Tag: Law, Crime & Court

On Tuesday a sexual abuse victim filed a lawsuit against the Catholic dioceses of Yakima and Spokane.

The lawsuit filed in Spokane County Superior Court claims that beginning in 1961, the Rev. Joseph Sondergeld sexually abused the victim, then 9 years old, at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Roslyn.

Last week, a federal district court in Montana dismissed a lawsuit by Freedom From Religion Foundation seeking theU.S. Forest Service to remove a privately designed and maintained monument to soldiers who gave their lives in World War II. The organization argued that the 60-year-old monument — which stands in the middle of Big Mountain ski resort in Whitefish, Mont. — could not be displayed on government-owned land.

According to the Associated Press four men are suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in federal court because they claim they were sexually abused during Boy Scout of America functions in Idaho.

Three of the men say they were in troops sponsored by the church and were abused by scout leaders in the early 1980s.

For Raed Jarrar, the FBI’s decision Wednesday (June 5)  to begin tracking hate crimes against Arabs is a battle won in a larger war.

“This is just one part of fixing the system, because unfortunately many hate crimes against Arab Americans have not been noticed,” said Jarrar, spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

To the outside observer, the US Highway 26 project was innocuous, if a bit of a traffic impediment. The 2008 construction project, intended to widen a dangerously narrow 1.5 mile section of the Mt. Hood highway in Oregon, would provide improved passage for cars turning left.

Hereditary Chief Wilbur Slockish, however, says the project has destroyed his freedom of religion, and is suing for damages.

Legal scholar Paul Butler and criminologist Jack Levin will headline “The Pursuit of Justice,” a three-day conference featuring nationally and internationally recognized scholars April 18-20 at Gonzaga University. Its theme is “Understanding Hatred, Confronting Intolerance, Eliminating Inequality.”

Prosecutors announced Monday that they would seek the death penalty against James Holmes, who is accused of shooting 12 people dead at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. last year.

“For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death,” the district attorney for Arapahoe County, George Brauchler, said in court.