US court rules government can keep rare coins (AFP)

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AFP) – The US government can keep 10 rare gold coins seized from the descendants of a Philadelphia jeweler amid allegations that they had been stolen, a federal jury has ruled.

The jury decided Thursday that the government had proven its claim that the coins, valued at $75 million, were removed from the US Mint without permission nearly seven decades ago.

The government contends the 10 coins were stolen because the 1933 Double Eagles, worth $20 when they were minted, were never authorized for circulation.

But lawyers for the descendants of Israel Switt argued that nobody knows exactly how their father came to possess the coins.

Authorities believed they had destroyed nearly all of the 455,000 coins that were minted, as part of the US efforts to go off the gold standard.

But a few of the coins turned up over the years, all of them traced to back to Switt, a Philadelphia jeweler.

In the 1940s, authorities believed that all but one of Switt's coins had been tracked down and destroyed.

What was believed to be the last coin found its way into the collection of Egypt's King Farouk, and was later sold at auction for $7.5 million.

But in 2004, Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, approached the US Treasury with 10 more of the coins she said were found in her late-father's safe deposit box.

The government seized the coins, saying there was no way the coins could have been legally removed from the Mint's vaults.

Langbord, and her sons David and Roy sued, saying nobody truly knew how the coins left the vault.

Since the government could not prove the coins were stolen, the family had argued their constitutional rights to the property had been violated. Appeals in the case are expected.

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Canadian court rules to deport Chinese fugitive (AFP)

VANCOUVER (AFP) – A Canadian court cleared the way for China's most-wanted fugitive Lai Changxing to be sent home to face expected criminal charges.

"The life of the applicant is in the Chinese Government's hands," the court ruled, citing a Chinese proverb.

China earlier promised not to sentence Lai to death if he is tried and found guilty. Canada, which does not practice capital punishment, prohibits the return of prisoners to countries where they might be put to death.

There was no immediate word from Lai's lawyers about whether the court ruling will be appealed.

Lai remained behind bars Thursday night, after a separate court ruling overturned an order by the Immigration and Refugee Board to release him.

Canadian officials told the court Lai could be sent home as early as the weekend.

If an appeal is not launched, or fails, the ruling will end Lai's 12-year battle to remain in Canada. The case has soured diplomatic relations between the two countries, and pitted Western ideas about human rights against China's treatment of prisoners.

Canada's government has repeatedly tried to send Lai to China, but the independent courts and Immigration and Refugee board had blocked his deportation until now on human rights grounds.

Lai fled here with his family in 1999 after being accused in China of running a $6 billion (US) smuggling ring in Fujian province. His lawyers say at least seven of his associates have died or vanished in China's justice system.

Earlier this month, a key risk assessment by immigration officials cleared the way for his return, after they ruled Lai would not risk death or torture if sent home to China. Thursday's ruling rejected the prisoner's appeal of that risk assessment.

His lawyer, well-known human rights advocate David Matas, has warned repeatedly that Lai would risk death or torture in China, despite the country's unusual diplomatic assurances to Canada.

Matas noted in a court filing that China has promised "access to a lawyer, permission of a Canadian official to be present at the hearing of the applicant, Canadian official access to recordings of interrogations and hearings, and permission for Canadian officials to visit the applicant in prison, mitigating risk of abuse."

But, he added, "these four assurances amount to nothing."

The court apparently disagreed.

The ruling, emailed Thursday night to reporters, cited China's much-criticized record on its treatment of other prisoners and noted they "are detained together indiscriminately."

However, "it is assumed that the assurances of the Chinese government... will be kept," the court added.

The ruling said China's "honor and face" would be at stake during the lifetime monitoring of Lai.

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Kan. abortion rules face test in federal court (AP)

TOPEKA, Kan. – Kansas still has one abortion provider, but two others that have had to halt services because they don't have state licenses hoped Friday to persuade a federal judge to block a new licensing law and health department regulations they consider burdensome.

The state attorney general's office argued before a Friday hearing in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., that a license granted to a Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri clinic disproves critics' contention that the new Kansas rules are designed to cut off access to abortion.

The licensing law was part of a wave of anti-abortion legislation enacted across the nation this year, but had none of its three providers received a license, Kansas would have been the only state in the nation without a clinic or doctor's office performing abortions.

