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High court won't hear appeal on mortgage ratings
Headline Legal News |
2015/11/03 05:14
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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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German court: former SS Auschwitz guard fit for trial
Court News |
2015/11/03 05:14
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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
Court News |
2015/11/02 05:14
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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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California appeals court rejects right-to-die lawsuit
Legal Business |
2015/11/02 05:13
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A California appeals court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by three terminally ill patients that sought to clear the way for doctors to prescribe fatal medication to them and others like them who want the option of taking their lives.
A state law that makes helping someone commit suicide a crime clearly applies to physicians who provide patients lethal drugs, a division of the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled.
"We believe prescribing a lethal dose of drugs to a terminally ill patient with the knowledge the patient may use it to end his or her life goes beyond the mere giving of advice and encouragement and falls under the category of direct aiding and abetting," Associate Justice Alex McDonald wrote.
The ruling affirmed a lower court decision that dismissed the lawsuit. The lawsuit was brought against the state by Christy O'Donnell and two other terminally ill California residents.
O'Donnell suffers from Stage IV cancer of the left lung and was given less than six months to live in May when the lawsuit was filed.
California has since approved right-to-die legislation, though it will not likely go into effect in time to benefit the three patients, the appeals court acknowledged.
John Kappos, an attorney for the patients, said they are considering all options, including an appeal to the California Supreme Court.
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Chinese woman pleads guilty in college test-taking scheme
Areas of Focus |
2015/11/01 04:13
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A Chinese woman pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to have two other women take college admissions examinations in her place to help her get accepted to Virginia Tech.
Yue Zou acknowledged having her boyfriend contact a China-based test-taking service.
After that happened, Zou, of Blacksburg, Virginia, supplied her passport information through an online network known as QQ Chat, which enabled people in China to create in her name phony passports that were shipped to her in the United States.
On the passports were the photos of two other Chinese women, who took tests in the Pittsburgh area while pretending to be her.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy Kitchen told the judge that Zou forwarded results from the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, to Virginia Tech in November 2013 and results of a Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, taken by another Chinese impostor in March 2014.
Zou, from Hegang, a city in the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, paid an unspecified sum for the TOEFL and $2,000 for the SAT, Kitchen told a judge in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.
Zou, 21, faces up to five years in prison when she's sentenced in February. She could also be deported, though that will be handled by federal immigration officials in a separate proceeding.
Federal authorities haven't explained how they learned of the scheme.
Zou's attorney, Lyle Dresbold, told the judge that Zou will remain confined to her Blacksburg apartment with an electronic monitoring bracelet until she's sentenced. He told the judge she's still enrolled at Virginia Tech.
University spokesman Mark Owczarski said he could not comment on her status. But he said students found to have submitted work that is not their own to gain admission would face a range of possible sanctions, including expulsion, under the university's honor code.
Zou's TOEFL test was taken by Yunlin Sun, 24, of Berlin, Somerset County. She pleaded guilty in August and faces sentencing in December. Prosecutors say Ning Wei, from Taiyuan, in the Chinese province of Shanxi, took Zou's SAT. She hasn't been arrested, and prosecutors say they believe she returned to China.
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Court rejects ACLU's request to stop phone record collection
Attorney News |
2015/10/31 04:13
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A federal appeals court in New York has rejected the American Civil Liberties Union's effort to stop bulk collection of its phone records while a more limited collection system is put in place.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that Congress intended for data collection to continue during a six-month transition period before a new law takes effect. Earlier this year, the appeals court in Manhattan struck down the government's mass collection of Americans' phone records, finding Congress never authorized it.
Congress then approved a more limited collection method due to take effect Nov. 29.
The 2nd Circuit says an abrupt end to the current program would harm the public interest in surveilling terrorist threats.
An ACLU lawyer says the civil rights group disagrees with the ruling.
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Court: Therapy dog didn't sway jury against sex offender
Court Watch |
2015/10/27 04:13
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A therapy dog used to calm a testifying young victim did not influence the jury during the trial of an Ohio man who was convicted of having sex with a minor and providing drugs to another, an appeals court ruled.
The Akron Beacon Journal reports the ruling on Michael Jacobs' complaint to the 9th District Court of Appeals is considered important in Ohio because it was the first time a state appellate court heard a case challenging the use of therapy dogs during trial.
Jacobs was convicted in 2014 of having sex with a minor and providing drugs to another. He's serving a four-year prison sentence.
He argued that the Labrador-golden retriever mix brought in by county prosecutors, named Avery II, was a distraction in the Summit County courtroom.
Prosecutors contended that the dog was out of the view of jurors as it sat by the child's feet.
The court ruled that judges are permitted to allow "a variety of special allowances" for young victims of sexual abuse who testify during a trial, including therapy dogs.
"One of my main objectives as Summit County prosecutor is to fight for the rights of victims, especially children. Avery plays a vital role in how my office focuses on the needs of crime victims," prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said.
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