NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Transocean Deepwater Drilling Corp. has lost a round in its fight to avoid handing over documents to a government board investigating the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.
Transocean is appealing a federal court order enforcing a subpoena of the documents by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday refused to stay the document handover while the appeal is pending.
A federal appeals court has rejected an attempt by a former CEO of HealthSouth to get a new trial on bribery and fraud charges.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday let stand 60-year-old Richard Scrushy’s 2006 conviction for arranging $500,000 in donations to former Gov. Don Siegelman’s lottery campaign. In return, Siegelman appointed Scrushy to a state hospital regulatory board.
Scrushy argued that he should get a new trial because of judicial and juror bias.
Defense attorney Jim Jenkins says they were disappointed and would appeal.
Scrushy served more than five years in prison and got out last year. He is now living in the Houston area. Siegelman was convicted with Scrushy, and he remains in federal prison.
A New Hampshire woman who lied about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, a fate her lawyers say is tantamount to a death sentence.
Rwanda native Beatrice Munyenyezi remained stoic as U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe sentenced her to the maximum prison time. She declined her right to address the court.
Munyenyezi, 43, was convicted in February of entering the United States and securing citizenship by lying about her role as a commander of one of the notorious roadblocks where Tutsis were singled out for slaughter. She also denied affiliation with any political party, despite her husband’s leadership role in the extremist Hutu militia party.
McAuliffe acknowledged she has led a crime-free and productive life since her arrival in New Hampshire in 1998 but said it was a life lived under false pretenses.
Federal prosecutors had sought the maximum prison sentence, saying she’s as guilty as if she wielded the machete herself.
During the 1994 genocide, at least 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a campaign of mass murder orchestrated by Hutu extremists.
Munyenyezi’s lawyers say they will appeal her conviction to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals — a move that is expected to delay deportation proceedings.
Through two trials and the three years since her indictment in 2010, Munyenyezi has remained silent. She did not testify and declined an Associated Press request for an interview in the wake of her first trial ending a mistrial in 2012.
She has spent most of those three years in custody and apart from her three daughters, ages 18-20.
Her lawyers portrayed her as the victim of lies by Rwandan witnesses who never before implicated her through nearly two decades of investigations and trials — even when testifying against her husband and his mother before the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.
Prosecutors maintained that she was a liar who “gamed” the immigration system to fraudulently obtain the “golden ticket” of citizenship. She swore on immigration and naturalization forms that she persecuted no one, had no affiliation with any political party and even cast herself as a victim of the genocide by saying family members “disappeared.”
A federal appeals panel in Virginia has upheld the conviction of the highest-ranking pirate captured by the U.S. government.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed the conviction of Mohammad Saaili Shibin for his role in two acts of piracy.
One, in 2010, involved the hijacking of a merchant vessel and the other, in 2011, included the shooting deaths of four Americans aboard a yacht.
Shibin was a multilingual negotiator based in Somalia during both incidents. His attorneys argued that he could not be convicted of piracy because he never set out on the high seas.
The three judges disagreed on that point and others cited by Shibin’s attorneys in his appeal.
A New York appeals court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a man who joined a failed plot to firebomb Kennedy Airport.
Kareem Ibrahim (EE’-bruh-heem) was convicted in 2011 of several conspiracy counts. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled Friday that Ibrahim received a fair trial.
The government says he and other men wanted to kill thousands of people and cripple the American economy. It says their goal was to blow up fuel tanks and underground pipelines that run through a neighborhood near the airport.
Defense attorneys argue the case was entrapment.
Two others have been convicted of conspiracy charges and are serving life in prison. A fourth has pleaded guilty to providing material support and was sentenced to 15 years.
Democrats enjoy a supermajority in the Illinois House of Representatives, holding 71 seats to the GOP’s 47. On Wednesday, the same day the US Senate voted down gun controllegislation, powerful Democrat Speaker Michael Madigan tried to push a restrictive gun control measure through his chamber. The result was an open revolt by downstate Democrats, with almost half the Democrat caucus joining the GOP to kill the measure. The bill went down 31-76, a rare defeat for the legendary Madigan.
Illinois is currently the only state in the country which doesn’t allow its citizens to have a concealed-carry gun permit. In December 2012, a federal appeals court struck down the state’s ban on concealed-carry permits, effectively ordering the state to enact the gun rights’ permit. The state is under a court-ordered deadline to pass the legislation.
