|
|
|
Supreme Court declines to review insider trading case
Topics in Legal News |
2015/10/05 10:59
|
The Supreme Court said Monday it won't hear the Obama administration's appeal of a lower court ruling that made it tougher to prosecute people for trading on leaked inside information.
The justices let stand a decision by the federal appeals court in New York last year that threw out insider trading convictions of two high-profile hedge fund managers.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Anthony Chiasson, of Manhattan, and Todd Newman, of Needham, Massachusetts, after finding they were too far removed from inside information to be prosecuted.
Prosecutors warned the ruling could hinder the government's campaign to curb insider trading on Wall Street, a crackdown that has resulted in more than 80 arrests and 70 convictions over several years.
Chiasson, who co-founded Level Global Investors based in Greenwich, Conn., and Newman, who had worked for Diamondback Capital Management based in Stamford, Conn., traded on tips from insiders on stock in technology companies Dell Inc. and Nvidia Corp. that generated $72 million in profits. The former portfolio managers were both convicted in December 2012.
The appeals court said prosecutors failed to present enough evidence the men willfully engaged in insider trading or conspired to break the law. It ruled that the government must show a person receiving a tip knew that an insider disclosed confidential information and that the tipster passed the information expecting a personal benefit.
In legal briefs filed with the court, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said leaving the appeals court ruling in place would "hurt market participants, disadvantage scrupulous market analysts and impair the government's ability to protect the fairness and integrity of the securities markets."
Both men have denied insider trading. Their lawyers argued that they believed they were making trades based on legitimate research.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan told reporters on a conference call Monday that the Supreme Court's decision means "that there's a category of conduct that arguably will go unpunished going forward."
"If you have a CEO who has access to material, non-published information about earnings or anything else of a very sensitive nature and decides he wants to tip a relative or a buddy or a crony, knowing that person is going to trade on it to the tune and profit of millions of dollars, we would have to think long and hard, given Newman, whether to prosecute a person like that," Bharara said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Connecticut court stands by decision eliminating execution
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/28 10:58
|
The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday stood by its decision to eliminate the state's death penalty, but the fate of capital punishment in the Constitution State technically remains unsettled.
The state's highest court rejected a request by prosecutors to reconsider its landmark August ruling, but prosecutors have filed a motion in another case to make the arguments they would have made if the court had granted the reconsideration motion.
Lawyers who have argued before the court say it would be highly unusual and surprising for the court to reverse itself on such an important issue in a short period of time, but they say it is possible because the makeup of the court is different. Justice Flemming Norcott Jr., who was in the 4-3 majority to abolish the death penalty, reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 and was succeeded by Justice Richard Robinson.
In the August decision, the court ruled that a 2012 state law abolishing capital punishment for future crimes must be applied to the 11 men who still faced execution for killings committed before the law took effect. The decision came in the case of Eduardo Santiago, who was facing the possibility of lethal injection for a 2000 murder-for-hire killing in West Hartford.
The 2012 ban had been passed prospectively because many lawmakers refused to vote for a bill that would spare the death penalty for Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, who were convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters in a highly publicized 2007 home invasion in Cheshire.
The state's high court said the death penalty violated the state constitution, "no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency," and didn't serve any "legitimate penological purpose." The majority included Norcott and Justices Richard Palmer, Dennis Eveleigh and Andrew McDonald, the same four justices that rejected the prosecution's reconsideration request Thursday.
Chief Justice Chase Rogers and Justices Peter Zarella and Carmen Espinosa bashed the majority in the Santiago case, accusing the other four justices of tailoring their ruling based on personal beliefs. The three dissenting justices also were in favor of the prosecution's motion to reconsider.
Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane had said the majority justices unfairly considered concerns that had not been raised during Santiago's appeal and denied prosecutors the chance to address those concerns. He said prosecutors have filed briefs in the still-pending death penalty appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., raising the same issues they did in the motion for reconsideration in the Santiago case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court rejects ex-NY Fed employee's retaliation claim lawsuit
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/23 22:54
|
A New York-based federal appeals court has rejected claims of a former employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who says she was fired for her probe into the banking firm Goldman Sachs.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday upheld a lower-court ruling dismissing Carmen Segarra's lawsuit.
