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High court won't hear appeal on mortgage ratings
Headline Topics |
2015/11/03 08:52
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The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from shareholders who claim the Standard & Poor's ratings firm made false statements about its ratings of risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the financial crisis.
The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that threw out a lawsuit filed by the Boca Raton Firefighters & Police Pension Fund against S&P's parent company, McGraw-Hill.
A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that statements about the integrity and credibility of S&P's credit ratings used routine, generic language that did not mislead investors.
The shareholders argued that false statements regarding a central aspect of the company's business were enough to violate federal securities laws.
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Supreme Court troubled by DA's rejection of black jurors
Network News |
2015/11/03 08:49
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The Supreme Court signaled support Monday for a black death row inmate in Georgia who claims prosecutors improperly kept African-Americans off the jury that convicted him of killing a white woman.
Justice Stephen Breyer likened the chief prosecutor to his excuse-filled grandson. Justice Elena Kagan said the case seemed as clear a violation "as a court is ever going to see" of rules the Supreme Court laid out in 1986 to prevent racial discrimination in the selection of juries.
At least six of the nine justices indicated during arguments that black people were improperly singled out and kept off the jury that eventually sentenced defendant Timothy Tyrone Foster to death in 1987.
Foster could win a new trial if the Supreme Court rules his way. The discussion Monday also suggested that a technical issue might prevent the justices from deciding the substance of Foster's case.
Georgia Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton had little support on the court for the proposition that prosecutor Stephen Lanier advanced plausible "race-neutral" reasons that resulted in an all-white jury for Foster's trial. Foster was convicted of killing 79-year-old Queen Madge White in her home in Rome, Georgia.
Several justices noted that Lanier's reasons for excusing people from the jury changed over time, including the arrest of the cousin of one black juror. The record in the case indicates that Lanier learned of the arrest only after the jury had been seated. "That seems an out and out false statement," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
Breyer drew an analogy with a grandson who was looking for any reason not to do his homework, none of them especially convincing.
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Woman charged in slayings of Connecticut couple due in court
Headline Topics |
2015/11/02 08:53
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A Connecticut woman accused of conspiring with her boyfriend to kill his parents when they were considering cutting him out of their will is scheduled to make her first court appearance.
Jennifer Valiante of Westport is expected to be arraigned Monday in Bridgeport Superior Court on charges including conspiracy to commit murder and hindering prosecution. It's not clear if she has a lawyer.
Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Kyle Navin of Bridgeport, is facing murder charges in the slayings of his parents, Jeanette and Jeffrey Navin of Easton. His arraignment hasn't been set. His lawyer declined to comment.
The Navins disappeared Aug. 4 and their bodies were found Thursday in Weston.
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German court: former SS Auschwitz guard fit for trial
Topics |
2015/11/01 08:53
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A German court says a 93-year-old former SS sergeant charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served as an Auschwitz death camp guard has been declared fit for trial.
The Detmold state court said Monday a doctor determined that Reinhold H., whose last name wasn't given for privacy reasons, is fit to stand trial so long as sessions are limited to two hours per day.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors now have two weeks to submit responses to the expert opinion. The court will then decide whether to open a trial.
H. is accused of being an accessory to murders at Auschwitz from January 1943 to June 1944. The suspect says he was assigned to a part of the camp not involved in the mass murders.
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High court rejects ex-stockbroker's appeal in fraud case
Marketing |
2015/11/01 08:53
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The Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a former Toronto stockbroker convicted in a multimillion-dollar securities fraud who says federal prosecutors should have turned over documents that might have helped his defense.
The justices Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said prosecutors didn't have to share information about the drug use of a key witness against George Georgiou. The lower court sided with prosecutors who said defense lawyers could have discovered the publicly available records on their own.
Georgiou's lawyers said prosecutors had a duty to disclose the information if they were aware of it. Several former Justice Department officials backed his claim and urged the court to take the case.
Georgiou was convicted on charges of manipulating markets of four stocks, causing $55 million in losses.
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Britain's High Court rules that Uber app is lawful
Headline Topics |
2015/10/18 00:31
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Britain's High Court has ruled that the Uber app to hail minicabs is lawful ? a blow to London's famous black cab drivers, who argued that it violated city regulations.
The court's decision Friday came after Transport for London sought clarification as to whether the San Francisco-based company's app worked in the same way as meters used by the strictly regulated black cabs.
The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association argued the app ? which records a car's location and travel time and feeds it back to servers in California ? worked like a meter.
But Justice Duncan Ouseley disagreed, ruling that the app relies on GPS signals and did not operate in the same way.
Uber has come under fire in several European countries, including France, Italy and Spain.
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Court records: Ohio man on electronic monitor raped teen
Law School News |
2015/10/17 00:31
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While an Ohio man was on electronic monitoring in an abduction case, he had a 14-year-old girl dropped off at his home by taxi, held her captive for months and raped her, according to criminal charges and court records.
Cody Lee Jackson, 20, fled the state without the girl after pleading guilty this summer in the abduction case to a charge of interference with custody; charges of abduction and kidnapping were dismissed, state court records show.
He was arrested last week in Utah when he tried to run away after giving a fake name to drug task force officers conducting a routine stop at a bus station, according to Salt Lake City jail documents. He is to be brought back to Ohio for sentencing on the interference conviction and to face numerous federal and state charges stemming from his alleged crimes while on electronic monitoring.
Court records don't list an attorney for Jackson.
State court officials didn't provide further details Thursday on monitoring Jackson earlier this year. Triffon Callos, a spokesman for the Hamilton County prosecutor's office, confirmed the state charges against Jackson and his guilty plea but referred calls about the monitoring system to the county sheriff's electronic monitoring division.
Sheriff's spokesman Michael Robison Thursday confirmed that Jackson wore the monitoring device from January 22 until July 31 this year.
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