Tag: TRIAL

A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange must be extradited to Sweden to be questioned on accusations of sexual abuse. The decision, which was issued this morning in London, means that the Australian national will be sent to Sweden in ten days, although his lawyers have already indicated that they plan to file an appeal. In the ruling, Judge Howard Riddle determined that ...

A Pennsylvania woman could soon face criminal charges for conducting online research while serving as a juror in a murder trial. The woman, Gretchen Black, reportedly consulted the Web to find out more about the injuries the victim had suffered, and offered to share her findings with the rest of the jury. At the time, the jury had already determined that the defendant was not guilty of ...

Over the course of the past few months, the Egyptian government has taken a particularly hard-line stance against Facebook-based activism, many authorities believing it to pose a legitimate threat to President Hosni Mubarak. In March, a military tribunal unsuccessfully attempted to silence a controversial blogger named Ahmed Mustafa, barely three years after Egypt had jailed another writer for ...

A man convicted of manslaughter will get another chance to plead his case before a jury of his peers, now that a Florida Court of Appeals has overturned his conviction because of an iPhone. In 2006, 62-year-old Jose Tapanes was charged with fatally shooting his 19-year-old neighbor Christopher Cote after Cote had walked his dog on Tapanes's lawn. During the ensuing manslaughter trial, Tapanes's ...

A Hawaiian man wants NCsoft, a South Korean video game developer, to pay up for neglecting to warn against the addictive nature of its popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), 'Lineage II.' According to Wired, Craig Smallwood claims he is "unable to function independently in usual daily activities" because of his addiction to the online role-playing game. Smallwood claims to ...

A man accused of credit card fraud and bail-jumping just received a 285-month sentence, despite the fact that his defense submitted several photoshopped images of him doing charity work in a bid for a lighter penalty. Daryl Simons's sad attempt to show himself as some kind of humanitarian backfired in White Plains, New York federal court when a quick analysis of the photos in question proved that ...

We find Rod Blagojevich fascinating. Maybe it's his complete cluelessness, or, perhaps it's his used-car salesman personality and winning head of "hair." But, more likely, it's because his ego is big enough to be seen from space. That's why we're more than just a little disappointed to hear that Judge James B. Zagel has banned the former Illinois governor from Tweeting in the courtroom. The ...

Often, when a woman accuses a man of rape, there's little proof beyond he-said-she-said, and, in many cases, that's enough to put the man away, whether he's guilty or not. The onus definitely falls upon the accused to prove his innocence in most of these cases. In the recent case of Gary Taylor, a 41-year-old businessman, the defendant was able to prove his innocence, according to a report in the ...

With so much trouble stirred up by improper (read: idiotic) use of Facebook and Myspace pages, it was only a matter of time before Twitter stirred up some drama. Earlier this week, a technology blogger, distracted while Twittering with LeVar Burton, didn't realize that part of his (i.e. the blogger's) home was burning down. Now, a Twitter controversy has erupted in a Fayetteville, Arkansas ...

Southwest got official with its Wi-Fi plans late last month, but avid travelers who favor the only airline worth flying anymore (okay, Virgin America and JetBlue aren't bad either) were left wondering about most of the details. Today, the company has fired up a single Row 44-equipped flight, and it has announced plans to equip three more airplanes with in-flight WiFi by early next month. ...

We dig the idea in theory, we really do, but we can definitely see this causing more harm than good. Starting this fall, San Francisco will begin a trial involving wireless parking sensors in 6,000 of its 24,000 metered spaces, enabling antsy drivers to be alerted via street signs or cell phones when a spot becomes available. Only one problem -- give 50 anxious motorists the same message that a ...