Kentucky

Here are some legal stories around the state this past week.  Click on the link for the entire story on line (and if still available):

• State to appeal gambling ruling
  
  Seizure of Web sites is at issue
  
  By Tom Loftus ??? tloftus@courier-journal.com ??? January 21, 2009
  
  
  
  FRANKFORT, Ky. ??? The Beshear administration will appeal Tuesday's ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals that the state does not have authority to take control of 141 gambling Web sites.  J. Michael Brown, secretary of the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, released a statement today saying the administration would take the matter to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
  
  
  
  
• Kentucky suit has Web world in tizzy
  
  At issue: forfeiture of domain names of gambling sites.
  
  Marcia Coyle / Staff reporter  February 2, 2009
  
  
  
  WASHINGTON ??? What if China seized the domain names of U.S. Web sites promoting religions that China bans? Or what if (horrors of horrors!) Nebraska seized and shut down the domain name law.com because its cutting-edge legal content, that state believed, encourages frivolous litigation in violation of state law?
  
  
  
  Preposterous, right? Well, not so incredible as to stop a battery of lawyers for Internet businesses, domain registrars, civil liberties groups and others from engaging the state of Kentucky in legal battle over that state's attempt to halt Internet gambling by seizing 141 domain names whose owners are located primarily out of state or overseas.
• Supreme Court rejects appeal in Ky. murder case
  
  The Associated Press
  
  
  
  FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A former Kentucky Death Row inmate convicted under an alias has lost another appeal in his ongoing efforts to have his conviction overturned. 
  
  The Kentucky Supreme Court denied the appeal Thursday from Jeffrey Leonard, a convicted murderer who wants justices to reconsider his conviction based on a claim of ineffective counsel. Leonard was convicted under the pseudonym James Earl Slaughter.
• Judge overrules Ragland's motion for a new civil trial
  
  Kentucky.com - Lexington,KY,USA
  
  Ragland, who was arrested in 2000, was convicted of murdering Trent DiGiuro in 2002, but the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2006.
• Monroe Co. Mayoral Race Deemed Null And Void    
  
  WBKO
  
  
  
  More than two years after the city of Tompkinsville's 2006 mayoral election, The Kentucky Supreme Court orders the election thrown out.  In 2006, former Monroe County Sheriff Beverly McClendon won the Tompkinsville mayoral election by just one vote, but the results were contested. Thursday's court ruling states that officially Tompkinsville now has "no mayor."
• Man challenges definition of sanity for execution
  
  By BRETT BARROUQUERE - Associated Press Writer
  
  
  
  LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A condemned Kentucky inmate is challenging the state's definition of insanity and the process of determining if he's incompetent to be executed.  Ralph Stevens Baze, 53, claims in a lawsuit that Kentucky's method of determining insanity is unconstitutional. 
• Ky. coach pleads not guilty in player's death
  
  By BRETT BARROUQUERE and WILL GRAVES
  
  
  
  LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- At a church where he's a deacon and the high school where he coaches football, David Jason Stinson is well-liked enough to find himself surrounded by supporters despite prosecutors charging him in a player's death. 
  
  On Monday, Stinson pleaded not guilty to reckless homicide in the death of 15-year-old Pleasure Ridge Park High School offensive lineman Max Gilpin, who collapsed at a sweltering Aug. 20 practice after running sprints, sometimes in pads and helmet.  "They're dragging a very good man through the mud and I don't understand why," football booster Rodney Daugherty said of the coach.
  
  
• Lawsuit alleges sexual assault at Catholic elementary school
  
  
  
  A lawsuit alleges a female student at a Catholic elementary school was sexually assaulted last year by a classmate. The suit, filed Tuesday in Kenton Circuit Court, alleges the girl was bullied from January 2008 until she was sexually assaulted May 9.

• Livingston, Carlisle and Trigg Counties will open new courthouses in the next 18 months.

• COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE SARA COMBS SLAMS ATTORNEYS FOR UNPROFESSIONAL COMMENTS IN APPELLATE BRIEFS