Its regulations tell providers what drugs and equipment they must stock, set acceptable temperatures for procedure and recovery rooms and set minimum sizes for some rooms. Supporters believe those rules will protect patients. But abortion-rights advocates have called the licensing process a "sham" because Gov. Sam Brownback is an anti-abortion Republican, and abortion foes pushed the law through the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Planned Parenthood received a license Thursday from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, after initially being denied but having inspectors visit its clinic in Overland Park a second time. The new licensing law and the accompanying regulations took effect Friday.

The lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia was filed earlier this week by Drs. Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, who provide abortions and other services at the Center for Women's Health, also in Overland Park. The state's other provider, Aid for Women Clinic in Kansas City, has been allowed to intervene.

The attorney general's office attached the Planned Parenthood license in a court document filed Thursday evening, shortly after the health department confirmed it had granted a license to one of the state's providers and Planned Parenthood identified itself as the recipient.

"Women in Kansas seeking abortion services will still be able to obtain medical care at a properly licensed facility even if the statute and regulations are enforced exactly as written," the attorney general's office said.

But Bonnie Scott Jones, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Hodes and Nauser, said the state still has a "crazy process" that involved abortion opponents rushing unreasonable regulations into place.

As for Planned Parenthood's license, she said, "That's certainly better than no one being open, but it's certainly not enough to meet the needs of the women of Kansas."

She also noted that the Planned Parenthood clinic already was regulated by the health department as one of the state's 74 ambulatory surgical centers. Those centers face more detailed rules than dozens of clinics and doctor's offices performing surgical procedures, which are covered by rules from the State Board of Healing Arts, which licenses physicians.

Both Aid for Women and the Center for Women's Health fall under the office-based surgery rules, and their doctors argue that those standards are strong enough to protect patients. Those rules don't set minimum sizes for rooms, for example.

Besides objecting to the content, the providers argue that the state violated their right to due legal process by imposing the rules so quickly. The department argues the licensing law mandated a fast track.

Brownback signed the licensing law in mid-May; the providers received the current version of the regulations less than two weeks before they took effect. A state board approved the rules Thursday, allowing them to take effect.

The department hasn't taken public comments on the regulations though it has scheduled a Sept. 7 hearing in Topeka and plans to consider suggested changes.

Among other things, the Kansas regulations for abortion providers require rooms where abortions are performed to have at least 150 sq. feet of space, excluding fixed cabinets, and to keep their temperatures between 68 and 73 degrees. Each procedure room also must have its own janitor's closet with at least 50 sq. feet. Also, any patient must remain in a recovery room for at least two hours.

Aid for Women was denied a license without an inspection after it disclosed in its application that the clinic required extensive renovations to comply with the new rules.

The Center for Women's Health cancelled its inspection after Hodes and Nauser filed their lawsuit. In that document, they acknowledged that none of its six procedure rooms were big enough to comply with the regulations, nor did they have enough janitorial closet space.

Planned Parenthood said it had been denied a license Monday, and it was certain enough that it wouldn't get one by Friday that it filed its own lawsuit Thursday in federal court, also in Kansas City. The lawsuit said the Planned Parenthood clinic met most requirements and could comply with others.

Court documents also disclosed that the clinic was still in contact with the health department, trying to show that it would comply with all regulations. The license granted to Planned Parenthood is good for a year, the term specified by law.

President and CEO Peter Brownlie said he expects the Planned Parenthood chapter to withdraw its lawsuit and work to change the regulations.

____

Online:

Kansas Department of Health and Environment: http://www.kdheks.gov/

Center for Reproductive Rights: http://reproductiverights.org/

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Judge rules Casey Anthony competent to stand trial (Reuters)

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – Week six of the Casey Anthony murder trial opened with talk of a psychic, a Velveeta cheese wrapper and the revelation an emergency mental evaluation of the young Florida mother was behind the abrupt cancellation of Saturday's court session.

Judge Belvin Perry ruled on Monday that 25-year-old Casey was competent to assist in her defense based on evaluations over the weekend by three court-appointed psychologists.

In his emergency motion for the mental health checks, defense attorney Jose Baez wrote that he based the request on unspecified "confidential communications" with Casey.

Perry sealed the psychologists' reports and ordered the trial to resume.

Prosecutors say Casey smothered her 2-year-old daughter Caylee with duct tape on June 16, 2008, drove around with the child's body in her car trunk for several days and dumped the remains in woods near their Orlando area home.

Evidence showed Casey spent the following month happily partying with her boyfriend.

Baez contends Caylee accidentally drowned in the Anthonys' backyard pool, and that Casey's inappropriate reaction stemmed from a history of sexual abuse.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Perry has yet to rule on a motion filed by the defense team on Monday asking the judge to declare a mistrial and start over with a jury that was not selected based on its willingness to impose the death penalty.

