The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday upheld the convictions of five former employees of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities firm who were convicted of various fraud charges in 2014. The three-judge panel rejected arguments that the conviction lacked sufficient evidence, and that aspects of the prosecution’s closing argument were racially-charged. [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Wednesday. In Birchfield v. North Dakota the court heard arguments on whether a state can criminalize a refusal to submit to a warrantless chemical test regarding blood alcohol content. This case arose when Birchfield was arrested for drunk driving after failing a breathalizer test but [...]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld an Arizona commission’s decisions regarding the redistricting of voting districts in the state. The claim from Republicans in the state was that the reapportionment of votes resulted in a discriminatory distribution favoring the Democratic Party. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the unanimous decision, “as the district court concluded, [...]
Margrethe Vestagar , the Commissioner of Competition for the EU, on Wednesday opened a probe into the international business practices of Google concerning the tech giant’s relationship with other Android developers. Vestagar stated that Google’s practice of requiring mobile phone producers to pre-load Google applications on new devices could hinder innovation and might violate international [...]
The US Supreme Court voted 8-0 to reverse and remand the case of Molina-Martinez v. US on the issue of whether courts reviewing sentencing guideline errors may apply a categorical “additional evidence” rule where a district court applies an incorrect range but sentences the defendant within the correct range. The court rejected the decision of [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Tuesday approved a settlement agreement between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the city of Ferguson, Missouri . The suit had been filed by the DOJ against the city for alleged police injustice by US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and [...]
David Leyton, a prosecutor in Genesee County, Michigan, announced Wednesday that a Michigan judge will allow criminal charges against three people involved in the water crisis in Flint, including the man who supervised the treatment plan as well as two state environmental officials. In another development a federal court on Monday dismissed a class action [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun criminal investigations into US citizens connected to tax avoidance claims arising from the Panama Papers , media reported Tuesday. US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara , well known for his prosecutions against financial fraud, sent a letter requesting the cooperation of the [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-2 Wednesday in Bank Markazi v Peterson that the enactment of a statute allowing terrorism victims’ families to collect seized Iranian assets does not violate separation of powers, even if it directs a particular result in a single pending case. The US Congress enacted the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria [...]
Apple agreed on Tuesday to pay $24.9 million to Dynamic Advances and parent company Marathon Patent Group to settle a 2012 patent lawsuit concerning Apple’s voice-controlled interface, Siri . Four years before Siri was released to the public, the New York Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute filed a patent with Dynamic Advances for a “natural language interface [...]