On Wednesday, Dem leadership in the House moved legislation that would put severe restrictions on concealed-carry permits. It would provide that local law enforcement officials “may issue” permits, a provision that would allow local officials to effectively deny citizens in a particular jurisdiction a permit. “Must issue” permits, as long as certain criteria are met, conform more to our 2nd Amendment rights as local officials are not given the power to deny the permits.
A Montgomery County landlord has pleaded guilty to using a hidden surveillance camera to spy on female tenants engaged in sexual acts.
Dennis Van Dusen, of Chevy Chase, faces up to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in Circuit Court on Tuesday.
Sentencing was scheduled for July 2. Van Dusen admitted to three counts of using a camera in a private home with a prurient intent.
A tenant reported the 54-year-old Van Dusen to police last fall, saying she had found a hidden surveillance camera inside a smoke detector in a room that she was renting.
Police say they later confiscated Van Dusen‘s laptop and found nude or sexual videos of current and past female renters who lived in his home.
Five relatives of Usama bin Laden and a construction company started by the father of the Al Qaeda founder cannot be held liable for the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court said Tuesday, upholding the findings of a lower-court judge.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the conclusion as it reinstated claims against 12 other defendants accused of enabling organizations set up as charities to support Al Qaeda, saying evidence may be found to show they provided material support to Al Qaeda.
The rulings stem from lawsuits brought against several hundred defendants by more than 3,000 survivors of the attacks, relatives, victims’ representatives and insurance carriers. Among defendants were Al Qaeda, its members and associates, along with charities, banks, front organizations, terrorist organizations and financiers.
Attorney Don Migliori said plaintiffs were pleased that claims will proceed against 12 defendants but were “very disappointed that the Second Circuit has otherwise failed to uphold Congress’ clear intent to give victims of acts of terror against American interests the ability to hold those who sponsor terrorism accountable for their heinous actions.”
He added: “Clearly, terrorism has found its way into the United States and our U.S. courts are far too slow to see the importance of the civil justice system as a forum for the true victims of these acts to demand answers and accountability.”
Messages left with other attorneys in the case were not immediately returned.
In a ruling written by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes, a three-judge panel decided that all but 12 of 37 defendants dismissed from the lawsuits by Judge George Daniels were properly rejected because the court lacked jurisdiction for lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable.
Among those rejected were four bin Laden relatives who purportedly managed the Saudi Binladen Group, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Arab world and a successor to a construction company founded by bin Laden’s father. A fifth bin Laden relative alleged to have been involved in two purported charities located in the United States that were alleged to have supported Al Qaeda also was rejected, along with the company itself.
The plaintiffs had claimed that the bin Laden business maintained a close relationship to bin Laden leading up to the attacks and cited business activities by a now-defunct subsidiary and by an employee who worked from his North Carolina residence as evidence that a U.S. court should have jurisdiction.
It said the company provided “significant support to bin Laden before he was removed as a shareholder in 1993 with knowledge that he was targeting the United States” and continued to provide a “financial lifeline” to him afterward.
The 2nd Circuit said the company and the bin Laden relatives were properly dismissed because there was insufficient evidence to support claims against them. It noted that Daniels had concluded that the only company distributions to bin Laden for his role as a shareholder came before 1993.
The World Trade Center was first attacked by terrorists on Feb. 26, 1993, when a bomb exploded in an underground garage, killing
Five relatives of Osama bin Laden and a construction company started by the father of the al-Qaida founder cannot be held liable for the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court said Tuesday, upholding the findings of a lower-court judge.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the conclusion as it reinstated claims against 12 other defendants accused of enabling organizations set up as charities to support al-Qaida, saying evidence may be found to show they provided material support to al-Qaida.
The rulings stem from lawsuits brought against several hundred defendants by more than 3,000 survivors of the attacks, relatives, victims’ representatives and insurance carriers. Among defendants were al-Qaida, its members and associates, along with charities, banks, front organizations, terrorist organizations and financiers.
Attorney Don Migliori said plaintiffs were pleased that claims will proceed against 12 defendants but were “very disappointed that the Second Circuit has otherwise failed to uphold Congress’ clear intent to give victims of acts of terror against American interests the ability to hold those who sponsor terrorism accountable for their heinous actions.”
He added: “Clearly, terrorism has found its way into the United States and our U.S. courts are far too slow to see the importance of the civil justice system as a forum for the true victims of these acts to demand answers and accountability.”
