9th Circuit Court

Will Federal Challenge to Same-Sex Marriage Ban Be on TV? Maybe

An experimental program adopted Thursday by the judicial council for the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will allow televised civil bench trials, on a case-by-case basis. The chief judges of each of the circuit’s 15 districts will decide which cases may be recorded or broadcast, in consultation…

Dec 18, 2009 1:05 PM CST

Federal Judge Axes Broadcom Case over Prosecutorial Misconduct

Citing prosecutorial misconduct, a federal judge in Southern California has axed a stock options backdating case against two Broadcom Corp. executives. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney found that the government leaked grand jury information to the media, improperly contacted attorneys for defense witnesses and tried to prevent three key witnesses…

Dec 15, 2009 6:04 PM CST

Supreme Court to Decide Privacy Rights of Texting Government Employees

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether police officers have a constitutional right to privacy in their personal text messages sent on city-owned pagers. The Supreme Court will review a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the officers have a reasonable…

Dec 14, 2009 4:58 PM CST

L.A. Lawyer Pleads in Quellos Case, Admits He Didn’t Pay Tax on $35M Offshore Account

A Los Angeles lawyer has pleaded guilty and agreed to accept up to a five-year prison term in a tax shelter scheme that involved a $35 million offshore account. Matthew Krane, 55, pleaded guilty in federal court in Seattle yesterday to tax evasion and passport fraud concerning an alleged Quellos…

Dec 12, 2009 12:10 AM CST

62 Former Heller Ehrman Partners Agree to Pay $1.6M to Creditors

Although most senior lawyers at the now-defunct Heller Ehrman firm apparently have yet to agree to a payout to the bankrupt law firm’s creditors, a group of 62 primarily junior partners has reportedly promised to ante up $1.6 million in a tentative settlement. The individual payouts aren’t disclosed in yesterday’s…

Dec 11, 2009 9:44 PM CST

US Lawyer Wrongly Accused in Madrid Bomb Case Loses Patriot Act Challenge

Because he earlier accepted $2 million from the government for being mistakenly arrested in an international terrorism case and is barred by the terms of the settlement from seeking new injunctive relief, an Oregon lawyer lacks standing to pursue his challenge to the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act, a…

Dec 10, 2009 8:36 PM CST

Judge Axes Guilty Plea, Says Broadcom Exec Didn’t Lie to SEC, Dismisses Case

Nearly 18 months ago, Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to securities regulators about his role in an alleged company stock options backdating scheme. But in fact Samueli didn’t make any material misstatement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal judge…

Dec 10, 2009 6:15 PM CST

Kozinski’s Turducken Dissent Sets Up Cert Petition in Privacy Case

The government is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling allowing engineers and scientists to pursue a suit that claims newly instituted background checks invade their privacy. The plaintiffs, employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, contend the government wants to ask friends and acquaintances about…

Dec 7, 2009 7:30 PM CST

Many More Mortgage Fraud Cases in Pipeline; ‘Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel’

Mortgage fraud prosecutions are likely to increase exponentially as federal authorities gear up nationwide to put a higher priority on such cases. In Nevada, they have some 300 cases in the pipeline, cherry-picking the most egregious, reports the Las Vegas Sun. Like complex drug cases, mortgage fraud cases can mushroom…

Nov 19, 2009 8:12 PM CST

Federal PD Wins Health Costs for Same-Sex Spouse in ‘Legal End-Run’

A federal public defender, thwarted in an earlier effort to enroll his same-sex spouse in his employer’s health coverage plan, has won a ruling requiring his employer to pay him for the costs of obtaining outside insurance. The Los Angeles Times calls the ruling by Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the…

Nov 19, 2009 3:00 PM CST

Law Firm Manager Gets 41 Months for Embezzling $1.3M

Sentenced yesterday by a federal judge in California to 41 months for embezzling $1.3 million from the law firm at which she formerly worked as office manager, Regina Schenck blames a “demeaning” climate at Diepenbrock Harrison and a “horse addiction” for fueling her crime. In a presentence letter to U.S.…

Nov 18, 2009 11:19 PM CST

Chevron Sues Plaintiffs Lawyer for $4M, Alleges Malicious Prosecution

After making headlines several months ago by posting a video on YouTube to bolster its defense of an Ecuador-based environmental mass tort case, Chevron is again trying an unusual litigation tactic in a closely related case. The company has sued a plaintiffs attorney for $4 million in federal court in…

Nov 17, 2009 10:51 PM CST

Goal of New ABA Web Effort: All the Federal Decisions that Are Fit to Print

Want to know more about a 9th Circuit opinion on the First Amendment rights of a citizen ejected from a city council meeting for giving a Nazi salute? Or the 5th Circuit opinion allowing a Halliburton employee to sue over her alleged rape in Iraq? You can find those opinions…

Nov 17, 2009 11:30 AM CST

Judge Nixes ‘Hackintosher’ Bid to Put Mac OS X in Cloned Computers

Apple won a legal battle over the use of its operating system Friday, when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Psystar violated copyright law by selling its own cloned computers with Mac OS X. The clone-maker got around Apple’s restrictions on using the operating system in non-Macintosh machines…

Nov 16, 2009 7:28 PM CST

Misconduct By 3 Sekhon Firm Lawyers Puts Up to 700 Clients in Peril

Sekhon & Sekhon claimed a 95 percent success rate concerning more than 1,000 immigrants that the law firm helped to win political asylum in the United States. But now up to 700 could be deported because they lied to immigration judges and asylum officers after the law firm and interpreters…

Nov 16, 2009 6:10 PM CST