Wiki Law School

For his first judicial appointment as Governor, Mark Dayton tapped a military man.

Capt. Leuning

Today Dayton announced that Captain Ross Leuning of the U.S. Navy will fill the District Court Judge vacancy in Minnesota’s Third Judicial District. Captain Leuning will replace the Honorable John A. Chesterman after his retirement; Leuning expects to return from Iraq and be sworn-in in July, 2011.

Captain Leuning is currently the Command Judge Advocate for the United States Navy, serving at the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq.

Because Captain Leuning is currently stationed in Iraq, Governor Dayton interviewed him via Skype.

“I am proud that Captain Ross Leuning is my first judicial appointment, as he exemplifies the outstanding caliber of person I will seek for these important positions. Captain Leuning is presently serving our country and the cause of freedom in Iraq, where his military judicial experience further qualifies him for assuming those responsibilities on the Third District Court,” Dayton said in a release

In addition to his service in the United States Navy, Captain Leuning is a Senior Assistant Olmsted County Attorney. Previously, he was a partner at the law firm of Walbran, Furness & Leuning. Captain Leuning is licensed to practice law in the states of Minnesota and Oregon, Minnesota Federal District Court, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and is certified as a General Court-Martial Judge for the Navy and Marine Corps. He earned his bachelor’s from the University of South Dakota in 1983, and his JD from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1986.

Captain Leuning resides with his family in Owatonna. The Third Judicial District serves Dodge, Fillmore, Freeborn, Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Rice, Steele, Wabasha, Waseca, and Winona Counties.

Tweet

• Share

• e-mail
• print

By Gitte Laasby of the Journal Sentinel

A 25-year-old man suffered numerous gunshot wounds in a shooting shortly after 4 p.m. in the 5200 block of N. Teutonia Ave., Milwaukee police said.

The man is being treated and is expected to survive. Investigators are working to develop a motive and suspects.

In another shooting Sunday, a 20-year-old man was shot around 9 p.m. in the 3000 block of N. 35th St., according to police.

The victim was shot in a residence in circumstances that are still under investigation. He suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from the hospital.

Birmingham City Council is under growing pressure to stop targeting spending cuts on front-line social care and voluntary groups after being heavily criticised in two High Court decisions.

The local authoritys Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is facing a 19 million hole in its budget this year following judicial reviews which have halted plans to reduce social services provision and grants to voluntary organisations.

Mr Justice Blake ruled in the High Court that a decision to axe a 1.4 million funding scheme for 13 third sector groups, including the Citizens Advice Bureau, was unlawful.

Neither the cabinet nor the full council paid due regard to their responsibilities to promote equality under the Disability Discrimination Act and failed to consult properly with people who would be hit by the cuts.

Last week, Mr Justice Walker came to the same conclusion when allowing a judicial review into a cabinet decision to save 17.5 million by restricting social services care to adults whose needs are critical the highest category of disability indicating an inability to perform the simplest tasks without help.

More than 11,000 people currently receiving help will be re-assessed and about 4,000 with substantial needs stand to lose council-funded care as a result. They will be directed to voluntary or private sector providers instead.

The financial implications from the latest court case could be serious. The council expects to save about 53 million by 2014 from limiting social services provision to adults with critical needs and may now have to find the money from elsewhere.

The cabinet is biding its time before deciding how to react to the latest setback.

The re-assessment programme has been halted and all adults with substantial needs will continue to receive care pending a full judgment to be handed down by Mr Justice Walker towards the end of May, but the council has indicated it may appeal.

A council spokeswoman said: Like all councils, Birmingham faces a huge financial challenge, with adults and communities having to make a share of the savings and we need to assess the impact of this decision.

It is also important to point out that this judgement is about the process we went through with regard to the Disability Discrimination Act, not the actual decision about where savings should be made.

Tweet

• Share

• e-mail
• print

By Jesse Garza of the Journal Sentinel

A 22-year-old man accused of causing a head-on collision that injured two people while driving drunk the wrong way on I-43 was charged Wednesday.

Joel Julian-Jorge of Milwaukee was charged with multiple counts, including injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle causing great bodily harm, in connection with the crash, according to a criminal complaint.

Julian-Jorge had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.15, almost twice the 0.08 level considered legal proof of drunken driving in Wisconsin, when the car he was driving early Monday slammed into a sport utility vehicle while heading east in the westbound lanes near Loomis Road.

A male passenger suffered life-threatening injuries in the crash and a man driving the SUV was also injured, according to the complaint.

Bail was set at $11,000 for Julian-Jorge, who was in the Milwaukee County Jail Wednesday under an immigration hold, according to jail records.

His immigration status was under investigation, according to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office.

The U.S. Department of Justice is studying whether to reexamine the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X.

Malcolm X

Department spokesman Xochitl Hinojosa said Monday the department is reviewing “the request to open the Malcolm X murder. We decline further comment at this time.”

Alvin Sykes of Kansas City — architect of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act who in an April 6 letter asked the Justice Department to review Malcolm X’s assassination — praised the department’s consideration.

He said he is hoping Attorney General Eric Holder will bring “more investigative resources and prosecutorial jurisdiction to credibly address the guilt or innocence of a broader net of past, present and potentially future suspects in this case.”

A new biography by the late Manning Marable raises questions about who was involved in Malcolm X’s killing at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on Feb. 21, 1965 — less than a year after he had left the Nation of Islam.

In Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Marable claims William Bradley (now known as Al-Mustafa Shabazz) of New Jersey was involved in the assassination, but he has vehemently denied the claim through his lawyer.

Sykes said the Justice Department should examine the assassination to see whether anyone has evaded prosecution, he said. It’s just as important, he said, to also determine if anyone was wrongly convicted.

Two men convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, have maintained their innocence.

Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer, who was released last year from prison, has admitted his guilt in the killing, and he has insisted that Butler and Johnson were innocent.

Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Garrow said the Justice Department should be commended for considering the request to reinvestigate this “infamous assassination,” which can possibly be solved because “at least one of the credibly alleged suspects is alive and well and living in New Jersey.”