Scott Roeder has been sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of doctor George Tiller:
Scott Roeder, the antiabortion extremist who murdered George Tiller, one of a handful of American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was sentenced to life in prison in a Wichita, Kan., courtroom Thursday and will not be eligible for parole for more than 50 years.
Here is hoping that he has a truly awful time in prison.
He will be 102 before he is eligible for parole.
It is generally true that bad people push the law until it breaks, and the folks at Myriad Genetics are a truly nasty bit of work.
Basically, they discovered the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which predispose one to breast cancer, and had received a patent on the genes, and offered a not particularly good and very expensive test for the genes, and using their government granted monopoly, they were prohibiting any and all competing tests or research on better tests for these genes.
The judge has now ruled that the genes are a discovery, and not an invention, which makes them non-patentable, except, perhaps in Germany.*
The VC’s are wringing their hands, because patent protection helps with their pump and dump schemes, but development has been continuing apace on genes that are not covered by these patents:
Some biotechnology investors and executives say that lack of patent protection for DNA could diminish investment and remove incentives to develop tests. That could slow the move toward so-called personalized medicine, in which genetic tests are used to determine which drugs are best for which patients.
James P. Evans, a professor of genetics at the University of North Carolina, said that would not necessarily be the case. There is thriving competition in areas like testing for mutations that cause cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease, even though no company has exclusivity.
“It’s quite demonstrable that in the diagnostic area, one does not need gene patents in order to see robust development of these tests,” he said.
Note that this does not prohibit patenting the tests, it just prohibits patenting the genes.
This is a good ruling: the patenting of genes, or for that matter the patents of hedging techniques, as is the case in Bilski, which the Supreme Court will heard arguments for in November.
IP law is, at its core, public interest law (it’s in the constitution), and patents on business methods, species, and genes, do not serve the public interest
*This is what got us that Mercedes ad where they say that they have a patent on crumple zones, but “Never enforced the Patent”. They never enforced the patent, because it is not recognized anywhere else in the world.†
†I believe Germany changed their patent laws at some point in the 1970s.‡
‡I offer the caveat that these comments in the footnotes regarding the Mercedes patent are recollections of a conversation over a decade ago vague 20+ year old memories though, so YMMV, though a Google search does have people who recall the ad.
The Supreme Court just handed down a decision in Jones v. Harris, where investors sued brokers for excessive fees.
CNN has an article titled, “Mutual fund investors win Supreme Court victory,” and Reuters has an article titled, “Supreme Court hands victory to mutual fund industry.”
It appears that the court rejected the lower court ruling that, “That the competition that has developed among mutual funds in recent years is sufficient protection for mutual fund investors,” which would be construed as a win for investors, but retained the standard of, “fees are excessive only when they are so high they could not be the result of arm’s-length bargaining and bear no reasonable relationship to the services provided.“
It sounds to me like they split the baby, which seems to be the SCOTUSblog’s take on this too, which would imply to me that we will see this back before the court in the next decade or so.
This was the lawsuit against the NSA for their warrantless wiretapping of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, and their discussions with their lawyers, and Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has granted a summary judgment against the government, basically saying that the Foundation had good evidence of wiretapping, and if the US government was unwilling to provide exculpatory evidence, it was making a broad claims of the state secrets privilege.
Basically, he said that the government refused to defend themselves, and that the state secrets privilege is trumped by FISA. so they lose the case.
As Emptywheel notes:
Walker is basically saying, “Well, government, if you won’t give us any evidence to prove you legally wiretapped al-Haramain, and given all the evidence they’ve presented proving they were wiretapped, then they win!”
Here’s his argument. The government had a way to defend against al-Haramain’s case directly, in camera, but they refused to avail themselves of it.
Unfortunately, this may not mean much, because they actually had proof of wiretapping, because the prosecution accidentally delivered logs of the wiretaps to them during discovery.
This is unlikely to be repeated.
Needless to say, I am sick and tired of the Obama administrations full throated defense of executive branch overreach and secrecy, as well as their attempts to further the coverup of Bush administration law breaking under the guise of “looking ahead.”
I am very happy that they lost today.
It appears that the Hutaree, a right wing Christofascist militia group, and it should be noted one so crazy that it gave other Christofascist militia groups the heebee jeebees, has been the subject of raids by the FBI and the DHS, and at least 7 members were arrested.
One interesting bit here is that the other militia groups in Michigan have been falling all over themselves to help the authorities.
The indictment has been unsealed, and among the accusations are that they were intending to “levy war” against the United States, by killing law enforcement officers:
According to federal authorities, the group had identified a Michigan law enforcement officer as a potential target. Their idea was to kill that officer and when law enforcement officials from around the country came to the area for the funeral, they would attack the procession with improvised explosive devices and “explosively formed projectiles.” They hoped the attack would serve as a “catalyst for a more wide-spread uprising against the government.”