Defense attorney Ann Finnell argued that a federal court in Miami recently declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional on technical grounds. The ruling does not invalidate the statute.

Finnell said Casey's defense team challenged Florida's death penalty before the trial began on the same grounds cited by the federal court, but Perry denied the motion. Finnell is asking Perry to reconsider.

BODY VAPORS

Baez on Monday called a biochemist to the witness stand to rebut key prosecution evidence that chemical vapors from Casey's car trunk could be the result of Caylee's body decomposing there for several days.

Kenneth Furton, a professor at Florida International University, testified that the science behind the chemical analysis is not yet fully developed or reliable.

Both Furton and the prosecution witness said this was the first time either had provided evidence in court on the science of chemical vapors given off by a decomposing body.

Furton testified that scientists around the world disagree on whether it is possible to identify human remains from chemical signatures.

"There is no instrumental method that's been scientifically validated" to identify a human body from chemical compounds, Furton said.

During cross examination, Furton agreed that a decomposing human body could cause the chemical signatures found in Casey's car trunk, but insisted garbage also was a possibility.

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton pressed Furton to identify anything else found in the trunk that could give off the same vapors and overpowering odor described by numerous witnesses.

Ashton held up the contents of a trash bag found in the trunk, including an empty salami package. He gave the jury an empty Velveeta cheese foil wrapper to pass around and make their own judgments.

The food containers "would be unlikely to produce a substantial odor," Furton conceded.

The defense spent more than three hours questioning two witnesses who followed a psychic's instructions to look for Caylee in the woods where her remains ultimately were found on December 11, 2008.

Jurors saw a videotape of private investigator Dominic Casey walking around in the woods in November 2008 while talking on a cell phone to the psychic. Both he and a helper, James Hoover, testified they did not find a body.

Perry extended the court session on Monday until after 7 p.m., almost two and a half hours later than normal. Even after losing more than five hours of court time due to the quick end of Saturday's session, Perry indicated he still expects the defense to wrap up its case by Wednesday.

If the projection sticks, the judge hopes to give the case to the jury by Saturday morning at the latest to begin deliberations.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jerry Norton)

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Court rules for students in Pennsylvania speech cases (Reuters)

PHILADELPHIA – A federal appeals court here has ruled in favor of two school students who were disciplined in different districts for creating what lawyers called parodies of their principals on the MySpace social network site.

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit made clear ... that schools cannot punish students for out-of-school speech that does not create a substantial and material disruption inside the school," said the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the students.

"I think the message is louder for school officials than it is for the kids," ACLU lawyer Witold Walczak, the organization's Pennsylvania legal director, said Tuesday.

And that message, he said, is that the authority of school officials is less for conduct outside the school than it is for conduct inside.

Terry Snyder, mother of one of the students who was referred to in the legal papers as only "JS," said she disciplined her daughter for her behavior while she was a student in the Blue Mountain School District, in central Pennsylvania north of Reading.

"I punished her for that," said Snyder Tuesday. "I'm the one who should have punished her."

But the school district insisted on a 10-day suspension, and that led to the lawsuit.

The court decision released Monday said Snyder's daughter created a MySpace profile that made fun of her middle school principal in 2007. The court said the profile contained adult language and sexually explicit references.

In an 8-6 decision, the Circuit Court said the district violated the girl's First Amendment rights. The girl graduated this year from the Blue Mountain high school, and is headed for college.

In a separate case, the court ruled 14-0 in favor of a student in the far western part of Pennsylvania, Hermitage, a suburb of Sharon.

"We hold," wrote the court in a case involving then high school student Justin Layshock, who is now in college, "that under these circumstances, the First Amendment prohibits the school from reaching beyond the school yard to impose what might otherwise be appropriate discipline."

The court said Layshock, in 2005, created what he called a parody profile of his high school principal on his grandmother's computer. In it, he posed such questions as "birthday" with the response "too drunk to remember."

The principal thought the remarks were demeaning, and Layshock was suspended for 10 days.

His parents were not able to be reached for comment, but in a 2006 statement attached to an ACLU news release Don and Cherie Layshock said their son was punished by them. They said he apologized to the principal, twice.

"He is sorry and embarrassed by what he calls a dumb mistake," that statement said.

Hermitage school officials could not be reached for comment, and the Blue Ridge Superintendent, Robert Urzillo, said he had not been in his current job at the time.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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