Supreme Court stops insider trading retrial of Enron executive

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that F. Scott Yeager, a former executive at Enron Broadband Services, cannot be retried for insider trading. In 2005 Yeager was acquitted of securities and wire fraud charges, but the jury deadlocked on insider trading charges. The government attempted to retry Yeager on the insider trading charges, but Yeager protested that such a retrial would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution.

Since Yeager had been acquitted of the fraud charges, he argued, the jury must have found that he had not possessed insider information, and if he had not possessed insider information, it was impossible for him to have traded on the basis of such information.

Generally courts are not allowed to consider jury's motivations, but the lower courts had trouble reconciling his jury's acquittal on some charges with the deadlocking on others, since there were so many factors in common between the charges.

The Supreme Court decision, authored by Justice Stevens, said that courts can consider what a jury decided, but not what a jury failed to decide. In other words, the court must consider whether an insider trading charge would be allowed, taking into account only the earlier acquittal on fraud charges. Juries may have many reasons for deadlocking, and it is impossible to know why they did what they did.

Because the fraud charges were found by the lower court to be based on the same basis as the insider trading charges, the insider trading charges are now barred from prosecution. The Supreme Court decision did leave open a small door for a lower court to reconsider its analysis of the legal issues: if a lower court finds that it is possible to have committed insider trading and not fraud, a new trial may be possible.

The decision was 6-3. Justice Kennedy agreed with the majority on the Double Jeopardy interpretation, but wrote separately to say that the lower court must reconsider the legal analysis of the two charges.

The case was Yeager v. United States.

Three Years Too Late for United Student Aid Fund

Today the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case of United Student Aid Fund v. Espinosa.  The case involves a question about procedures an individual most go through in order to reduce student loan debt as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.

Espinosa filed for Chapter 13 and the bankruptcy judge was able to reduce his loans from $17,823.15 to $13,250.  The Fund received notice of this plan and did not make any objections to it.

Three years after Espinosa’s filed for bankruptcy, the Fund claimed that Espinosa still needed to pay back the original loan of $17,823.15.  The Fund claims that they were allowed to revisit Espinosa’s case and ask for full payment because Espinosa never initiated a court hearing to settle the loan, but instead just asked the bankruptcy judge to reduce the amount.

Judge Kozinski, who wrote the opinion for the 9th Circuit, said that the Fund should have taken the opportunity to object to Espinosa’s bankruptcy plan when the Fund received notice three years ago.

The court will likely hear the case in November.

Supreme Court Rules Against West Virginia Justice

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that West Virginia Justice Brent Benjamin should have recused himself when holding a Court hearing in 2007, which involved an important contributor to Benjamin’s election campaign conducted three years prior.

The decision came after the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 on whether Justice Benjamin Brent, who had been elected in 2004 following a $3 million donation from Massey Coal Company’s Chairman Don Blankenship, should have recused himself when ruling over the Hugh M. Caperton, et al. v. Massey & Co case.

In 2002, a West Virginia jury found Massey Coal & Co. liable for fraudulent misrepresentation, concealment and tortious interference with existing contractual relations. The jury condemned Massey & Co to $50 million to be awarded to the plaintiff, Caperton et al. in June, 2004. Massey & Co filed for appeal but its demand was rejected by the state trial court.

In 2004, West Virginia held it judicial elections. Massey & Co sponsored Brent Benjamin rather than the incumbent Justice so as to renew the possibilities of appealing but before Massey & Co filed its appeal, Caperton moved to prevent this by calling attention to the Due Process Clause and to the State's Code of Judicial Conduct based on Massey & Co’s campaign involvement.

The Due Process Clause under the 14th amendment of the U.S constitution ensures that no state should “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Additionally, the Code of Judicial Conduct states that “A judge should participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing high standards of conduct, and should personally observe those standards, so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved,” according to the U.S Courts online.

Despite receiving important funding from the party found liable in the Caperton v. Massey case during his judicial campaign, Justice Benjamin refused to recuse himself, and this for a total of three times.

