Dismissal

J. Christian Adams is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and is author of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department Most who have seen the video of the New Black Panthers standing in front of a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 have well-settled opinions about the matter. However, with the presidential election next year, and with the injunction that barred the baton-wielding King Samir Shabazz from appearing at city polling places set to expire, it's worth considering some facts you might not have heard before.

At 6-foot-9 and 260 pounds, Shawn Oakman had the size to compete for a spot at defensive end once Penn State began spring football drills on March 26. Instead, the former two-sport star at Penn Wood High School will not be participating, having been dismissed from the team "due to a violation of team rules," according to a brief statement released Tuesday night by the athletic department. Jeff Nelson, a department spokesman, said Wednesday he had no further information other than the fact that Oakman was enrolled in school at the time of the statement.

The Philadelphia School District has recommended that George E. Wiggins, driver of the school bus that overturned and injured 41 children last week, be fired. Wiggins, 50, has worked for the school district since 1980, continuing to drive a bus despite two driver's license suspensions and at least three prior school bus accidents. The recommendation to fire Wiggins came on the heels of police findings that he was speeding at the time of last Thursday's accident. The bus, which had just turned off Roosevelt Boulevard onto Holme Avenue, was going 60 m.p.h.

The future for a Hatboro police officer ousted last summer for events that included a scuffle with a businessman and a drunken-driving arrest will be decided shortly. Within the next few weeks, Montgomery County Court Judge William T. Nicholas is expected to rule on an appeal of Hatboro Borough Council to have the Robert Ottey Jr. permanently removed from the force. Nicholas heard arguments during a Tuesday hearing on the council's appeal of the police civil service commission's November decision to reinstate the officer after a 60-day suspension.

An administrative law judge will hear the case of Monroe Township schoolteacher Robert P. Valenti, who has been suspended for the last three months after his March 11 arrest on a marijuana charge. "The board has decided to certify the charges against Mr. Valenti to the commissioner of education," said school board solicitor Walter L. Marshall Jr. during the public portion of the June 20 school board meeting. Before the announcement, the board met in private for 45 minutes with Valenti and his attorney, Mary Crangle of Haddonfield.

A state Superior Court judge yesterday let stand a lower court's controversial dismissal of drunken-driving charges against state Senate President Pro Tem Richard S. Cordrey. Judge John E. Babiarz Jr. denied the state's appeal of the dismissal, ruling that the state had gone about its appeal improperly. The decision of whether to appeal Babiarz's ruling to the state Supreme Court is "under review," said state prosecutor Eugene M. Hall. Cordrey, a Millsboro Democrat, was arrested June 9 while driving near his home and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

Receiving less than a prominent news position on Jan. 7 was an article from the Washington Post news service about the firing of the postmaster general for ineffective management after one year on the job. To me, the big story is that a governmental board not only recognized a poor performance but took action on it. Too bad, by many billions, that this same Board of Governors could not have been in the Pentagon during the ill- fated development of...

The University of Arkansas' top executive upheld the dismissal of basketball coach Nolan Richardson, saying yesterday he concurred in a campus chancellor's decision to fire the basketball coach. President B. Alan Sugg said he reviewed 80 pages of material submitted by Richardson and interviewed a number of people while doing his own research. In the end, he agreed the coach should be replaced. "Based on my review, I am firmly convinced that the termination of your employment agreement by [Chancellor]

An instructor for the state Human Relations Commission has contradicted testimony given last week during a hearing on a former Cheltenham Township police officer's claim that his dismissal from the force was racially motivated. Newtown, Bucks County, Police Chief Martin Duffy labeled as untrue testimony by a Cheltenham police sergeant that former police officer Rick Booker, who is black, had fallen asleep during a seminar in June on race relations. Booker, 35, is seeking reinstatement to the police force.

After calling nearly 50 witnesses and presenting close to 1,900 documents over eight weeks, prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the landmark trial involving child sexabuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests. The team of district attorneys ended by letting jurors handle what they contend is the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case: a tattered gray folder that had been hidden away in a locked safe at archdiocesan offices for more than a decade. Inside were handwritten and typed records, including a list that Msgr.

Johnson & Johnson's courtroom fights over Risperdal resume in Philadelphia on Wednesday, when Commonwealth Court judges are scheduled to hear an appeal of decisions to dismiss Pennsylvania's 2008 lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently profited from sales of the antipsychotic drug through the Medicaid program. While Pennsylvania's case did go to trial in Philadelphia, it did not get far. In 2010, a Philadelphia judge threw out the lawsuit, which sought to show that J&J had tricked the state into paying millions more for the drug than it should have.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A federal judge refused to throw out campaign corruption charges against John Edwards on Friday, meaning the former presidential candidate will have to present his case to a jury. Lawyers for Edwards argued before U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Eagles that prosecutors failed to prove their client intentionally violated the law or that some of the alleged offenses occurred in the Middle District of North Carolina, the venue where he was indicted. After 21/2 hours of arguments from the defense and rebuttal from the prosecution, the judge ruled quickly from the bench that the government had met its basic burden under the law. "We will let the jury decide," Eagles said.

A Gloucester County doctor who shot and killed his former colleague at Virtua before committing suicide Wednesday apparently believed his target was behind his alleged dismissal from the hospital's medical residency program. Authorities said Giocondo "Joe" Navek, 39, shot Payman Houshmandpour, 32, a resident at Virtua, multiple times at 7:30 a.m. as the victim prepared to leave for work from his home at The Club at Main Street in Voorhees. Houshmandpour had just said goodbye to his wife and their 20-month-old infant and was pulling his silver Audi out of a parking space when Navek approached him. Navek, a former Virtua resident, fired through Houshmandpour's car window and was driving away in a silver Nissan when police stopped him about a mile away on Centennial Boulevard, authorities said.

BELLEFONTE - Former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's lawyer said after a short pretrial hearing Thursday that he expected the presiding judge to soon dismiss defense motions to have the child sexual abuse charges thrown out, but he hoped he would allow them to be refiled after more evidence is disclosed by prosecutors. During a 20-minute hearing attended by the retired defensive coordinator and his wife, Sandusky defense attorney Joe Amendola withdrew his attempt to prevent the Attorney General's Office from using at trial secretly recorded conversations between Sandusky and two of the 10 boys he is accused of sexually abusing.

Syracuse proved too much as the Orange ran over Temple, 82-68, Thursday night in McGonigle Hall, bouncing the Owls from a third-round WNIT game. The Owls (23-10) scored a season-high nine three-pointers, but Syracuse's Kayla Alexander had her way under the basket, finishing with a game-high 29 points. She also grabbed 10 rebounds. Shey Peddy scored 20 points and had four three-pointers in her final game for the Owls, and Kristen McCarthy ended her career with a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Jerry Sandusky's attorney asked a judge on Thursday to dismiss all 52 sex-abuse counts against the former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach, saying they were too vague, too flimsy, or happened too long ago to be adequately defended in court. In a catchall pretrial motion, Joseph Amendola argued that charges involving at least eight of the 10 boys his client is accused of molesting fell outside the statute of limitations and that others could not be sufficiently substantiated by witnesses.

TRENTON - Gov. Christie insisted Tuesday that he expects action by July 1 on merging Rutgers-Camden into Rowan University, brushing aside objections to the plan one more time, like a weary parent deflecting familiar complaints from his children. "They're going to merge," he said, sounding almost bored, at a news conference in Hamilton Township. "That's what's best for the higher education system in New Jersey. " While Rutgers-Camden students don their red shirts and march outside the State House, and faculty line up at legislative hearings to say they'll leave if asked to merge with Rowan University in Glassboro, Christie's response never wavers.