|
|
|
Court won't revive Clemens lawsuit against trainer
Court Feed News |
2011/06/28 18:10
|
The Supreme Court won't revive baseball star Roger Clemens' lawsuit against his former personal trainer for claiming he injected the pitcher with steroids and human growth hormones. The high court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal from the seven-time Cy Young winner, who has an upcoming perjury trial in Washington. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Clemens' defamation suit against his longtime trainer Brian McNamee, saying a Texas federal court didn't have jurisdiction over Clemens' claims involving statements McNamee made in New York. Clemens wanted that decision overturned, but the high court refused to take up the case. McNamee said in New York he had injected Clemens with steroids and HGH and repeated those allegations during an interview at his New York home to a writer for SI.com. Clemens has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, and testified in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in February 2008 that he never used drugs in his 24-year career. Prosecutors say that was a lie and have charged him with false statements, perjury and obstruction of Congress. The former pitching star's criminal trial is expected to begin on July 6. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US top court upholds $270 million award to smokers
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/06/28 16:10
|
The US Supreme Court rejected an appeal request made by American tobacco companies on Monday in a class-action lawsuit that awarded 500,000 smokers a total of $270 million in damages. Without comment, the highest US court dismissed the appeal of a 2009 Louisiana court decision that ruled the tobacco companies must pay hundreds of millions for programs to help the smokers quit. The tobacco companies contested the lawsuit and argued that the class-action lawsuit brought together a number of disparate and individual complaints that spanned more than 50 years. They said that by allowing the class-action suit, the companies were deprived of their right to investigate the individual plaintiffs and they could not all prove that they had suffered harm. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citigroup ex-VP arrested in NYC on fraud charges
Business Law Info |
2011/06/27 20:18
|
A former Citigroup vice president embezzled $19.2 million from the bank in a one-man "inside job" involving a series of secret money transfers, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Gary Foster, 35, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., surrendered Sunday at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Bangkok. He was released Tuesday on $800,000 bond after appearing in federal court in Brooklyn to face bank fraud charges carrying a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
Foster had been traveling in Southeast Asia when he received word of the case, defense attorney Isabelle Kirshner said after the court appearance.
"As soon as he became aware they were looking for him, he voluntarily contacted the FBI and arranged to return," Kirshner said.
Officials at Citigroup Inc. — where Foster was vice president of the treasury finance department until quitting in January — said in a statement that they were "outraged by the actions of this former employee" and hoped to see him "prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Foster "used his knowledge of bank operations to commit the ultimate inside job," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
According to a criminal complaint, Foster's department financed loans and processed wire transfers within Citigroup. From May 2009 through the end of last year, Foster siphoned funds from various Citigroup accounts, placed them in the bank's cash account and then wired the money into his private account at another bank in New York, the complaint alleged.
In one November 2010 transaction, Foster wired $3.9 million from a Citigroup fund in Baltimore to his New York account, the complaint says. That fraudulent transfer and seven others went undetected until a recent internal audit, it said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
High court to rule on FCC indecency policy
Legal Career News |
2011/06/27 17:18
|
The Supreme Court will take up the First Amendment fight over what broadcasters can put on the airwaves when young children may be watching television.
The justices said Monday they will review appeals court rulings that threw out the Federal Communications Commission's rules against the isolated use of expletives as well as fines against broadcasters who showed a woman's nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue."
The Obama administration objected that the appeals court stripped the FCC of its ability to police the airwaves.
The U.S. television networks argue that the policy is outdated, applying only to broadcast television and leaving unregulated the same content if transmitted on cable TV or over the Internet.
In a landmark 1978 decision, the court upheld the FCC's authority to regulate both radio and television content, at least during the hours when children are likely to be watching or listening. That period includes the prime-time hours before 10 p.m.
The "NYPD Blue" episode led to fines only for stations in the Central and Mountain time zones, where the show aired at 9 p.m., a more child-friendly hour than the show's 10 p.m. time slot in the East.
In the "NYPD Blue" episode, actress Charlotte Ross played a police detective who had recently moved in with another detective. In the scene at issue, Ross disrobes as she prepares to shower. After her buttocks and the side of one of her breasts are briefly shown, the camera pans down and reveals her nude buttocks while she faces the shower.
Then the other detective's young son enters the bathroom and sees the naked woman. Embarrassment ensues as the child retreats from the room. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
High court strikes down Ariz. campaign finance law
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/06/27 17:17
|
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a provision of a campaign financing system in Arizona that gives extra cash to publicly funded candidates who face privately funded rivals and independent groups.
The 5-4 ruling is the latest in a series of decisions by the court's conservative majority upending campaign finance laws.
The Arizona law was passed in the wake of a public corruption scandal and was intended to reward candidates who forgo raising campaign cash, even in the face of opponents' heavy spending fueled by private money.
The court said the law violates the First Amendment.
"Laws like Arizona's matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand," Chief Justice John Roberts said in the court's majority opinion.
At least four other states, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have similar "trigger" provisions that affect some political races, and could be vulnerable.
Justice Elena Kagan read her dissent aloud in court Monday, saying the law was a reasonable response to political scandal. She said that by providing candidates with additional money, the law actually provided for more, not less, political speech.
Arizonans "passed a law designed to sever political candidates' dependence on large contributors," Kagan said. "It put into effect a public financing system that attracted large numbers of candidates at a sustainable cost to the state's taxpayers."
This case follows other recent rulings striking down campaign finance laws. Among those were last year's Citizens United decision that removed most limits on election spending by corporations and organized labor, and a 2008 decision that voided the federal "millionaire's amendment" to increase contribution limits for congressional candidates facing wealthy opponents. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court to review warrantless GPS tracking
Court Feed News |
2011/06/27 16:17
|
The Supreme Court will weigh in on an important privacy issue for the digital age: whether the police need a warrant before using a global positioning system device to track a suspect's movements.
The justices said Monday they will hear the Obama administration's appeal of a court ruling that favored a criminal defendant. The federal appeals court in Washington overturned a criminal conviction because the police had no warrant for the GPS device they secretly installed on a man's car.
Other appeals courts have ruled that search warrants aren't necessary for GPS tracking.
The Justice Department argued that warrantless use of GPS devices does not violate the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. It also said prompt resolution of the divergent court opinions is critically important to law enforcement.
A three-judge panel of Democratic and Republican appointees unanimously threw out the conviction and life sentence of Antoine Jones of Washington, D.C., a nightclub owner convicted of operating a cocaine distribution ring.
Police put the GPS device on Jones' Jeep and tracked his movements for a month. The judges said the prolonged surveillance was a factor in their decision. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recent Lawyer News Updates |
|
|
Lawyer News RSS
