{"id":2914,"date":"2024-10-07T14:52:14","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-abuse-convictions\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T14:52:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:52:14","slug":"supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-abuse-convictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-abuse-convictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Rejects Challenge To Abuse Convictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThe U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from R. Kelly over his 2022 convictions on child pornography and enticement charges, leaving him with no further direct appeals from a verdict that saw him sentenced to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\n\tKelly\u2019s attorneys had urged the high court to take up the case, in which a federal jury in Chicago convicted him in September 2022, by arguing that the case should have been barred by the statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in an order Monday, the justices declined to tackle the case. As is typical, the court did not explain its decision to reject Kelly\u2019s case along with dozens of others. The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions per year and only decides to hear a tiny fraction them.<\/p>\n

\n\tMonday\u2019s order dealt only one of Kelly\u2019s two sets of sex abuse convictions. The other \u2014 a September 2021 guilty verdict on racketeering charges brought by prosecutors in New York that resulted in a 30-year prison sentence \u2014 is still pending on appeal before a lower appellate court.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the current case, a different team of federal prosecutors from Chicago accused Kelly of violating child pornography laws, enticing minors for sex and obstructing justice by upending a 2008 criminal trial.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough he was acquitted on certain counts, Kelly was convicted in September 2022 and later sentenced to 20 years in prison; the vast majority of that sentence will be served concurrently with the New York sentence. The conviction was affirmed by a lower appeals court earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn asking the justices to consider overturning that ruling, Kelly\u2019s attorney Jennifer Bonjean cited the statute of limitations. She said that an updated federal law extending the time limit, passed in 2003, could not be applied retroactively to Kelly\u2019s alleged crimes, which occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRetroactive application of the 2003 amendment not only fly in the face of congressional intent,\u201d Bonjean writes. \u201cIt violates notions of fundamental fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBarring an unusual outcome at some point in the future, Monday\u2019s decision effectively finalized Kelly\u2019s convictions and sentencing in the Chicago case. The separate convictions in the New York case could still be overturned, however, either by the lower appeals court or by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\n\tKelly\u2019s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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