Messages left with other attorneys in the case were not immediately returned.
In a ruling written by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes, a three-judge panel decided that all but 12 of 37 defendants dismissed from the lawsuits by Judge George Daniels were properly rejected because the court lacked jurisdiction for lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable.
Among those rejected were four bin Laden relatives who purportedly managed the Saudi Binladen Group, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Arab world and a successor to a construction company founded by bin Laden’s father. A fifth bin Laden relative alleged to have been involved in two purported charities located in the United States that were alleged to have supported al-Qaida also was rejected, along with the company itself.
The plaintiffs had claimed that the bin Laden business maintained a close relationship to bin Laden leading up to the attacks and cited business activities by a now-defunct subsidiary and by an employee who worked from his North Carolina residence as evidence that a U.S. court
Disbarred Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs has asked to return to federal prison after losing a key appeal.
The 66-year-old Scruggs wants to resume serving out a seven-year prison sentence for trying to illegally influence a judge. Scruggs was freed on $2 million bond in December while he appealed a conviction for improperly influencing then-Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter. The judge was presiding over a lawsuit between Scruggs and another lawyer who were fighting over money.
Last week, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Scruggs’ appeal.
Scruggs’ lawyer says he may ask for a rehearing or petition the U.S. Supreme Court, but there’s no guarantee that either will hear the case, potentially prolonging the completion of his sentence.
Officials are reminding the public that animals aren’t allowed into courthouses after Honolulu security screeners had to turn away a defendant’s pet duck.
Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz says Michael Hubbard reluctantly revealed to guards that his pet was inside his bag when X-ray screeners noticed something was moving inside.
Schwartz says there was also another contraband item inside the bag: a bottle of beer.
Screeners told Hubbard that the duck and beer wouldn’t be able to go with him into Circuit Court for his appointment Monday. Hubbard left and then returned to ask the screeners to look after his belongings. He went inside, while his pet waited outside.
Hawaii News Now reports Hubbard has two felony assault cases pending. He couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
A federal appeals court in New York says investors in Bernard Madoff‘s epic fraud cannot hold the Securities and Exchange Commission responsible for failing to expose his Ponzi scheme.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the lawsuit by investors on Wednesday. It upheld a lower-court ruling that found the SEC could not be held responsible.
The appeals court said the agency’s actions and “regrettable inaction” are shielded by rules protecting government employees from lawsuits when they carry out a discretionary function or duty.
The court noted that the SEC missed many opportunities to uncover Madoff’s multibillion-dollar fraud.
Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to fraud. He is serving a 150-year prison sentence.
Investors’ lawyers say the SEC wronged investors and the lawsuit was necessary. The government had no comment.
• 1917, Robert E. Holliway of the St. Louis Republic was jailed for contempt of court after refusing to reveal the sources for his story, "7 True Bills are Voted in Coal Inquiry," in which he reported that a grand jury returned seven previously unannounced indictments in an investigation of the coal industry.
• 1936, Martin Mooney, a reporter for the New York American, was called as a witness before a grand jury probing alleged violations of gambling and lottery laws after he wrote an article saying the grand jury’s investigations into these charges were ineffective. After refusing to answer questions and furnish the names and addresses of his sources on the grounds that they were confidential and privileged, Mooney was cited for contempt and jailed. The New York Court of Appeals upheld Mooney‟s contempt citation and further ruled that the decision to enact a shield law for reporters must be left up to the Legislature, not the courts.
• 1950, Reubin Clein, an editor for Miami Life magazine, refused to disclose the source of a leak about a grand jury probe of a city councilman accused of bribery. A trial court held the editor in contempt and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Citing grand jury secrecy laws and the broad investigatory powers vested in grand juries under the state constitution, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence, finding Clein had no privilege against revealing his source.
• 1958, Marie Torre, CBS. In Garland v. Torre, actress Judy Garland became the first litigant to face a formal First Amendment challenge to her demand for a journalist’s sources. Garland sued CBS for defamation, alleging that she was defamed by quotes from an unnamed network executive arising out of a New York Herald Tribune column written by Marie Torre. Torre testified at her deposition, but refused to disclose the identity of her source. The trial judge held the journalist in criminal contempt, sentenced her to 10 days in jail, but allowed her to remain free pending appeal. On appeal, Torre defended herself on First Amendment grounds. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant Torre a hearing and she served her 10-day jail sentence after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that even if the First Amendment were to provide some protection, the reporter must testify when the information sought goes to the heart of the plaintiff’s claim.