A scouting mission was planned for April and, if someone had stumbled upon the mission, the Hutaree decided they could be killed, according to the indictment.
I expect to see more of this.
This is a consequence of the Citizens United case, and the ruling was that independent advocacy groups can raise donations of any size, striking the $5000 limits but the disclosure requirements stand, and, in a separate ruling, the contribution limit remains for party organizations
The Republican National Committee is promising an appeal of the latter ruling.
It is not an unalloyed bad day for campaign finance reform, but on a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 3-4.
In an attempt to provide evidence of torture, attorneys defending detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere, have been providing pictures of likely torturers to their clients for identification, and Eric Holder has decided to criminally investigate the attorneys for doing their jobs:
In a case that has all the ingredients to explode into a national controversy, Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed star prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate whether laws were broken after “paparazzi style” photographs of CIA officers were found in the cell of a Guantanamo inmate accused of financing the 9/11 attacks, Newsweek is reporting.
In an interview with TPMmuckraker, the top official for the ACLU project that provided assistance for the defense of the detainee in question — and hired private investigators to take the photos of CIA officers thought to be involved in torture — said that no laws had been broken.
Note that if someone wants to claim that their confession was the product of torture, it’s essential for a competent defense.
They need to know who these people are and to be able to cross examine them, so as to determine the nature of their treatment, and so the admissibility of their statements.
And still Yoo and Bybee walk free.
The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) is suing banks that made dodgy mortgage loans and then misrepresented them:
Last week, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco sued a throng of Wall Street companies that sold the agency $5.4 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities during the height of the mortgage melee. The suit, filed March 15 in state court in California, seeks the return of the $5.4 billion as well as broader financial damages.
Not also that the quasi-governmental GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are suing too:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may force lenders including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. to buy back $21 billion of home loans this year as part of a crackdown on faulty mortgages.
Interesting times.
Full FHLB statement below fold:
Statement Regarding PLRMBS Litigation
March 15, 2010Today the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (Bank) filed complaints in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, against nine securities dealers in relation to certain of the Bank’s investments in private-label residential mortgage-backed securities (PLRMBS). The Bank is seeking to rescind its purchases of 134 securities in 113 securitization trusts, for which the Bank originally paid more than $19.1 billion. The Bank’s complaints allege that the dealers made untrue or misleading statements about the characteristics of the mortgage loans underlying the securities.
All of the PLRMBS in the Bank’s mortgage portfolio, including those identified in the complaints filed today, were rated AAA when purchased, based on the information provided by the securities dealers. The Bank employs conservative criteria and guidelines for all its MBS investments. The Bank invests in high-quality financial instruments to facilitate its role as a cost-effective provider of credit and liquidity to its member financial institutions. These investments support the Bank’s mission of promoting housing, homeownership, and community development by providing the Bank with greater financial flexibility in helping members meet the credit needs of their communities during all economic times and in funding the Bank’s Affordable Housing Program and other programs that create affordable housing and promote community economic development.
In filing these complaints, the Bank seeks to continue supporting its mission and to protect the interests of its member shareholders, which include over 400 community banks, credit unions, and savings institutions headquartered in Arizona, California, and Nevada that serve millions of consumers.
It appears rather likely that a bill legalizing, and taxing, pot will make it on the ballot in November:
Fourteen years after California decided marijuana could be used as a medicine and ignited a national movement, the state is likely to vote on whether to take another step into the vanguard of drug liberalization: legalizing the controversial weed for fun and profit.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles County elections officials must turn in their count of valid signatures collected in the county on a statewide legalization initiative. The number is virtually certain to be enough to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, according to a tally kept by state election officials.
………
The 10-page California initiative would allow anyone 21 or older to possess, share and transport up to an ounce for personal use and to grow up to 25 square feet per residence or parcel. It would allow local governments, but not the state, to authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana and to impose taxes to raise revenues.
This last bit is particularly savvy.
By virtue of the gridlock in Sacramento, though this gridlock is a function of California voters and the initiative petition process in the first place, the state government is distrusted and despised, but by allowing local governments to license and tax, it would have the advantage of being an immediate benefit to localities.
Dennis Kozlowski, former Tyco CEO has filed a lawsuit against his former company for millions of dollars in retirement benefits:
Ex-Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive Officer L. Dennis Kozlowski, jailed for stealing millions of dollars, wants a U.S. court to order the company to pay him tens of millions from his retirement account.
