Colombian ex-President Álvaro Uribe is sentenced to 12 years house arrest for bribery
The sentence, which Uribe said will be appealed, followed a nearly six-month trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he attempted to influence witnesses who accused the law-and-order leader of having links to a paramilitary group in the 1990s.
'Politics prevailed over the law in sentencing,' Uribe said after Friday's hearing.
Uribe, 73, has denied any wrongdoing. He faced up to 12 years in prison after being convicted Monday.
His attorney had asked the court to allow Uribe to remain free while he appeals the verdict. Judge Sandra Heredia on Friday said she did not grant the defense's request because it would be 'easy' for the former president to leave the country to 'evade the imposed sanction.'
Heredia also banned Uribe from holding public office for eight years and fined him about $776,000.
Ahead of Friday's sentencing, Uribe posted on X that he was preparing arguments to support his appeal. He added that one must 'think much more about the solution than the problem' during personal crises.
The appeals court will have until early October to issue a ruling, which either party could then challenge before Colombia's Supreme Court.
The former president governed from 2002 to 2010 with strong support from the United States. He is a polarizing figure in Colombia, where many credit him for saving the country from becoming a failed state, while others associate him with human rights violations and the rise of paramilitary groups in the 1990s.
Heredia on Monday said she had seen enough evidence to determine that Uribe conspired with a lawyer to coax three former paramilitary group members, who were in prison, into changing testimony they had provided to Ivan Cepeda, a leftist senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe's alleged ties to a paramilitary group.
Uribe in 2012 filed a libel suit against Cepeda in the Supreme Court. But in a twist, the high court in 2018 dismissed the accusations against Cepeda and began investigating Uribe.
Martha Peñuela Rosales, a supporter of Uribe's party in the capital, Bogota, said she wept and prayed after hearing of the sentence. 'It's an unjust sentence. He deserves to be free,' she said.
Meanwhile, Sergio Andrés Parra, who protested against Uribe outside the courthouse, said the 12-year sentence 'is enough' and, even if the former president appeals, 'history has already condemned him.'
peace talks that led to the disarmament of more than 13,000 fighters in 2016.
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Vox
a minute ago
- Vox
The Supreme Court just revealed its plan to make gerrymandering even worse
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. One of the biggest mysteries that has emerged from the Trump-era Supreme Court is the 2023 decision in Allen v. Milligan. In Milligan, two of the Republican justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh — voted with the Court's Democratic minority to strike down Alabama's racially gerrymandered congressional maps, ordering the state to redraw those maps to include an additional district with a Black majority. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. As Roberts emphasized in his opinion for the Court in Milligan, a lower court that also struck down these maps 'faithfully applied our precedents.' But the Roberts Court frequently overrules or ignores precedents that interpret the Voting Rights Act — the federal law at issue in Milligan — to do more than block the most egregious forms of Jim Crow-like voter suppression. And the Court's Republican majority is normally hostile to lawsuits challenging gerrymanders of any kind. Most notably, in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the Republican justices held that federal courts may not hear suits challenging partisan gerrymanders. Among other things, Rucho enables tactics like Texas Republicans' current plans to redraw that state's congressional maps to maximize GOP power in Congress. So why did two Republican justices break with their previous skepticism of gerrymandering suits in the Milligan case? A new order that the Supreme Court handed down Friday evening appears to answer that question. The new order, in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais, suggests that the Court's decision in Milligan was merely a minor detour, and that Roberts and Kavanaugh's votes in Milligan were largely driven by unwise legal decisions by Alabama's lawyers. The legal issues in the Callais case are virtually identical to the ones presented in Milligan, but the Court's new order indicates it is likely to use Callais to strike down the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against gerrymandering altogether. The Callais order, in other words, doesn't simply suggest that Milligan was a one-off decision that is unlikely to be repeated. It also suggests that the Court's Republican majority will resume its laissez-faire approach to gerrymandering, just as the redistricting wars appear to be heating up. A brief history of the Supreme Court's approach to gerrymandering Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of lawsuits alleging that a legislative map is illegally gerrymandered. Partisan gerrymandering suits claim that a map was drawn to maximize one major political party's power at the expense of the other. Racial gerrymandering suits, meanwhile, allege that a state's legislative maps improperly dilute the voting power of voters of a particular race. Prior to Rucho, the Court imposed minimal — but not entirely nonexistent — limits on partisan gerrymandering. It has historically been more aggressive in policing racial gerrymanders. The Supreme Court held in Davis v. Bandemer (1986) that federal courts may hear claims alleging that a state's maps are so egregiously partisan that they amount to unconstitutional discrimination. The idea is that maps that intentionally inflate Democratic voters' power, while minimizing Republican voters' power (or vice-versa) violate the