Judge Richard Holwell in Manhattan concluded in a decision released Tuesday that Congress did not intend for a federal court to hear a dispute over the mortgage lender's promise to buy back modified loans from investors. He returned the case to state court.

Holwell wrote that it was tempting to find federal jurisdiction every time a multibillion dollar case with national implications arrives at the court's doorstep. But he said the decision is ultimately left up to Congress.

Holders of mortgage-backed securities sued Countrywide in December. Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman for Bank of America Corp., Countrywide's parent company, said the company will appeal the decision.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law amounted to unconstitutional meddling in U.S. foreign policy.

It based its 2-1 ruling on a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down another California law designed to help Holocaust survivors collect on Nazi-era insurance policies.

The federal government does not recognize the mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, but the California Legislature did in 2000 when it enacted the disputed law.

About half of the people of Armenian descent living in this country reside in California.

Lawyer Brian Kabateck, who represents Armenian-American heirs, plans to appeal.

"The ruling is wrong. It's a disaster," Kabateck said. "The one million Armenians that live in California today have been told by the court that even the use of the word 'genocide' by a government is illegal."

Prosecutors have charged the 20-year-old man accused of attacking Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett Saturday night with first-degree reckless injury, theft, disorderly conduct and bail jumping.


According to the criminal complaint, Barrett and his family members were walking on West Orchard Street from the State Fair to their car when they encountered Anthony Peters trying to get his 1-year-old daughter from her grandmother.

The grandmother was screaming for someone to call 911.

The mayor went to call 911 and when he did, Peters became "irate and charged" Barrett, demanding he hang up the phone.

According to Barrett's niece, Moira Flood, Peters then approached the mayor, swatted the phone from his hand and punched him twice in the face and once in the stomach. Barrett punched Peters in the face.

According to the complaint, Peters then pulled out a club or a baton out of his pocket and continued to threaten to kill Barrett and then struck him in the face and head with the club. After Barrett fell to the ground, Peters continued to hit him with the club. Flood told police Peters struck Barrett about six times while he was on the ground.

Flood then called 911 and Peters ran, according to the complaint.

Peters is currently in the Milwaukee County Jail. A public defender was appointed to his case Thursday morning.

The suit, which was filed in Illinois, claims Wells Fargo failed to accurately assess the value of customers' houses before deciding to cut the size of their credit lines. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is being accused of using unreliable computer models that wrongly valued home prices too low to justify cutting the size of customers' loans.

Home equity lines of credit are similar to credit cards in that a customer has a credit limit and can continue to borrow money until the limit is reached. Once a portion is paid off, it again becomes accessible to borrow. But, home equity lines of credit are backed by a borrower's property, whereas credit cares are unsecured.

Michael Hickman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and is seeking class action status for it, claims Wells Fargo also did not provide proper notice that the bank was reducing the size of the credit lines.

The bank's notice for reducing the lines also did not specifically provide a new estimated value for the property or the method used to determine the houses value. Hickman's lawsuit said that information was needed so a customer could challenge the change in the credit limit and try and reinstate the previous limit.

Hickman is being represented by KamberEdelson LLC, a Chicago-based law firm, which is also representing clients that have filed similar suits against JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc.

Nearly all banks have been hit hard by mounting loan losses tied to residential real estate over the past two years. Reducing lines of credit can limit exposure to the struggling sector.

Judge Sharon Keller is telling her side of the story for the first time nearly two years after Michael Wayne Richard was executed.

She'll continue testifying Wednesday. She was first called Tuesday to answer questions about refusing to keep the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals open past 5 p.m. when Richard's lawyers asked for more time to file their rushed appeal on Sept. 25, 2007.

Keller says the move wasn't a ruling on the merits of the request.

She says she received a call shortly before court closed about an appeal running late and that she knew it concerned the execution but that no explanation was given.

Prosecutors say 64-year-old Harold Goldstein got the maximum sentence Monday for violating the terms of his supervised release.

Goldstein was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in 2003 for using the name of a Northern California attorney to represent clients in court. He was also convicted of mail fraud for sending solicitation letters to inmates.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek says Goldstein again started claiming he was a lawyer only days after he was released on May 1.