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Goldman agrees to settle mortgage debt class action
Law Center |
2012/07/18 15:49
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit with investors who claimed losses on $698 million of securities backed by risky mortgage loans issued by defunct subprime lender New Century Financial Corp.
Lawyers for the investors said in a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday that a proposed settlement had been reached. Terms were not immediately disclosed, though they are expected to be included in court papers filed by July 31.
Goldman is one of many banks accused by U.S. legislators and regulators of fueling the nation's housing and financial crisis by misleading investors about the quality of mortgage debt they sold.
A federal judge in February ordered Goldman to face the class-action lawsuit that accuses it of defrauding investors in GSAMP Trust 2006-S2, a $698 million offering of certificates backed by second-lien home loans.
The loans were made by New Century, a subprime mortgage specialist that went bankrupt in 2007.
The investors, led by the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi, contend the offering documents contained materially untrue statements about the underwriting and appraisal standards used by California-based New Century, the mortgage originator. Goldman securitized and issued the certificates. |
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Md. appeals court chief judge nearing retirement
Law Center |
2012/07/09 15:15
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The final year of Robert M. Bell's tenure as chief judge of Maryland's top court began Friday, when he turned 69 in a state where the constitution requires jurists to retire at 70.
Chief Judge Robert M. Bell has served on the Court of Appeals since 1991 and has led it since 1996.
Thus, the clock has started for Gov. Martin O'Malley to name the first new Court of Appeals chief judge since 1996.
"A year out is not too early at all to be thinking of this (appointment), because others are," said Parris N. Glendening, the former Maryland governor who appointed Bell chief judge 16 years ago. "Of all the various appointments that I made, that was the one that was most intensely lobbied, discussed."
The intensity is strong because the opportunity is so rare.
The Court of Appeals has only had two leaders during the past 40 years: Bell and his predecessor, Robert C. Murphy. |
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Report: Okla. court shooting suspect delusional
Law Center |
2012/07/03 02:18
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Prosecutors will review a psychological evaluation that concludes a man accused in a shooting outside the Tulsa County Courthouse doesn't have the capacity to rationally aid in his defense.
Andrew Joseph Dennehy "is exhibiting psychotic symptoms that are marked by delusions of persecution, paranoid ideation and auditory hallucinations," according to Curtis Grundy, a psychologist retained by the defense to evaluate Dennehy.
Grundy's report, filed in court Monday, recommends that Dennehy "be adjudicated as incompetent to stand trial and referred for inpatient psychiatric treatment" for competency restoration at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, the Tulsa World reported.
Dennehy has explained that "the Freemasons and illuminati were conspiring to harm or kill himself and his parents" and that, in response, "he attempted to have himself killed by the police so that the illuminati and Freemasons would leave his parents alone," according to Grundy's report. |
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Appeals court knocks out Job Corps drug tests
Law Center |
2012/06/07 00:15
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A federal appeals court on Friday declared a random drug testing program for government workers at 28 U.S. Forest Service Job Corps centers unconstitutional.
The centers are home for at-risk youths from ages 16 to 24 from troubled environments. Residents are housed in remote rural locations and trained in various vocations.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the small number of drug use incidents among a workforce of several thousand over many years does not establish a serious problem, much less an immediate crisis necessitating expansion of a random drug testing policy.
The government "has thus offered a solution in search of a problem," Judge Judith Rogers ruled.
Absent from the record, Rogers said, is any demonstration that government staffers using drugs influenced youths at the center to use them, in violation of the centers' Zero Tolerance Policy. She was joined by Judge Douglas Ginsburg.
Previously, the only center workers undergoing random drug testing were nurses and employees required to hold a commercial driver's license.
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Kan. gov. signs measure blocking Islamic law
Law Center |
2012/05/26 16:02
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Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a law aimed at keeping the state's courts or government agencies from basing decisions on Islamic or other foreign legal codes, and a national Muslim group's spokesman said Friday that a court challenge is likely.
The new law, taking effect July 1, doesn't specifically mention Shariah law, which broadly refers to codes within the Islamic legal system. Instead, it says courts, administrative agencies or state tribunals can't base rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.
"This bill should provide protection for Kansas citizens from the application of foreign laws," said Stephen Gele, spokesman for the American Public Policy Alliance, a Michigan group promoting model legislation similar to the new Kansas law. "The bill does not read, in any way, to be discriminatory against any religion."
But supporters have worried specifically about Shariah law being applied in Kansas court cases, and the alliance says on its website that it wants to protect Americans' freedoms from "infiltration" by foreign laws and legal doctrines, "especially Islamic Shariah Law."
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German sues Macedonia in EU human rights court
Law Center |
2012/05/16 22:24
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A German who claims the CIA illegally whisked him to a secret prison in Afghanistan appeared before Europe's human rights court Wednesday in what could be the final chapter of a case that has shed light on U.S. practices in the war on terror.
Khaled El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, says he was brutally interrogated at a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for more than four months after being kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, apparently mistaken for a terror suspect. He says he went on a hunger strike for 27 days and was eventually flown back to Europe and abandoned in a mountainous area in Albania.
Having failed with previous legal efforts in Germany, Macedonia and the United States, el-Masri has turned to the European Court of Human Rights as a last resort in the hope that it will declare that Macedonia breached his basic rights, said his lawyer.
"Mr. El-Masri has spent the last eight years seeking legal redress for the crimes that were committed against him," James Goldston told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There is abundant evidence including data on CIA flights to and from (Macedonia's capital) Skopje."
Authorities in Macedonia have denied any involvement in el-Masri's alleged kidnapping and sought Wednesday to have the Strasbourg, France-based court dismiss the case. A lawyer representing the small southeast European nation argued that el-Masri was too slow in filing his initial criminal complaint in Macedonia. |
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