• 1970, Mark Knops, editor of the underground Madison (Wis.) Kaleidoscope, was sentenced to six months in jail for refusing to answer questions from a grand jury investigating a fire at Whitewater State University and a bombing at the University of Wisconsin that killed a young researcher.
• 1972, Newark (N.J.) Evening News reporter Peter Bridge was charged with contempt …read more
WASHINGTON and NEW YORK — Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron Corp. chief executive serving a 24-year prison term for the energy company’s spectacular collapse, may get a chance to leave prison early.
The U.S. Department of Justice has notified victims of Enron’s fraud and 2001 bankruptcy that prosecutors may enter an agreement with Skilling that could result in a resentencing.
Skilling, 59, has served about 6¼ years in prison following his May 2006 conviction by a Houston federal jury on 19 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors.
It is unclear how much Skilling’s sentence could be reduced, and a Justice Department official said no agreement has been reached. CNBC, the television business channel, said prosecutors and Skilling’s lawyers have been negotiating a shorter term.
Skilling had previously agreed to forfeit $45 million to be used as restitution for victims of Enron’s fraud. That money has been held up because of the negotiations on a new sentence.
“The department’s goal is, and has always been, to ensure that Mr. Skilling be appropriately punished for his crimes, and that victims finally receive the restitution they deserve,” another Justice Department official said.
Skilling has maintained his innocence, and according to court filings has been pursuing a new trial. He is scheduled to leave prison around February 2028, assuming good behavior, according to federal prison records.
Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Skilling, didn’t respond on Thursday to a request for comment.
A new sentence would have to be approved by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake in Houston, who had imposed the original sentence.
Once ranked seventh on the Fortune 500 list of large U.S. companies, Enron went bankrupt on Dec. 2, 2001. Its demise led to reforms including the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
April 17 Deadline
In its Wednesday notice, the Justice Department advised former Enron employees, stockholders and other victims that it is “considering entering into a sentencing agreement” with Skilling.
The notice gives recipients until April 17 to voice objections. In 2009, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Skilling’s conviction, but called his sentence too harsh. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court also upheld the conviction, but rejected one legal theory behind it. In 2011, the 5th Circuit reaffirmed the conviction.
Skilling is being held at a low-security prison for men in Littleton, Colo.
At the 2006 trial, the Houston jury also found Kenneth Lay, who was Enron’s chief executive before and after Skilling’s six-month term, guilty of fraud and conspiracy.
Lay died in July 2006, and his death led to his conviction being thrown out.
Among those who testified against Skilling and Lay was Andrew …read more
A lawsuit accusing multibillionaire hedge fund founder Steven A. Cohen of hiding assets in a 1990 divorce was reinstated Wednesday — the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle with his ex-wife.
A district court judge in Manhattan had thrown out Patricia Cohen‘s suit in 2011, saying its fraud allegations were too old and unsubstantiated to go forward. Her husband’s lawyers had accused her of filing it merely to “to harass and generate media attention against Mr. Cohen” nearly 20 years after the couple split amid his rise to one of the richest men in America.
But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a written opinion Wednesday that “there was no basis to dismiss Patricia’s fraud-based claims as untimely” since she had only uncovered evidence to back them up in 2008.
The couple divorced in 1990 after Cohen had already become one of the most successful traders on Wall Street. He remarried in 1992 and launched SAC Capital with $25 million in assets, a total that grew into the billions over the next two decades.
An attorney for Patricia Cohen, Howard Foster, said on Wednesday that his client was eager to resume the case.
“I’m delighted that we won,” Foster said. “Patricia’s delighted also.”
A spokesman for Steven Cohen said the ruling didn’t address the lawsuit’s merits.
“As we have said from the outset, these decades-old allegations by Mr. Cohen’s former spouse were patently false and entirely without merit,” said the spokesman, Jonathan Gasthalter. “We will continue to defend against them vigorously.”
The decision comes at a time when federal authorities have intensified their scrutiny of Cohen and his $15 billion fund, SAC Capital Advisors. An insider trading investigation has resulted in arrests of five people associated with the Stamford, Conn.-based firm in the past four years.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that two affiliates of SAC Capital would pay more than $614 million in what regulators called the largest insider trading settlement ever. The settlement is subject to court approval.
