Law Education

Gary Dobson and David Norris, the two men convicted of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, will be sentenced today.

The pair, who were 17 and 16 at the time of the murder, will receive a sentence that takes into account as a starting point the fact that they were juveniles at the time of the fatal stabbing.

But Mr Justice Treacy, the trial judge, will also take aggravating factors into account: specifically that the murder was racist, and also that the pair realised one of their group might use a knife.

Had they committed the crime in the last year, Dobson and Norris would expect to receive much tougher sentences, with minimum terms of 25 years for a racially aggravated knife murder.

But under the law at the time of the Lawrence murder, juveniles received lesser sentences for such crimes.

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office wants former Jacksonville Port Authority Chairman Tony Nelson to spend 10 to 12½ years in prison.

Prosecutors also have asked the court to finalize the seizure of $143,500 from Nelson, the money they say he took as a bribe.

Nelson and Lance Young — who was convicted of bribing Nelson — were scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday and today. U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan postponed the hearing until next month to give himself time to review both sides’ arguments.

In May, Nelson was found guilty of multiple counts of bribery, money laundering, mail fraud and one count each of conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

Review the case: U.S. vs. Tony N

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The Power Rangers’ latest victory may not mark an epic defeat of evil, but it could advance the fashion industry’s war for greater copyright protection.

Though copyright law typically doesn’t grant protection to “useful articles” like clothing, the fashion industry has been pushing to expand copyright shields for clothing design by using a tenet of the law that protects “any pictorial, graphic, or sculptural authorship that can be identified separately from the utilitarian aspects of an object.”That’s the tack the Rangers are taking.

But since there’s no definitive court decisions yet on the matter, it’s unclear how much other Halloween costumes can be protected.

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FORT BRAGG — President Barack Obama looked into a sea of uniformed troops, many of them combat veterans of the war in Iraq, and said the two words he has looked forward to saying since before he took office.

“Welcome home,” he told the men and women gathered in the maintenance hanger of the 440th Airlift Wing at Pope Army Airfield on Wednesday. “Welcome home.”

Obama was visiting Fort Bragg with his wife, Michelle, to mark the symbolic, if not the official, end of the Iraq war. Under an agreement with the Iraqi government, nearly all U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31.

The Obamas’ visit to Bragg was an acknowledgement of the huge role the base has played in the war; soldiers from the Army’s most-populous base were among the first ground troops that went into the country and will be some of the last to leave.

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A day after Gov. Jerry Brown asked voters for $7 billion in additional taxes, three fiscal conservatives Tuesday filed a ballot initiative to cap state spending growth.

The proposal would reconfigure the Gann Limit, a 1979 spending restriction passed on the heels of tax-limiting Proposition 13. Voters later softened the spending cap, and the state is now spending $17 billion below the maximum allowed.

The California Taxpayers Association, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Small Business Action Committee want to reset the Gann Limit at the 2010-11 spending level. They would limit growth based on a formula driven generally by personal income growth and population.

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