Constitution's guarantee that all voters should have an equal say in elections. Notably, however, no five justices agreed to a single legal standard that would allow courts to determine which maps are illegal partisan gerrymanders in Davis. Nor did a majority of the Court set such a standard in later lawsuits challenging partisan gerrymanders. In Rucho, the Republican justices essentially announced that the Court would give up its quest to find such a standard. A few years later, in Alexander v. NAACP (2024), those justices went even further, declaring that 'as far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, a legislature may pursue partisan ends when it engages in redistricting.' Though Davis's limits on partisan gerrymandering were always fuzzy, it is likely that this ambiguity deterred at least some states from enacting extreme gerrymanders that might have caused the courts to intervene. At the very least, Rucho changed how states litigate gerrymandering suits. Before Rucho, states accused of gerrymandering would often try to offer another explanation for why their maps benefited one party or the other. Now, they will openly state in their briefs that they drew maps for partisan reasons — confident that federal judges will do nothing, despite these confessions. Historically, however, the Court has imposed more concrete limits on racial gerrymanders. In Milligan, for example, the Court struck down Alabama congressional maps that would have given Black voters a majority in just one of the state's seven districts (or 14 percent of the districts), despite the fact that Black people make up about 27 percent of the state's population. The Court ordered the state to draw new maps with two Black-majority districts. The linchpin of Milligan and similar cases is the Court's decision in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), which laid out the rules governing when an alleged racial gerrymander violates the Voting Rights Act (which broadly prohibits race discrimination in elections). The framework laid out in Gingles is notoriously complicated, but it turns on whether voters in a particular state vote in racially cohesive blocs. Thus, for example, in a state where the white majority supports Republicans nearly all of the time, while the Black minority supports Democrats nearly all of the time, Gingles sometimes requires courts to redraw the state's maps to ensure that the Black minority is adequately represented. This is because, in such a state, the white majority can wield its near-unanimous support for Republicans to cut Black voters (and Democrats) out of power altogether. In a different state, where both Black and white voters sometimes vote for either party, Gingles tells courts to stay out of redistricting. Black voters, after all, are United States citizens who have as much of a right to choose their leaders as anyone else. So, if they choose to be represented by a white Republican in a free and fair election, that's their choice and the courts should honor it. Because Gingles only kicks in when an electorate's racial demographics closely match its partisan voting patterns, it places some practical limits on both partisan and racial gerrymandering. In Milligan, for example, Alabama was not able to draw maps that maximized Republican voting power because doing so required the state to dilute Black voting power. So, even though Rucho prevents lawsuits that challenge partisan gerrymandering directly, Gingles sometimes allows suits which target it indirectly by alleging that a partisan gerrymander is also an impermissible racial gerrymander. But now the Court is signaling that it is likely to overrule Gingles and abolish suits alleging that racial gerrymanders violate the Voting Rights Act altogether. So what's the deal with the Court's new order in Callais? The Callais case is virtually identical to Milligan — indeed, the cases are so similar that Louisiana said in a brief to the justices that Callais 'presents the same question' as the Alabama redistricting case. Before the Callais case reached the justices, a lower court determined that Louisiana's congressional maps violate Gingles, and ordered the state to draw an additional Black-majority district. Nevertheless, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Callais last March, all six of the Republican justices appeared to disagree with this lower court's decision — although the lower court's decision merely applied the same legal rules that the Supreme Court applied two years earlier in Milligan. Then, at the end of June, the Court issued a brief order announcing that it would hold an unusual second oral argument in Callais, and that it would seek additional briefing from the parties in this case. On Friday, the Court issued a new order laying out what these parties should address in those briefs. Those briefs should examine whether the lower court order requiring Louisiana to draw an additional Black-majority district 'violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.' The justices, in other words, want briefing on whether Gingles — and the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against racial gerrymandering more broadly — are unconstitutional. This suggestion that the Voting Rights Act may be unconstitutional — or, at least, that it violates the Republican justices' vision of the Constitution — should not surprise anyone who has followed the Court's voting rights cases. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Republican justices neutralized a different provision of the Voting Rights Act, which required states with a history of racist election practices to 'preclear' new election laws with federal officials before they take effect. The Court's Republican majority labeled this provision 'strong medicine' that could be justified to combat the kind of widespread racial voting discrimination that existed during Jim Crow. But they argued that the United States was not racist enough in 2013 to justify letting preclearance remain in place. 