She claimed the New York Fed interfered with her examination of Goldman Sachs' legal and compliance divisions and directed her to change findings.
The appeals court was particularly dismissive of Segarra's effort to hold three New York Fed employees responsible. It said the effort was "speculative, meritless, and frankly quite silly."
The Federal Reserve oversees Wall Street's biggest financial institutions.
Last year, Senate Democrats accused the Fed of being too close to big banks it regulates.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ohio court: Wording of pot legalization ballot is misleading
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/15 15:29
|
Ohio's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that part of the ballot wording describing a proposal to legalize marijuana in the state is misleading and ordered a state board to rewrite it.
Supporters of the measure, known in the fall election as Issue 3, challenged the phrasing of the ballot language and title, arguing certain descriptions were inaccurate and intentionally misleading to voters. Attorneys for the state's elections chief, a vocal opponent of the proposal, had said the nearly 500-word ballot language was fair.
In a split decision, the high court sided with the pot supporters in singling out four paragraphs of the ballot language it said "inaccurately states pertinent information and omits essential information."
The court ordered the state's Ballot Board to reconvene to replace those paragraphs about where and how retail stores can open, the amount of marijuana a person can grow and transport and the potential for additional growing facilities.
"The cumulative effect of these defects in the ballot language is fatal because the ballot language fails to properly identify the substance of the amendment, a failure that misleads voters," the court said.
The court allowed the ballot issue's title, "Grants a monopoly for the commercial production and sale of marijuana for recreational and medicinal purposes," to stand in a blow to the backers who had taken issue with the use of the word "monopoly."
Passage of Issue 3 would make Ohio a rare state to go from outlawing marijuana to allowing it for all uses in one vote.
The full text of the proposed constitutional amendment has nearly 6,600 words. It would allow anyone 21 and older to buy marijuana for medicinal or personal use and grow four plants. It creates a network of 10 authorized growing locations, some that already have attracted a celebrity-studded list of private investors, and lays out a regulatory and taxation scheme. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
OJ Simpson appeal rejected by Nevada Supreme Court
Topics in Legal News |
2015/09/11 23:02
|
Imprisoned former football star O.J. Simpson lost his latest appeal of his 2008 kidnapping and armed robbery conviction in Las Vegas.
A three-member Nevada Supreme Court panel rejected Simpson's request for a new trial, ruling in a 16-page order Thursday that there was no reason to overturn a lower court judge's decisions in the case.
"We ... conclude the district court did not err in denying these claims," justices Ron Parraguire, Michael Douglas and Michael Cherry said.
Simpson lawyers filed the appeal last October, arguing that Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell was wrong to deny Simpson a new trial on charges that got Simpson sentenced to 9 to 33 years in a botched hotel room heist.
Simpson lawyers Patricia Palm, Ozzie Fumo and Tom Pitaro argued that his trial attorney mishandled his case and had conflicts of interests. The three attorneys didn't immediately respond to messages late Thursday, and it wasn't immediately known if Simpson was aware of the ruling.
Simpson, 68, is serving his sentence in a northern Nevada prison after a jury found him guilty of multiple felonies for leading five other men in a September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas hotel. Two of the men with Simpson testified they brought guns, at Simpson's request.
The Heisman Trophy winner, NFL Hall of Fame member and former television and movie star didn't testify at his robbery trial in Las Vegas. His attorneys, Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso, claimed Simpson was just trying to retrieve items stolen from him after his 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles in the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The Supreme Court in September 2010 rejected a previous Simpson appeal, filed by Galanter.
Simpson's appeal argued that his multiple convictions and sentences for assault with a deadly weapon and robbery with use of a deadly weapon constitute double-jeopardy; that Galanter should have challenged his multiple convictions and punishments; and that the jury should have been given a chance to consider lesser kidnapping and theft offenses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Law Firm Web Design Information |
| Law Promo has worked with attorneys, lawyers and law firms all over the world in designing beautiful law firm websites that look great on all devices, from desktop computers to mobile phones. Law Promo can construct your law firm a brand new responsive law firm website, or help you redesign your existing site to secure your place in the mobile world. Solo Practice Law Firm Website Design |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