Cohen has not been charged with any crime and his firm says it is cooperating with investigators. But court papers filed in connection with the January arrest of a portfolio manager at …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
MR. CARNEY: Hello, everyone. It’s very good to see you. Thanks for taking care of Josh in my absence last week.
Before I take your questions, I want to say a couple of things. One, and perhaps most importantly, I apologize for keeping you here to miss the opening pitches of the Red Sox versus Yankees game and the Marlins at the Nationals here. I, for one, wish I were at the stadium, because it’s going to be a very exciting season I think for Nationals and Red Sox fans, of which I am one.
I’d also like to say something about the fact that this morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced its hearing for our D.C. Circuit Court nominee, Sri Srinivasan. As you know, Sri is the Principal Deputy Solicitor General, but you may not know that Sri was born in India and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, eventually becoming an all-star point guard at Lawrence High School. And, of course, he is still recovering today from the loss by his beloved Kansas Jayhawks over the weekend.
Sri is of course also a highly respected appellate advocate who has spent a distinguished career litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals, both in private practice and on behalf of the United States for both Democratic and Republican administrations. He has argued before the Supreme Court 24 times; drafted briefs and several dozen additional cases; and has also served as lead counsel in numerous cases before the federal and state appellate courts.
As a testament to how highly regarded he is by members of both parties, 12 former officials from the Solicitor General’s office — six of them Democrats, six of them Republicans — all announced their support for Sri today. The signatories of the letter, including Paul Clement, Ted Olson, Ken Starr, and Walter Dellinger, write, “Sri has a first-rate intellect, an open-minded approach to the law, a strong work ethic, and an unimpeachable character. Sri is one of the best appellate lawyers in the country.”
The D.C. Circuit, as you know, is often considered the nation’s second-highest court, but it has twice as many vacancies as any other court of appeals, and its workload has increased by over 20 percent since 2005. Sri’s confirmation will be an important first step to filling this court’s four vacancies, and he will be, when confirmed, the first South Asian circuit court judge in history.
We also urge the Senate to move swiftly to confirm the 15 additional judicial nominees waiting for votes. Of those 15, 13 were approved out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously; not a single Republican dissent. And four would fill judicial emergencies; six are represented by Republican home-state senators who support their nominations.
By Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s practice of slapping steep, 40-percent penalties on participants in certain alleged tax shelters will soon come to trial before the Supreme Court. Though it rarely hears tax matters, the court has decided to weigh in on a case involving Texas billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, a former owner of professional sports teams. The court’s decision, not expected until June 2014, will likely have implications beyond McCombs’ case, tax lawyers said. Oral arguments will be scheduled when the high court’s next term begins in October. The Obama administration’s solicitor general is arguing that “hundreds of millions of dollars” in tax penalties are hanging in the balance, according to court filings. However, the decision will only apply to cases brought prior to 2010. The case being taken up by the court involves a 1999 transaction undertaken by McCombs and his business partner, Gary Woods. The government contends it had no purpose other than tax avoidance. The transaction was known as “current options bring reward alternatives,” or COBRA. According to the government, Woods and McCombs bought and sold options on foreign currencies to generate paper losses used to offset gains chiefly related to McCombs’s sports ventures. The IRS initially applied a 40-percent penalty on the unpaid taxes that the agency said were owed, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in 2012 that the 40-percent penalty did not apply in the Woods case. Woods is already subject to a 20 percent tax penalty on COBRA and the Supreme Court need not step in, Woods’s lawyer has argued in court filings. The lawyer representing Woods did not respond to requests for comment. Calls to San Antonio-based McCombs Partners, an investment management business which lists both Red McCombs and Gary Woods on its website, were not returned. The …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Big change is coming to the lives of the lesbian couple at the center of the fight for same-sex marriage in California no matter how the Supreme Court decides their case.
After 13 years of raising four boys together, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are about to be empty nesters. Their youngest two children, 18-year-old twins, will graduate from high school in June and head off to college a couple of months later.
“We’ll see all the movies, get theater season tickets because you can actually go,” Stier said in the living room of their bungalow in Berkeley. Life will not revolve quite so much around food, and the challenge of putting enough of it on the table to feed teenagers.
They might also get married, if the high court case goes their way.
Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, set aside their lunch hour on a recent busy Friday to talk to The Associated Press about their Supreme Court case, the evolution of their activism for gay rights and family life.
On Tuesday, they plan to be in the courtroom when their lawyer, Theodore Olson, tries to persuade the justices to strike down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages and to declare that gay couples can marry nationwide. Supporters of California’s Proposition 8, represented by lawyer Charles Cooper, argue that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.