The controversial topic involved whether or not to trust Judicial figures’ capability to remain unbiased when ruling on a question that involves a personal dimension.

In an interpretation Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered, he said “Under our precedents there are objective standards that require recusal when ‘the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decision-maker is too high to be constitutionally of this case,” adding that the judgment of the State Supreme Court of West Virginia is dissented “for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

Kennedy cited “risks of biases”, impartiality and “personal involvement” and the the foundations for the Supreme Court’s decision.

Supreme Court: U.S. Courts Have No Jurisdiction To Hear Suits Against Iraq

By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

According to federal law, foreign countries cannot be sued by individuals in the U.S. and that is one of the points the Supreme Court had to consider before releasing its decision today. But an exception applies that a country can be sued by American citizens if it is designated as a sponsor of terrorism. Immunity is ordinarily attached to foreign sovereigns.
 
In 2003, Congress authorized the President to make exceptions with respect to Iraq, which was designated as a sponsor of terrorism. The Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act repealed previous restrictions. President George W. Bush said that year that EWSAA allowed him to “make inapplicable with respect to Iraq of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 or any other provision of law that applies to countries that have supported terrorism.”

That same year, families of torture victims filed suits against Iraq, alleging mistreatment by Iraqi officials during, and following the 1991 Gulf War. Kenneth Beaty is a U.S. citizen who was working as an oil-rig supervisor in Kuwait when he was arrested by Iraqi border guards after asking them for driving directions. William Barloon was serving as an aircraft maintenance supervisor in Kuwait when border police also arrested him. The two men were taken to prison in Baghdad where they were allegedly denied basic living necessities and their case is entitled Republic of Iraq v. Beaty.

The unanimous Supreme Court decision was delivered today by Justice Scalia. It stated that Iraq’s sovereign immunity was restored when the President exercised his EWSAA authority to make Iraq an exception. The ruling said that the U.S. courts therefore lost jurisdiction to hear suits against Iraq and should have dismissed the cases at that point. The judgement of the Court of Appeals was reversed. The Court also decided that the subset provision applied to the President’s power to create waiver. However, the waivers created by that power or the restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty, are not affected by the sunset.

Latinos: The Sleeping Giant?

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

The U.S is not responding to the needs of its Hispanic citizens even though the population of Hispanics college students in the US rises and many industries are gearing their marketing toward this changing demographic, according to former director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Henry Cisneros.

Cisneros, now Executive Director at CityView and author of “Latinos and the Nation’s Future”, gave a speech on” Latinos and the Nation’s Future” today at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

“A very interesting phenomenon will be the growth of the second generation of Hispanic immigrants. The Pew Foundation says that this number, which is 11 million second generation Hispanics today, will be 30 million in 2030, so it will triple in 20 years or so,” said Cisneros.

Recently, the nomination of Hispanic judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has brought many criticisms from Republicans, who argue that she is not being sufficiently patriotic because she pronounces her name with a Spanish accent.The criticism of Sotomayor has renewed the debate on immigration integration.

Tamar Jacoby, President and CEO of ImmigrationWorks USA and co-author of “Latinos and the Nation’s Future”, said “For a long time, people have said that Latinos in American politics were the sleeping giant of American politics... The reason they thought that is because they said ‘look at these people, look at these demographics’... The political participation was below the potential.”

But Jacoby rejoiced of this complete turn for the best which began with the most recent presidential election of Barack Obama, saying that “In November 2004, 7.5 million Latinos voted; In 2008, 11 million Latinos voted.”

As a consequence of this Hispanic political awakening, Cisneros says that “We will see that the make up of community schools and colleges will be decidedly different in the time period we are describing... We will see that in markets as consumer products relate to the reality of these markets.”

Cisneros added that “Many industries view the growth of Latinos and immigration as the principal basis by which they will grow.”

“The sleeping giant woke up,” said Jacoby.