'There is no denying,' Roberts wrote for the Court in Shelby County, 'that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.' Although Kavanaugh joined nearly all of the majority opinion in Milligan, he also wrote a separate opinion indicating that he wanted to extend Shelby County to gerrymandering cases in a future ruling. 'Even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting under [the Voting Rights Act] for some period of time,' Kavanaugh wrote, 'the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.' Gingles also suggests that Voting Rights Act suits challenging racial gerrymanders should eventually cease to exist. If the electorate ceases to be racially polarized — something that appears to be slowly happening — then Gingles plaintiffs will no longer be able to win cases, and the federal judiciary's role in redistricting will diminish. But Kavanaugh seems to be impatient to end these suits while many states remain racially polarized. Read in the context of Kavanaugh's Milligan opinion, in other words, the new Callais order suggests that a majority of the justices have decided the Voting Rights Act's safeguards against racial gerrymandering have reached their expiration date, and they are looking for arguments to justify striking them down. It now looks like Milligan was Gingles's last gasp. The Republican justices remain hostile both to the Voting Rights Act and toward gerrymandering suits more broadly. And they appear very likely to use Callais to remove one of the few remaining safeguards against gerrymanders.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Redistricting battles in Texas and elsewhere: Will courts play a role?: ANALYSIS
As Democrats search for ways to delay, if not defeat, Republican efforts to redraw election maps for political gain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, they say, they may not find much help from federal courts. A landmark 2019 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court -- Rucho v. Common Cause -- removed federal judges almost entirely from the business of mediating disputes over partisan gerrymandering. "Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust. But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. The ruling effectively shut the courthouse door on legal challenges to creatively-drawn electoral maps that dilute the influence of certain voters based on party affiliation. MORE: How redistricting in Texas and other states could change the game for US House elections "Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions," Roberts concluded in the opinion. Race, however, is a different matter -- and one that the Supreme Court has recognized a limited role for judges in examining under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 2 of the Act prohibits the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race, which has historically been interpreted to include the drawing of congressional districts that "crack" or "pack" communities of color in order to limit their influence. As recently as 2023, the high court said lower courts could intervene in "instances of intensive racial politics where the excessive role [of race] in the electoral process ... den[ies] minority voters equal opportunity to participate." MORE: Abbott threatens to oust Democrats who fled Texas over redistricting Some Democrats have begun alleging that the Texas GOP effort (and those in other states) is racially motivated. "They're coming in and cracking up parts of Austin voters and then merging my district with [Democratic] Congressman [Lloyd] Doggett's district, all with the intended effect of making it so that voters of color have less of a say in their elections, and so that Donald Trump gets his preferred member of Congress," Texas Democratic Rep. Greg Casar told ABC's Selina Wang on Sunday. Former Obama attorney general turned voting rights advocate Eric Holder told ABC News "This Week" co-anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday he is contemplating the possibility of new litigation under the Voting Rights Act. "This really exacerbates that which they've already done and strengthens the case that we have brought," Holder said of Texas' Republicans' redistricting efforts. A race-based challenge to any new Texas congressional map would get through the courthouse door, but it could ultimately face a skeptical Supreme Court, which has increasingly looked to eliminate any racial considerations under the Constitution. The justices are already considering a case from Louisiana involving the competing interests of the Equal Protection Clause and Voting Rights Act when it comes to race. Plaintiffs allege race was impermissibly used to create a discriminatory districts under Section 2; opponents argue that requiring a creation of new map that explicitly accounts for race is itself a violation of colorblind equal protection. When the court hears arguments this fall, there are signs several of the justices could seek to have Section 2 strictly limited or struck down entirely. "For over three decades, I have called for a systematic reassessment of our interpretation of §2," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in June. "I am hopeful that this Court will soon realize that the conflict its §2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore." Ultimately, despite widespread public complaints about gerrymandering and the challenges it creates, the most likely and lasting solution may lie in legislatures and Congress. "The avenue for reform established by the Framers, and used by Congress in the past, remains open," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in Rucho. Proposals for fair districting criteria and independent commissions have circulated in statehouses and Congress for years. On Monday, one Republican lawmaker — Rep. Kevin Kiley of California — introduced a bill to ban mid-decade redrawing of congressional maps nationwide. Such a proposal could halt the state redistricting "arms race" now underway if it was adopted, though that looks highly unlikely.