Lawyers for Kozlowski filed court papers in which they claim that Tyco breached its retirement agreement by refusing to pay him the lump sum he has demanded. As of October 2008, the value of Kozlowski’s retirement account was $75.9 million, according to the court papers, which are part of a 2002 lawsuit between Tyco and Kozlowski.
Kozlowski, 63, and former Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz were convicted in 2005 of securities fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. The jury in New York State Supreme Court found they stole about $137 million from Tyco through unauthorized bonuses and the abuse of company loans.
Because, you see, in the world of the big players, going to jail from stealing from your company doesn’t mean you don’t get your golden parachute.
Seriously, can the just have the bailiff beat the snot out of him in open court?
Tyco’s defense, that, “A ‘faithless servant’ is not entitled to any compensation,” would sound fairly convincing to me, but I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit!*
*I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!
Well, the Federal Reserve just lost the next step of the court case, with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan siding with the circuit court, and with plaintiff, Bloomberg News, that its records are subject to the freedom of information act:
The Fed had argued that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. A three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected that argument in a unanimous decision.
The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it,” U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion. “If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute.”
The opinion may not be the final word in the bid for the documents, which was launched by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, with a November 2008 lawsuit. The Fed may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court.
May? May?
Of course they are going to ask for an en banc hearing, and of course they will appeal to the Supreme court.
My guess is that they will also lobby for a legislative exemption while their lawyers move as slowly as possible.
FWIW, I think that the claim that the borrowers would be “stigmatized” is pure bull sh%$.
Who got the money, and how much they got, is common knowledge on Wall Street: Everyone knows who the borrowers are, except for the general public.
What is really going on here is that there is likely evidence of some sort of wrongdoing, at least a lack of due diligence and sloppiness, that the Federal reserve does not want revealed.
So I am sure that Holder and Obama will appeal in an attempt to overturn the ruling.
Basically, prosecutors have a blanket immunity regarding whether or not they choose to prosecute someone, but police, and prosecutors and attorneys general, who direct that someone be arrested and detained are subject to the same sort of personal liability as a cop who engages in false arrests, as the 3 judge panel notes:
“Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a ‘material witness’ under the circumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
Note that everyone else who was originally sued over this has settled, so here’s hoping that Abdullah al-Kidd, impoverishes John Ashcroft, because, under Obama and Holder, Bush and His Evil Minions™ will never see the inside of a jail cell.
I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were talking about the position of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding healthcare reform and abortion.
Any time that anyone talks about their position, this morning, it was a law professor, the consensus is that the position of the Bishops is coming from somewhere in the Twilight Zone: There is simply no basis in realities of law, precedent, legislation, or the manner in which regulation is derived from statute to suggest the Senate language will allow for federal funding of abortion.
This raises an obvious question: Why does the professional staff of the Conference hold a position at such extreme odds with every lawyer, and almost every other Catholic organization out there, most recently the Catholic Health Association and 59,000 nuns?
The only answer that I can come up with is that the professional staff working in their offices have been captured by partisan Republican operatives.
Either there are Republican operatives working and generating legal and legislative opinions, or the staff has been browbeaten by the loud right wing lay activists, most notably Bill Donohue and his Catholic League, and so the staff is taking its talking points from Republican operatives.
In either case, it is clear that the staff is NOT providing competent or good faith advice.
Perhaps a look at the senior lay staff at the organization, and their backgrounds might be warranted by some news gathering organization. (I sent an earlier version of my theory to Josh Marshall, if you know of any other investigative organizations, please forward this to them.)
Note that I am not suggesting that the Bishops themselves are operating as partisan political operatives, simply that their staff may be operating as such.
As opposed to the normal Friday.
Because Charles Antonucci, the president of the bank, was just arrested for defrauding the TARP:
The former president of New York’s privately held Park Avenue Bank was arrested on Monday on fraud charges, the first person accused of attempting to steal U.S. government bailout funds in the financial crisis.
The charges came just three days after regulators seized the bank, which had $520 million in assets.
A 10-count criminal complaint said Charles Antonucci devised “an elaborate round-trip loan transaction” that he told others was his own $6.5 million investment in Park Avenue Bank, misleading bank regulators. Antonucci made false statements in the bank’s application for $11.2 million from TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the complaint.
I gotta figure that there is some more TARP fraud among the banksters, but time will tell.
Can we throw Assurant Health in jail for attempted murder:
In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.
Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, [now Assurant] revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.
…………
Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell’s case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.
…………
In the motions, [presiding judge, Michael G. ] Nettles not only strongly denied Fortis‘ claims but condemned the corporation’s conduct.
“There was evidence that Fortis‘ general counsel insisted years ago that members of the rescission committee not record the identity of the persons present and involved in the process of making a decision to rescind a Fortis health insurance policy,” Nettles wrote.
