turner’s legal team claims that they were at a disadvantage for three reasons: The jury did not get a lot of evidence that represented Turner’s character; The jury was not allowed to consider a lesser offense; The jury was subjected to “extensive ‘behind-the-dumpster’ propaganda.”

refinery29.com By S. Midkiff mercurynews.com By J. Green

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
POSSIBLE Win for Accused Student in 6th Circuit

, , , /

POSSIBLE Win for Accused Student in 6th Circuit

This afternoon, campus due process returned to the 6th Circuit. The facts of the case which originated from Denison University were unusually strong for the accused student.  Denison’s lawyer, Natalie McLaughlin, got off to a difficult start and never really recovered. The heart of the oral argument revolved around an off-the-record statement by university housing official Kristan Hausman, that her fellow panelists needed to weigh the “future of 1000 girls” as they adjudicated the case. Judge Thapar pressed McLaughlin on how that statement couldn’t indicate bias…”It’s your comment, if you don’t find him responsible, you’re still putting people at risk.-  How can that be?” Judge Thapar was incredulous.  Audio excerpts are at the link below.

academicwonderland.com By KC Johnson

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
FINALLY, Accused College Males Are Defending Their Innocence & Suing For Defamation

, , , /

FINALLY, Accused College Males Are Defending Their Innocence & Suing For Defamation

“I never in a million years thought that I would be doing this kind of work, but it’s important to me to do it because my clients’ lives are being destroyed by false allegations,” said Eric Rosenberg, who nine years ago founded a nonprofit to help sex-trafficked women. “I have zero tolerance for sexual assault, but there’s got to be a ramification for destroying someone’s life. Sometimes the only way to remedy the harm done in these cases is to sue the accuser.”…”I would like to start holding the students who make false accusations responsible by including them in a lawsuit if they outright lie,” said Michelle Owens, an attorney who works with accused students. “If it’s a misunderstanding then no,” Owens would not sue the accuser, “but if you’re lying and you’re trying to destroy somebody’s life, then you should be held accountable.”

buzzfeed.com By Tyler Kingkade

Why would someone make a false allegation?

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
BIG NEWS: Congress’ Higher Education Act Reauthorization Tackles Campus Due process

, , , , /

BIG NEWS: Congress’ Higher Education Act Reauthorization Tackles Campus Due process

Recently, the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Republican members introduced legislation called the PROSPER Act to reauthorize the Higher Education Act.  The PROSPER Act includes several elements that were influenced by or were taken directly from a model bill offered by the due process group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, or SAVE.  One of the most important requirements is that colleges ban “commingling of administrative or adjudicative roles” in proceedings. This would seem to ban so-called single-investigator models in which the same person who investigates also makes a finding and recommendation, sometimes without a hearing where accuser and accused can make their own cases.

thefire.org By Cohn thecollegefix.com By Piper

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
YALE THREATENS JACK: Demands $3K from Montague who is Suing for Kangaroo Expulsion

, , /

YALE THREATENS JACK: Demands $3K from Montague who is Suing for Kangaroo Expulsion

 In 2016 Yale University expelled Jack Montague for nonconsensual sex with a female student shortly before he was to graduate, despite the agreed-upon fact that she returned to sleep with him hours after he allegedly assaulted her. Montague was never criminally charged, and is pressing forward with his lawsuit against Yale;  despite a federal judge refusing to order Yale to follow its own sexual-assault adjudication rules. Montague argues in his lawsuit that his academic and employment prospect have been drastically limited by his expulsion. During a March deposition he testified that he has been unable to apply to other schools because Yale won’t release his transcripts until he pays a $3,000 tuition debt. “That represents the last semester that I didn’t finish,” Jack testified. “So, as soon as I was expelled, they sent me a bill for $3,000.” According to the Yale Daily News, the trial is expected to start in February.

thecollegefix.com By Piper abcnews.go By Eaton-Robb

Share this:Tweet about this on Twitter
«< 89 90 91 92 93 >»