Legal Radar

SC Justices Divided on Same Sex Marriage Arguments

The Supreme Court early this week appear divided on one of the biggest civil rights cases in the country’s history: whether the U.S. constitution gives gay couples the right to marriage.

Questions from the justices indicate that they were divided on the issue. Justice Anthony Kennedy has the controlling vote.

The justices seemed to have conflicting ideas over not only landing the right answer to the issue but also trying to know how to reach over it.

The justices would’ve been content being on the sidelines. But a decision made last year from a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit, ended up forcing their hand.

Early this week, a schedule for two arguments was set. The first talked about whether the U.S. constitution requires states to deploy marriage licenses to two same-sex individuals. The second debated whether states should recognize gay marriage to be carried out elsewhere.

Google Facing Age Discrimination Suit by Job Candidate

A 64-year old tech worker from Florida recently filed an age discrimination suit against the Google early this week. He claims the search engine giant passed on him during an interview due to his age.

Robert Heath indicated in his complaint that Google shot down his job application for a software engineering position back in 2011, despite his wealth of experience in General Dynamics, Compaq, and IBM.

The suit implicates Google based on its decision to not hire Heath on a phone interview, despite informing him in an e-mail that the company is carrying out the largest “hiring campaign in its history,” and telling Heath that he “would be a great candidate to work at Google.”

Kotchen & Law, currently representing Health, is after a class action suit on behalf of 40+ year old applicants who weren’t employed by the internet search engine giant.

The suit also cites a similar case (Reid v. Google), in which an ex-Google executive settled with Google for undisclosed damages.

Bonds’ Conviction on Obstruction of Justice Reversed

The obstruction of justice conviction of Barry Bonds was overturned just recently by the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled his answer before the grand jury years ago wasn’t material to the government probe on the distribution of steroids.

Bonds, a professional baseball player, was indicted in 2007 for this testimony a few years earlier before the grand jury on the illegal distribution of performance enhancement substances by the Bay Area Lab Co-Operative.

Following a trial on March 2011, a jury charged Bonds on three counts for making false statements when he said of not receiving steroids and HGH from his trainer, Greg Anderson, and denied getting injections from his trainer or associates.

Bonds was then sentenced to a 30-day home confinement, 2 years of probation, 250 hours of youth activity community service, plus a $4,000 fine.

The 9^th Circuit judge panel maintained the conviction in a vote back in 2013, but most of the court’s 28 judges who participated voted to have another judge panel to rehear the case. 

SC: No Hearing for Gupta Insider-Trading Appeal

Early this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to look into an insider-trading conviction of an ex-director for Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, Rajat Gupta.

The justices didn’t leave any comment on their rejection of Gupta’s appeal on his 2012 conviction for carrying out lucrative insider tips regarding Goldman to a hedge fund owner.

Gupta explained that the trial court failed to carry out evidence of his good moral character as well as other testimony that lacked any motive of him coming such offense.

Once a highly respected corporate director in the country, Gupta was slapped with three counts of insecurities frauds and a single count of conspiring to passing inside information to Raj Rajaratnam, a Galleon Group hedge-fund founder, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence.

In the previous year, the federal Court of Appeals, maintained Gupta’s conviction, affirming the usage of wiretap recordings at the time of the trial. His last resort was to get the Supreme Court to hear the case.

 

Judge: FBI Trickery in Sports Betting Case Deemed Unconstitutional

With the FBI suspecting an illegal World Cup betting ring from within several Caesars Palace Villas in Las Vegas, their agents last year arrived at a clever idea to get inside one of them.

With assistance from the hotel’s WiFi contractor, the FBI agents interrupted the internet service of guests, acting as internet repairmen, and fooled a butler into getting them into one luxury suite --- without any warrant. This allowed the FBI to collect enough evidence to arrest Malaysian gambler Wei Seng “Paul” Phua.

Last Friday, a U.S. federal judge made a ruling indicating that the FBI’s tactics is in violation of Phua’s 4^th Amendment rights. Prosecutors felt that the trick carried out in Phua’s case was an exception since online access wasn’t deemed a critical service.

Prosecutors revealed that $13M of bets were made before the FBI, who collaborated with Nevada’s gambling regulators, who raided other villas in Caesars Palace where Phua, his son, and others were staying. The FBI agents took their computer, money, and mobile phones.

