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Tribe Loses Battle over Land
Headline Topics |
2009/03/19 11:01
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An Oklahoma Indian tribe is not entitled to jurisdictional discovery in its attempt to regain control of land the federal government used for a military base, the D.C. Circuit ruled.
The Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma sued the United States to quiet title to land that President Chester Arthur had used for Fort Reno.
The Army stopped using Fort Reno in the 1930s, and the tribe claimed a reversionary interest. The two sides settled in 1965, and the government paid the tribe $15 million for the land.
The tribe sued to quiet title in 2004. The government argued that the settlement precluded any future quiet title actions, and that the 10-year statute of limitations had expired.
The district court dismissed, denying the tribe's motion to permit discovery of when the military stopped using Fort Reno. The court pointed to several times that the tribe should have known of government action that was adverse to its reversionary interests.
Judge Griffith upheld the decision.
We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying jurisdictional discovery, given the absence of any specific indication from the Tribes regarding what facts additional discovery could produce that would affect the court's jurisdictional analysis. |
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Crack Down on Scalping for 2010 Olympics.
Topics |
2009/03/19 11:00
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Let the games begin! but without ticket scalping, please, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics says. The committee is cracking down on scalpers who claim to have guaranteed tickets to events despite a license agreement that specifically prohibits ticket scalping.
The committee claims that Shane Bourdage and his company Coast2Coast Tickets are illegally using Olympic trademarks to falsely advertise tickets to Olympic events at fees that grossly exceed the face value of the tickets.
Scalped or resold tickets can be confiscated and invalidated, Olympic organizers say.
The Vancouver Organizing Committee - VANOC - claims that Bourdage is selling ducats through the Internet, and is not warning people about the real and substantial risk that Bourdage and Coast2Coast will not be able to deliver tickets to their customers, and that any such tickets presented by their customers at 2010 Winter Games events will be cancelled, invalidated and seized by VANOC.
The only ticket resellers authorized to sell to Canadians are Jet Set Sports and Tickets.com, the complaint states. The committee says Bourdage has failed to stop advertising the tickets despite demands to stop.
The stringent anti-scalping rules are intended to ensure the fair, worldwide distribution of tickets at reasonable cost, according to the complaint. |
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Minn. high court rejects Franken's Senate request
Headline Topics |
2009/03/06 22:05
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The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday blocked Democrat Al Franken's petition for an election certificate that would put him in the U.S. Senate without waiting for a lawsuit to run its course.
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The decision means the seat will remain empty until the lawsuit and possible appeals in state court are complete. Republican Norm Coleman's lawsuit challenging Franken's recount lead is at the end of its sixth week, and both sides expect it to last at least a few more weeks./ppAfter a state board certified recount results showed Franken 225 votes ahead, he sued to force Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to sign an election certificate. Franken argued that federal law stipulates each state will have two senators when the Senate convenes, and that law trumped a state law that blocks such certificates while lawsuits are pending./ppBut the state Supreme Court disagreed. In their ruling Friday, the justices said states aren't required to issue such certificates by the date that Congress convenes./ppThe justices wrote in their unsigned opinion that if the Senate believes delay in seating the second Senator from Minnesota adversely affects the Senate, it has the authority to remedy the situation and needs no certificate of election from the Governor to do so./p |
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California Court Weighs Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Court Watch News |
2009/03/05 22:05
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As thousands demonstrated outside, California Supreme Court justices on Thursday weighed whether voters' decision to ban same-sex marriage was a denial of fundamental rights or within what one justice called the people's very broad powers to amend the state constitution.
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Gay rights advocates are urging the court to overturn the ban, approved in November as Proposition 8, on the grounds it was put before voters improperly, or at least prematurely. Under state law, the legislature must approve significant constitutional changes before they can go on the ballot. /ppProposition 8's sponsors, represented by former Pepperdine law school dean and Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, said it would be a miscarriage of justice for the court to overturn the results of a fair election.
The ballot initiative, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, changed California's constitution to trump last year's 4-3 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage. The court found that denying same-sex couples the right to wed was an unconstitutional civil rights violation./p/div |
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Court Debates Convict's Rights to DNA Re-Testing
Headline Court News |
2009/03/04 09:33
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Justice David Souter led the charge for the ability of convicts like William Osborne of Alaska to have the right to re-test DNA evidence. His strongest argument or his -- his basic argument is this evidence is potentially so important that the State has no valid interest in keeping [Osborne] at least from seeing it; i.e., testing it.
But other justices weren't as comfortable with that idea. Justice Antonin Scalia was the most vocal in his opposition. He suggested such a right would allow the accused to game the system.
A concern also shared by Justice Anthony Kennedy who told Osborne's lawyer what you are doing is setting up a game in which it would be really unwise to have the DNA test. Take your chances. You have a -- you have a built-in -- you have a -- a built-in second chance. And that's just -- that's just not sound trial strategy, counsel, and you know that.
Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly returned to the idea that if the court were to grant the right for post-conviction DNA testing that it would then open for debate a slew of other problems.
I'm trying to figure out what the limit of the constitutional right you're asserting is, Roberts asked. He went on to wonder if there would be re-testing rights at other stages in the trial process or even for fingerprint analysis and he questioned how long states would have to preserve DNA evidence in the name of this right.
Osborne was convicted of raping and nearing killing an Anchorage prostitute in 1993. At trial, his lawyers made the strategic decision not to seek more stringent DNA testing for fear that it would more strongly inculpate their client. Osborne is now seeking to re-test that DNA on the hope that it will lead to his freedom.
Osborne's attempts however have not also included a claim of innocence drawing the ire of a number of justices who wondered why they should confer a constitutional right on someone who doesn't even claim he is an innocent man. Today's oral arguments also drew out the fact that under Alaska law, Osborne could petition for the retesting of the DNA evidence if he does so while also claiming innocence. Something he has yet to do.
This development opens the door for the court to send the case back for further proceedings without answering the constitutional question. That potential ruling would be supported by the federal government which joined the case on behalf of Alaska.
[T]he unusual facts of this case, which include failure to attest to actual innocence under threat of perjury, two recent confessions to the crime, and a tactical decision at trial to forego a highly discriminating....DNA test, all together make this a particularly poor candidate for recognizing a new constitutional entitlement, said Neal Katyal arguing his first case before the court as deputy solicitor general.
If the court does issue a ruling declaring a federally protected constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing it isn't clear that it would have that much of an impact because most states already have statutes in place for such testing. Alaska is one of six states that does not guarantee that right. |
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Long Beach Sues Lehman Bros. CEO and Others
Court Watch News |
2009/02/27 09:47
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The City of Long Beach sued Lehman Bros. CEO Richard Fuld Jr., 12 other top Lehman officers and Ernst amp; Young accountants, saying they suckered the city into buying $20 million worth of 27-day short-term paper on Sept. 3, 2008, despite warning signs of Lehman's impending collapse. Fuld was paid $100 million in salary and stock grants from 2005-2007, according to the complaint.
Long Beach says its $19,963,250 investment in Lehman's short-term paper has been written down to zero.
Despite the fact that defendants were aware of materially adverse facts on Sept. 3, 2008, a mere two weeks before the company filed for bankruptcy, said defendants did not disclose the financial disaster that was about to decimate the company, according to the Superior Court complaint. instead, defendants lulled the plaintiff, and the rest of the market, into a false sense of security that Lehman would survive, right up to the brink of the bankruptcy filing.
Defendants in the claim of fraud, deceit and misrepresentation are Lehman CEO and Chairman of the Board Richard S. Fuld Jr.; CFO and controller Christopher M. O'Meara; controller Erin M. Callan, who resigned in June 2008 but signed Lehman's Form 10-K for FY 2007; and directors Michael L. Ainslie, John F. Akers, Roger S. Berlind, Thomas H. Cruikshank, Marsha Johnson Evans, Sir Christopher Gent, Roland A. Hernandez, Henry Kaufman, John D. Macomber.
Ernst amp; Young was Lehman's auditor for FY 2005-07.
Plaintiffs are represented by Bruce Simon with Pearson Simon amp; Warshaw of San Francisco. |
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SEC Sued by a Stanford Financial Investor
Headline Topics |
2009/02/26 14:39
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The Securities and Exchange Commission wrongfully froze the assets of account holders in Stanford Financial Group's Houston and Antigua institutions when it shut down the company's operations based on allegations of fraud, a Stanford investor claims in Federal Court.
J. Mark Brewster says his funds are being held for Stanford Financial by Pershing LLC, an investment firm affiliated with the Bank of New York Mellon, but the SEC prohibits Pershing from allowing him and other Stanford investors access to the $50 billion in savings Pershing is holding.
Brewster claims the SEC violated due process by to obtaining orders from a federal judge in Dallas when the courthouse was closed for President's Day without notice to anyone and without an opportunity to be heard by anyone.
There were no members of the public present, Brewster says. Instead the SEC lawyers simply provided a written statement to the court to act without any 'notice or hearing.'
They used these orders to shut down Stanford Financial's Houston offices, and to appoint Ralph Janvey, a Dallas lawyer in private practice, as receiver to manage Stanford customers' $50 billion in assets.
The order gives absolutely no information about (Janvey) not even his address or phone number, Brewster says. Only the SEC knows him.
How he came to be selected by the SEC as the agency's favored take-over specialist is shrouded in mystery in violation of due process and without any transparency, Brewster states.
U.S. Marshals carried out the SEC's order to shut down Stanford Financial's offices in Houston and Antigua on Feb. 16, based on allegations that the company was running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme.
But Brewster complains, The SEC's motion is full innuendo, bravado and hyperbole, but lacks any facts to the alleged violations by SFG or why seizure of innocent investors' accounts is warranted.
Brewster is represented by Sondra Jurica. |
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