Elsewhere in his order, Nettles noted that there were no “minutes of actions, votes, or any business conducted during the rescission committee’s meeting.”
The South Carolina Supreme Court, in upholding the jury’s verdict in the case in a unanimous 5-0 opinion, said that it agreed with the lower court’s finding that Fortis destroyed records to hide the corporation’s misconduct. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal wrote: “The lack of written rescission policies, the lack of information available regarding appealing rights or procedures, the separate policies for rescission documents” as well as the “omission” of other records regarding the decision to revoke Mitchell’s insurance, constituted “evidence that Fortis tried to conceal the actions it took in rescinding his policy.”
They were engaging in actions in which they knew that they were defrauding their customers, a felony, and they knew that there was a significant livelihood of death resulting, which makes this felony murder, and perhaps 1st degree murder .
It’s nice that Mr. Mitchell got his money, but the company and its agents need to go to jail.
BTW, this is Murray Waas reporting this, and I would argue that he is one of the 5 best investigative reporters out there.
A 3 judge panel has ruled that there is no scientific basis for claims of a link between thimerosal and autism:
In a further blow to the antivaccine movement, three judges ruled Friday in three separate cases that thimerosal, a preservative containing mercury, does not cause autism.
The three rulings are the second step in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding begun in 2002 in the United States Court of Federal Claims. The proceeding combines the cases of 5,000 families with autistic children seeking compensation from the federal vaccine injury fund, which comes from a 75-cent tax on every dose of vaccine.
Understand that there is a fund, which can, and does pay out for things like allergic reactions, and judges ruled that there is no factual basis for this at all:
In the three cases brought against the government, by the parents of Jordan King, Colin R. Dwyer and William Mead, all three special masters used strong language in dismissing the expert evidence from the families’ lawyers.
The master in the King ruling emphasized that it was “not a close case” and “extremely unlikely” that Jordan’s autism was connected to his vaccines. The master in the Dwyer case wrote that many parents “relied upon practitioners and researchers who peddled hope, not opinions grounded in science and medicine.”
This is judge speak for, “Get out of here, you nut jobs.”
Now, if only we could get Jenny McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. off of Huff Po before they do any more damage.
And what’s more, explicitly uses the Citizens United decision to solicit corporate money.
Gee, I wonder if she is going to draw a salary from her 501(c)4, Liberty Central Inc.
My guess is probably yes, and as such, she would be cashing in on the court’s decision.
What a lovely exercise in ethics.
I would be remiss if I did not point you to Oliver Willis’ comment about this:
The brand of faux resentment and self-inflicted paranoia practiced by the tea party should remind her a lot of her husband.
First, the Dems nominated a guy, Alexi Giannoulias, whose family made its money from the dodgy Broadway Bank, and he was its loan officer during the bubble years.
And now, we have this:
Boston Blackie’s owner hit with bank fraud charges
Nick Giannis a big financial supporter of Alexi Giannoulias
March 11, 2010
By RUMMANA HUSSAIN, ABDON M. PALLASCH and FRANK MAIN Staff ReportersOn the same day Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias tried to shift the spotlight off his family’s struggling bank and onto his opponent’s bank ties, police arrested a major Giannoulias contributor and customer of the family bank as he tried to flee the country ahead of check-kiting charges.
Nick Giannis, owner of the Boston Blackie’s restaurant chain, was caught at the Canadian border with his Greek passport as he was being driven by a man believed to be an employee, sources said.
And it should be noted that one of the reasons that he got the Democratic nomination was that he is a close friend, a basketball buddy, of Barack Obama, though there was not, to the best of my knowledge any endorsement made during the primary.
The case here is very simple, contractors at Shield Group Security reported illegal arms sales and smuggling by the firm to US authorities.
When the fled to the US Embassy, they were then taken into custody and tortured by the US Army, using techniques that Rumsfeld specifically authorized.
U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen has ruled that their lawsuit can proceed.
The principle here is fairly simple: You can sue a police officer for brutality or false arrest, but not a prosecutor for deciding to pursue a case.
In this case Rumsfeld specifically authorized brutality.
Here’s hoping that Rummy spends his remaining days in penury.
As I have said many times, if you live by one rule, it should be never piss off Jon Stewart.
Here he takes on Liz Cheney:
Ms. Cheney is pathetic really: She has no accomplishments of her own, and she knows that if her Daddy gets close to anything even vaguely resembling a fair and full accounting, the gravy train which gets her gigs of Fox News ends.
Ms. Cheney, you are an even more pathetic excuse for a human being than you father is; at least he did something himself to be where he is, while you, much like your fellow nepotism affirmative action baby and Keep America Safe stalwart William Kristol, have done nothing but make currency of your family name.