Just weeks after the final decision in the Exxon Valdez case, another (fortunately) smaller oil spill makes the news with the sentencing of to the helsman of the Cosco Busan. The tanker was involved in an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 2007.
For more on the Exxon Valdez case resolution in June, go to http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-valdez16-2009jun16,0,7865562.story
For the 2008 Supreme Court decision in the case, go to http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-219.pdf
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://fishtail.tv
http://tbilaw.com
Date: 7/17/2009 6:54 PM
JARED GRIGSBY,Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The helmsman of a cargo ship that set off a major environmental disaster in the San Francisco Bay was sentenced Friday to 10 months in prison.
John Cota pleaded guilty in March to two misdemeanor environmental crimes of illegally discharging oil in the bay and killing thousands of birds.
Cota apologized to the court and to the “people of the Bay Area for the damage I have caused.”
Cota’s attorney, Jeff Bornstein, had asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to impose a two-month sentence.
Bornstein argued that his client wasn’t the only person responsible for the Nov. 7, 2007, oil spill that poured more than 53,000 gallons of oil into the water after the 901-foot Cosco Busan struck a tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog. The spill killed 2,000 birds, fouled dozens of miles of coastline and cost commercial fishermen millions of dollars in lost revenue.
A poorly trained Chinese crew, language barriers and others factors beyond Cota’s control contributed to the accident, Bornstein said.
“This was an accident, a chain of errors and lots of people played a role in it,” Bornstein said.
Illston, however, said Cota was hired to guide the ship out of the San Francisco Bay because of his extensive knowledge of the region and should have known where the bridge was located.
“You have a structure that has not moved from its position for many, many years,” she said.
The judge also agreed with prosecutors that Cota made several disastrously poor decisions while piloting the ship. Authorities have said he shouldn’t have departed in extreme fog when pilots of six other large vessels decided not to, failed to have a discussion with the ship’s master to review the transit plan and failed to notify the Coast Guard that the ship’s radar was unreliable.
“I know there is a lot of blame to go around,” Illston said. “But, I think Capt. Cota was right in the middle of it.”
About a dozen family and friends from Cota’s hometown of Petaluma crowded into the courtroom to also urge the judge for a more lenient sentence than the 10 months demanded by federal prosecutors.
Teresa Barrett, Cota’s wife, told the judge that the family has spent more than $500,000 on legal fees and faced even more financial punishment because of several lawsuits pending against Cota from fishermen and others seeking to recover expenses caused by the spill.
“We risk losing the only home our sons have known,” she said before breaking down in tears.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
Jackson ex-wife shows interest in custody of kids
The Michael Jackson custody issue demonstrates all that is wrong with the way in which this eccentric great man, interfaced with the world and the laws that govern it. If his ex-wife asserts a legitimate claim for custody, it will mark new ground, opening issues as to whether a woman who has terminated her parental rights, should still be given the opportunity to assert them, in absence of better alternatives. Then there is the issue of what rights the true biological parents should have, again when there really is no suitable other person with a better claim.
Should a child be raised by the surviving parent, regardless of a prior custody determination when the other parent dies? If a child better off being raised by an elderly grandparent than its true parent? To do so, the law would have to discard the legal fiction imposed at the time of the termination, but isn’t that the only truly equitable decision?
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2009
Date: 7/2/2009 9:43 PM
ANTHONY MCCARTNEY,AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The future of Michael Jackson’s children was thrown into question Thursday when his ex-wife emerged and won a delay in a custody hearing while she decides whether she wants to raise her two offspring.
It was the first legal move from Deborah Rowe since the entertainer’s death. Jackson’s will asks for his mother, Katherine, to get permanent custody of all three of his children.
Rowe, who met Jackson as a receptionist in the office of his dermatologist, has characterized their relationship as strictly for the purpose of birthing Jackson children. She is the mother of his two oldest children and received $8.5 million in their divorce, according to court records. His youngest child was conceived with a surrogate.
She has spent very little time with her son Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; and daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11. But Rowe also has opposed the idea of Katherine Jackson getting custody of her children when it came up in the past.
Rowe’s attorney, Eric M. George, said Thursday she had not decided whether to seek custody.
Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff rescheduled a guardianship hearing for July 13 at the request of attorneys for Rowe and for Katherine Jackson, 79, who has temporary guardianship of her son’s children.
The identity of the surrogate mother of the singer’s youngest child, 7-year-old son Prince Michael II, has never been revealed.
Jackson’s public memorial was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, according to a press release from the office of the Jackson family’s publicist.
Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, which owns the Staples Center and was Jackson’s promoter, said tickets would be free. He was not sure how they would be distributed.
But Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine said the Jackson family should consider delaying the public memorial to allow more time to plan. He also said the cash-strapped city doesn’t have the money to pay police overtime.
“If you can imagine 100,000 people show up and you have 20,000 capacity (at the Staples Center), there is not sufficient room. Now you have a crowd-control problem,” he said. With the July Fourth holiday weekend “it’s the worst time … to work something out.”
Another court hearing will proceed as planned Monday on who will take temporary control of Jackson’s estate. He left all his assets to the Michael Jackson Family Trust.
A person familiar with the details of the trust said it would be shared between his mother, who gets 40 percent, his three children, who together get 40 percent, and charities for children, which would receive 20 percent. The charities will be determined later by the trust.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.
Authorities also were investigating allegations that the 50-year-old Jackson had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office was helping Los Angeles police investigate the possible involvement of prescription drugs in Jackson’s death.
His Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement is searching a state database that tracks doctors who prescribe controlled substances, how much and to whom.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration also has joined the investigation. The Los Angeles Police Department asked the DEA to help, a law enforcement official in Washington told the AP on condition of anonymity because of the investigation’s sensitivity.
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Jackson’s brother Jermaine said he would be “hurt” if toxicology reports showed his younger brother abused prescription drugs.
“In this business, the pressures and things that you go through, you never know what one turns to,” he said.
___
AP writers Michael R. Blood, Beth Harris in Los Angeles; Michele Salcedo in Washington; contributed to this story.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
Should a child be raised by the surviving parent, regardless of a prior custody determination when the other parent dies? If a child better off being raised by an elderly grandparent than its true parent? To do so, the law would have to discard the legal fiction imposed at the time of the termination, but isn’t that the only truly equitable decision?
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
http://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2009
Date: 7/2/2009 9:43 PM
ANTHONY MCCARTNEY,AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The future of Michael Jackson’s children was thrown into question Thursday when his ex-wife emerged and won a delay in a custody hearing while she decides whether she wants to raise her two offspring.
It was the first legal move from Deborah Rowe since the entertainer’s death. Jackson’s will asks for his mother, Katherine, to get permanent custody of all three of his children.
Rowe, who met Jackson as a receptionist in the office of his dermatologist, has characterized their relationship as strictly for the purpose of birthing Jackson children. She is the mother of his two oldest children and received $8.5 million in their divorce, according to court records. His youngest child was conceived with a surrogate.
She has spent very little time with her son Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; and daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11. But Rowe also has opposed the idea of Katherine Jackson getting custody of her children when it came up in the past.
Rowe’s attorney, Eric M. George, said Thursday she had not decided whether to seek custody.
Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff rescheduled a guardianship hearing for July 13 at the request of attorneys for Rowe and for Katherine Jackson, 79, who has temporary guardianship of her son’s children.
The identity of the surrogate mother of the singer’s youngest child, 7-year-old son Prince Michael II, has never been revealed.
Jackson’s public memorial was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, according to a press release from the office of the Jackson family’s publicist.
Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, which owns the Staples Center and was Jackson’s promoter, said tickets would be free. He was not sure how they would be distributed.
But Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine said the Jackson family should consider delaying the public memorial to allow more time to plan. He also said the cash-strapped city doesn’t have the money to pay police overtime.
“If you can imagine 100,000 people show up and you have 20,000 capacity (at the Staples Center), there is not sufficient room. Now you have a crowd-control problem,” he said. With the July Fourth holiday weekend “it’s the worst time … to work something out.”
Another court hearing will proceed as planned Monday on who will take temporary control of Jackson’s estate. He left all his assets to the Michael Jackson Family Trust.
A person familiar with the details of the trust said it would be shared between his mother, who gets 40 percent, his three children, who together get 40 percent, and charities for children, which would receive 20 percent. The charities will be determined later by the trust.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.
Authorities also were investigating allegations that the 50-year-old Jackson had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office was helping Los Angeles police investigate the possible involvement of prescription drugs in Jackson’s death.
His Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement is searching a state database that tracks doctors who prescribe controlled substances, how much and to whom.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration also has joined the investigation. The Los Angeles Police Department asked the DEA to help, a law enforcement official in Washington told the AP on condition of anonymity because of the investigation’s sensitivity.
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Jackson’s brother Jermaine said he would be “hurt” if toxicology reports showed his younger brother abused prescription drugs.
“In this business, the pressures and things that you go through, you never know what one turns to,” he said.
___
AP writers Michael R. Blood, Beth Harris in Los Angeles; Michele Salcedo in Washington; contributed to this story.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