Virginia SC: Yelp Doesn’t Need to Reveal Reviewers

Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled earlier that Yelp is obligated to not reveal the identities of online users accused by a business owner of posting fraud and negative feedback about his carpet-cleaning firm.

The dispute before the Supreme Court in Virginia describes a complaint brought about by Joe Hadeed, a business owner of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, Inc. in Springfield, Virginia, who claimed his business was bombarded with harsh reviews in 2012. He filed a suit against several online reviewers for defamation and demanded Yelp to reveal their true identities.

Hadeed believed that the posted reviews were made by fellow competitors and says his sales took a nose dive after negative comments were posted online. Yelp argued that without proof, users had the First Amendment right to post without revealing their identity.

The state trial court and Court of Appeals sided with Hadeed, holding Yelp responsible for contempt for not revealing the identities of users.

Justices looking into the case felt that the lower court lacked the authority for revealing the Yelp reviewers.

Judge: GM Can Retain Its Bankruptcy Protection

A federal judge early this week ruled that GM (General Motors Co.) can hold on to its bankruptcy protection, which allows it to halt legal claims worth billions of dollars from consumers seeking damages over a faulty ignition switch.

Robert Gerber, a U.S. bankruptcy judge, who heard the oral arguments, submitted a 134-page ruling indicating that he couldn’t find evidence where GM carried out fraudulent acts in court when it participated in the bankruptcy process. The protection curbs customers from filing suit for compensation for injuries sustained and declining resale values to older GM vehicle models equipped with faulty ignition switches.

Attorneys of the plaintiffs argued that GM mislead the court for not revealing the faulty ignition switch matter, which it had knowledge of back in 2005. GM said its executives weren’t informed of the issue until 2013, which pushed for a 2.6-million vehicle recall a year later. The ignition switch problem has now been linked to over 80 deaths and more than 100 injuries.

Trade Group Suing to Reverse Net Neutrality

United States Telecom Association, an industry trade group, filed a suit early this week to reverse the neutrality rules set by the government --- the first of what may lead to a tide of legal battles.

The court filing asserts the rules to be arbitrary, unpredictable, and in violation of the federal law. The current filing may be a bit short on details, but the timing is crucial. Suits filed within the first 10 publication days of the Federal Registry are submitted into a lottery that will determine where the case will take place.

The Federal Communications Commission displayed its neutrality rules on the Federal Register early this week, a big step that kicked off what may be a long and tedious legal battle between the trade groups and the government.

Industry groups will likely make a legal challenge on procedure grounds as well as questioning the authority of the FCC on reclassifying the Internet as a service of telecommunication. Tom Wheeler, the current chairman for the FCC, expects a successful defense on the case.

Ex-Blackwater Security Team Slapped with Long Sentences

Just early this week, a federal judges carried out a stiff prison sentences on 4 ex-Blackwater guards for being part of a 2007 Baghdad shooting that killed 17 Iraqis and wounded 14 others.

One of the ex-Blackwater guards, Nicholas Slatten, a sniper, was convicted of murder and received a life sentence. The remaining three, Dustin Heard, Paul Slough, and Evan Liberty, were each given a 30-year sentence for manslaughter and weaponry offenses.

Judge Royce Lamberth passed down the sentences in a proceeding, taking place in a courtroom where friends and family of the guards were present, along with a small number of relatives of the Iraqi victims.

Sentences given to guards involving weaponry charges and manslaughter were lower than what was sought after by the federal government. In carrying out the sentences, Lamberth said he weighed the seriousness of the crimes committed and the clean records of the accused.

Attorneys for the guards intend to make an appeal.

Jury to Make Death Penalty Decision on Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect who confessed to carrying out the Boston bombings, was convicted this week on charges which include murder and using weapons of mass destruction, has set the stage as to whether or not he should receive the penalty.

Prosecutors who had the advantage of the case against Tsarnaev will now see themselves as the underdogs, fighting a tough match, when the likely guilty verdicts push them into the penalty stage. They’ll need to aggressively convince the jury that Tsarnaev deserves the death penalty.

The government will need to prove outright that Tsarnaev is a “necessity” to add to the feelings of closure and security of Boston. Basically, the execution will serve in making Boston a “strong” city and is something that will aid and rebuild its community.

A suspect, Louis Jones Jr. was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Tracie McBride, a United States Army Private. He died through lethal injection more than a decade back where all federal executions are now taking place.