Philippine court convicts 9 Chinese of poaching
US Legal News
A Philippine court convicted nine Chinese fishermen Monday of poaching and taking hundreds of endangered giant sea turtles from a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, fining each of them nearly $103,000 but imposing no jail term.
The fishermen were arrested in May at Half Moon Shoal and their boat and catch of 555 endangered sea turtles were seized. The arrests sparked another spat between the Asian neighbors in the increasingly volatile South China Sea.
Judge Ambrosio de Luna of the regional trial court in western Palawan province found them guilty of violating the country's fisheries code, ordering them to pay a fine of $100,000 each for poaching in Philippine waters plus 120,000 pesos ($2,666) each for taking wildlife, said Attorney Hazel Alaska, the clerk of court.
Alaska said de Luna could have imposed a jail term of up to 20 years for the taking of threatened or endangered species but decided to impose only a fine. In case the fishermen fail to pay the fine, they will have to serve a maximum of six months in jail for each of the two cases, or a total of one year.
Once the fines are settled, the fishermen will be released from the provincial jail, she said. But if they fail to pay the fine, the time spent in detention since their arrest May 6 can be counted and they can be released by next May.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.