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Supreme Court skeptical of man who offered adult adoptions
Legal Information |
2023/03/28 14:55
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The Supreme Court seemed inclined Monday to rule against a man convicted of violating immigration law for offering adult adoptions he falsely claimed would lead to citizenship.
Attorneys for Helaman Hansen told the justices during approximately 90 minutes of arguments that the law he was convicted of violating was too broad. But the court’s conservative majority in particular seemed willing to side with the government and conclude that it is not.
Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that the law “has been on the books for 70 years” without some of the issues Hansen’s lawyers worried about. He also expressed no sympathy for Hansen himself, who he said was “taking advantage of very vulnerable people.”
“He had every intent in the world to keep these people here to take their money with no prospect they’d ever” actually get citizenship, Gorsuch said.
The case involves a section of federal immigration law that says a person such as Hansen who “encourages or induces” a non-citizen to come to or remain in the United States illegally can be punished by up to five years in prison. That’s increased to up to 10 years if the person doing the encouraging is doing so for their own financial gain.
The federal government says that from 2012 to 2016 Hansen — who lived in Elk Grove, California, near Sacramento — deceived hundreds of non-citizens into believing that he could guarantee them a path to citizenship through adult adoption.
Based on Hansen’s promises, officials say, people either came to or stayed in the United States in violation of the law, even though Hansen knew that the adult adoptions he was arranging would not lead to citizenship. The government says at least 471 people paid him between $550 and $10,000 and that in total he collected more than $1.8 million.
Hansen was ultimately convicted of encouragement charges as well as fraud charges. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the encouragement charges and another 20 years on the fraud charges. But a federal appeals court ruled that the law on encouragement is overbroad and violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment and overturned just those convictions.
The court’s three liberal justices seemed more concerned about the reach of the law. Justice Elena Kagan asked “what happens to all the cases” where a lawyer, doctor, neighbor, friend or teacher “says to a non-citizen: ‘I really think you should stay.’” Kagan wanted to know whether those people could or would be prosecuted under the law. |
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Kansas high court signals continued abortion rights support
Local Legal Events |
2023/03/20 14:55
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Kansas’ highest court signaled Monday that it still considers access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the state constitution, as an attorney for the state argued that a decisive statewide vote last year affirming abortion rights “doesn’t matter.”
The state Supreme Court is considering exactly how far the Republican-controlled Legislature can go in restricting abortion under a 2019 decision protecting abortion rights. The justices heard arguments from attorneys for Kansas and abortion providers in two lawsuits but isn’t likely to rule for months.
One lawsuit challenges a 2015 law banning a common second-trimester abortion procedure, and the other challenges a 2011 law that regulates abortion providers more strictly than other health care providers. Legal challenges have blocked both laws from being enforced.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared in June 2022 that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t protect abortion rights and that states can ban abortion, but the Kansas court had ruled in 2019 that access to abortion is protected as a matter of bodily autonomy under the state constitution. That led the Legislature to put a proposed amendment on last August’s ballot asking voters whether to lift that constitutional protection, which would have allowed lawmakers to greatly restrict or ban abortion. Voters soundly rejected the measure.
But Kansas Solicitor General Tony Powell, representing the state, told the court that last year’s vote “doesn’t matter” and shouldn’t factor into its decisions on the two lawsuits, arguing that voters might not have wanted abortion banned but still favor “reasonable” restrictions. He said the justices should “let the people work it out” through their elected representatives. |
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Court: Ukraine can try to avoid repaying $3B loan to Russia
Attorney Interview |
2023/03/15 14:46
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The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Ukraine can go to trial to try to avoid repaying $3 billion in loans it said it took under pressure from Russia in 2013 to prevent it from trying to join the European Union.
The court rejected an attempt to avoid a trial by a British company acting on Russia’s behalf to collect the loans. Ukraine said it borrowed the money while facing the threat of military force and massive illegal economic and political pressure nearly a decade before Russia invaded its neighbor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the ruling was “another decisive victory against the aggressor.”
“The Court has ruled that Ukraine’s defense based on Russia’s threats of aggression will have a full public trial,” he tweeted. “Justice will be ours.”
The case was argued in November 2021, and the court was not asked to consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three months later.
Ukrainian authorities allege that the corrupt government of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych borrowed the money from Moscow under pressure before he was ousted in protests in February 2014, shortly before Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
After the 2014 Ukraine revolution, the country’s new government refused to repay the debt in December 2015, saying Moscow wouldn’t agree to terms already accepted by other international creditors.
The case came to British courts because London-based Law Debenture Trust Corp. had been appointed by Ukraine to represent the interests of bondholders. The company initially won a judgment to avoid trial but Ukraine appealed.
The Supreme Court rejected several of Ukraine’s legal arguments, including that its finance minister didn’t have authority to enter into the loan agreement and that Ukraine could decline payment as a countermeasure to Russia’s aggressions.
The ruling, however, said a court could consider whether the deal was void because of threats or pressure that are illegitimate under English law.
While the court noted that trade sanctions, embargoes and other economic pressures are “normal aspects of statecraft,” economic pressures could provide context to prove that Russia’s threats to destroy Ukraine caused it to issue the bonds. |
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Executive gets 15 months in prison in doomed nuclear project
Legal World News |
2023/03/06 20:51
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A former executive utility who gave rosy projections on the progress of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina while they were hopelessly behind will spend 15 months in prison for the doomed project that cost ratepayers billions of dollars.
Ex-SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne apologized in court Wednesday, saying he thinks about how he let down customers, shareholders, employees, taxpayers and his family almost every day.
The two nuclear plants, which never generated a watt of power despite $9 billion of investment, were supposed to be “the crowning achievement of my life,” Byrne said. “But I failed.”
Byrne is the second SCANA executive to head to prison for the nuclear debacle. Former CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced to two years in prison in October 2021 and released earlier in March after serving about 17 months.
Two executives at Westinghouse, which was contracted to build the reactors, are also charged. Carl Churchman, who was the company’s top official at the Fairfield County construction site at V.C. Summer, pleaded guilty to perjury and is awaiting sentencing. Former Westinghouse senior vice president Jeff Benjamin faces 16 charges. His trial is scheduled for October.
Both defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed to delay Byrne’s prison sentence until he testifies at Benjamin’s trial to make sure he is honest and helpful.
But that isn’t in doubt. Prosecutors said Byrne was the first executive to come to investigators after the project was abandoned in July 2017. His careful notes taken in every meeting of who spoke and what was said saved the government years of work unraveling the lies, prosecutor Winston Holliday said. |
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