A second case, set for Wednesday, involves the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex couples who are legally married from receiving a range of federal tax, pension and other benefits that otherwise are available to married people.
The Supreme Court hearing is the moment Perry and Stier, along with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, have been waiting for since they agreed four years ago to be the named plaintiffs and public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.
“For the past four years, we’ve lived our lives in this hurry-up-and-wait, pins-and-needles way,” Perry said, recalling the crush of court deadlines and the seemingly endless wait for rulings from a federal district judge, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based there, and the California Supreme Court.
Stier said Olson told them the case could take several years to resolve. “I thought, years?” she said.
But the couple has been riding a marriage rollercoaster since 2003, when Perry first asked Stier to marry her. They were planning a symbolic, but not legally recognized, wedding when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. So they were married, but only briefly. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions.
They went ahead with their plans anyway, but “it was one of the sadder points of our wedding,” Perry said.
Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California’s prohibition on same-sex unions. Then, on the same …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Play Beverages/CirTran Beverage/CirTran Corporation Get 3rdWin in 3 Legal Battles with Playboy Corporation
SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)– For the third time in four months, Play Beverages LLC, CirTran Beverage Corporation and CirTran Corporation (OTC BB: CIRC) have won in court in what has proven to be a one-sided legal battle with Playboy Enterprises International, Inc. (“Playboy”).
On March 15, 2013, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, the Hon. Kathleen M. Pantle denied Playboy’s motion to dismiss Play Beverages‘ and CirTran Beverage Corporation’s lawsuit against Playboy. Playboy claimed the lawsuit should be dismissed “with prejudice” based upon a stipulation Playboy had reached with Play Beverages in action in Utah (see, “U.S. Judge Takes Play Beverages LLC, Debtor to CirTran Beverage Corporation, Out of Bankruptcy, Free to Take Action to Protect Playboy Energy Drink Licenses,” BusinessWire, December 7, 2012). Judge Pantle disagreed with Playboy’s strained interpretation of the stipulation, opting instead to accept Play Beverages‘ contention that the stipulation was merely “a standstill agreement.”
Judge Pantle‘s ruling allows Play Beverages and CirTran Beverage to pursue their claims, including unlawful conduct against Playboy.
Earlier this year (see “Play Beverages/CirTran Beverage/CirTran Corporation Win over Playboy Corporation in California District Court, BusinessWire, January 31, 2013,) they won yet again.
“The courts have been unanimous in dismissing suits brought by Playboy in futile attempts to enjoin our companies from manufacturing and selling Playboy Energy Drink,” said Iehab J. Hawatmeh, CirTran’s chairman and president.
“We believed from the outset that Playboy’s claims were frivolous and without merit, and once again are very happy the courts agree,” he said.
“Further,” said Mr. Hawatmeh,” we understand that in all lawsuits there are highs and lows. However, it is comforting to see the courts recognize our rights — and those of our distributors – so that we may continue our business of selling an amazing energy drink throughout the world.”
Introduced in 2008, Playboy Energy Drink is manufactured and distributed exclusively by CirTran Beverage Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of CirTran Corporation under a product license from Playboy Enterprises to Play Beverages, and is currently available in more than 20 countries around the world.
They’re called national security letters and the FBI issues thousands of them a year to banks, phone companies and other businesses demanding customer information. They’re sent without judicial review and recipients are barred from disclosing them.
On Friday, a federal judge in San Francisco declared the letters unconstitutional, saying the secretive demands for customer data violate the First Amendment.
The government has failed to show that the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy “serve the compelling need of national security,” and the gag order creates “too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote.
She ordered the FBI to stop issuing the letters, but put that order on hold for 90 days so the U.S. Department of Justice can pursue an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The DOJ said it is reviewing the decision.
FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the letters after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The case arises from a lawsuit that lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed in 2011 on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company that received an FBI demand for customer information.
“We are very pleased that the court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute,” EFF lawyer Matt Zimmerman said. “The government‘s gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience.”
Illston wrote that she was also troubled by the limited powers judges have to lift the gag orders.
Judges can eliminate the gag order only if they have “no reason to believe that disclosure may endanger the national security of the United States, interfere with a criminal counter-terrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interfere with diplomatic relations, or endanger the life or physical safety of any person.”
That provision also violated the Constitution because it blocks meaningful judicial review.