Newsweek
31 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Can Greg Abbott Kick Out Fleeing Democrats? Experts Weigh In
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned on Sunday that Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to break quorum during a special legislative session could be removed from office for abandoning their duties. Abbott cited a 2021 opinion by Attorney General Ken Paxton as justification, asserting that it allows him to declare vacancies and replace absent members. However, a detailed review of Texas law and the attorney general's opinion indicates the governor lacks unilateral authority to take such action. Why It Matters Abbott's threat highlights a broader clash over executive power, legislative independence and due process in Texas politics. While Abbott cites Paxton's 2021 opinion to justify potential removals, the opinion indicates that only courts—not the governor—can determine whether a legislator has abandoned office. If a governor could unilaterally remove legislators for breaking quorum, it would drastically expand executive power and potentially override voters' choices. Texas House members during a hearing at the state Capitol in Austin on July 10, 2021. Texas House members during a hearing at the state Capitol in Austin on July 10, 2021. Tamir Kalifa/Getty What To Know Who Is Greg Abbott? Abbott has served as Texas' governor since January 20, 2015. A former lawyer and Texas Supreme Court Justice (1996-2001), he served as attorney general from 2002 to 2015. A Republican since his state Supreme Court appointment by Governor George W. Bush, Abbott is known for his conservative positions on immigration, gun rights and limiting federal oversight. Who Is Ken Paxton? Ken Paxton, a former state legislator, has been Texas' attorney general since 2015. As the state's top legal officer, he issues advisory opinions like his 2021 KP-0382 and represents Texas in court. In 2023, Paxton faced an impeachment attempt in the Texas House over allegations of corruption, abuse of office and bribery tied to his relationship with a political donor. The Texas Senate held a trial in September 2023 and acquitted him on all counts, allowing him to remain in office. Quorum Breaks Explained A quorum break occurs when enough lawmakers leave a legislative session to prevent official business. Legislative bodies like the Texas House require a minimum number of members present to pass laws—two-thirds in this case. In Texas, a quorum is the minimum number of legislators required for the House (100 of 150 members) or Senate (21 of 31 members) to conduct business. If enough members leave, they can deny a quorum and halt legislative proceedings. The tactic, which is used by Democrats and Republicans, is legal but controversial. What the Paxton Opinion Says Attorney General Opinion KP-0382 was issued during a 2021 quorum standoff. It addressed whether lawmakers could break quorum and whether such actions create a vacancy. The opinion concluded: A vacancy may occur if an official "abandons" office. Determining abandonment is a fact-specific question for a court. A quo warranto action (a legal proceeding used to challenge whether a person has the legal right to hold a public office) must be filed by the attorney general or a district attorney for a court to decide if a legislator forfeited office. The opinion did not rule breaking quorum unconstitutional, nor did it grant the governor power to declare vacancies unilaterally. Historical Context Texas governors have used legal and procedural tools to compel lawmakers back to the chamber but have never removed members for breaking quorum. 1870: Thirteen Texas senators left the Capitol to block a wartime powers bill, denying a quorum. They were arrested, and the bill later passed, establishing quorum-breaking as a tactic in Texas politics. Thirteen Texas senators left the Capitol to block a wartime powers bill, denying a quorum. They were arrested, and the bill later passed, establishing quorum-breaking as a tactic in Texas politics. 1979: Twelve Democratic state senators nicknamed the "Killer Bees" hid for four and a half days to block a vote on presidential primary election rules. Twelve Democratic state senators nicknamed the "Killer Bees" hid for four and a half days to block a vote on presidential primary election rules. 2003: More than 50 Democrats fled to Oklahoma to delay a Republican-backed redistricting plan. The plan ultimately passed after lawmakers returned. More than 50 Democrats fled to Oklahoma to delay a Republican-backed redistricting plan. The plan ultimately passed after lawmakers returned. 2021: More than 50 Democrats went to Washington to protest voting restrictions. Arrests were authorized to compel attendance, and the bill passed after members returned. What People Are Saying Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a former California lawmaker, told Newsweek on Monday: "The governor has threatened to declare a vacancy, which he can do. This does not require any sort of judicial Article IV, Section 10 of the Texas governor can declare vacancies. "I really think that eventually there will be members that come are members that cannot withstand the financial potentially criminal action, because if it's found out that you took money from somebody in exchange for breaking illegal. "What happened the last time [2021]...the average Texan simply looks at this and says, you're not doing your job. And what ends up happening is the public begins to turn against them." Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told the Texas Tribune: "It's a messaging a last resort for Democrats who have run out of options legislatively and even legally." Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University: "If we're going to follow our current primary schedule, we do need to have these districts approved by the Legislature before the opening of filing [for the 2026 midterms] in November." The Texas House Democratic Caucus, in a four-word statement in response to Abbott's threats: "Come and take it." Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, during a press conference on Sunday: "We're going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them." What Happens Next Abbott ordered Democratic lawmakers to return when the House reconvenes on August 4. While he has threatened to declare their seats vacant, any attempt would almost certainly lead to a court challenge. With no precedent for removal in Texas history, the standoff could prolong legislative gridlock, prompt additional special sessions and potentially set new legal precedent on gubernatorial authority (the legal powers and responsibilities granted to a state governor under a state's constitution and laws) and quorum-breaking tactics.
