Posts on ‘March 12th, 2009’

A blood oath isn’t good enough for a California appeals court. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana agreed with a lower court when it ruled a contract written in blood between two Korean businessmen is unenforceable. Jinsoo Kim and his friend Stephen Son were drinking at a sushi restaurant when Son asked the waiter for a safety pin, pricked his finger and wrote the contract on some paper — in blood and in Korean characters — pledging to repay Kim about $170,000 for money lost investing in Son’s companies.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is warning his colleagues that he will shine a light on any who try to hold up a nominee of President Barack Obama. Leahy, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, criticized the use of anonymous “holds” and other tactics that allow a senator to delay a nomination without revealing that he or she is the one doing so. Leahy’s stance could speed up the process for some Justice Department nominees who have faced procedural delays.

The yeshiva teacher charged in New York federal court with sexually abusing his daughter for seven years, and who represented himself at trial, was found guilty Wednesday on all five counts. After the verdict, Israel Weingarten asked unsuccessfully for “adjournment” because he was “unprepared.” The trial was a difficult one, with Weingarten refusing the judge’s repeated encouragements to accept representation. On Wednesday, the victim said that being cross-examined by her father was like “being molested again.”

A former Biopure Corp. executive has pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for pretending he had terminal cancer to dodge a lawsuit by federal securities regulators. Howard Richman admitted in federal court Wednesday he had instructed his lawyers to tell a judge that he was gravely ill with colon cancer. Richman also admitted to posing as his doctor in a phone call with his lawyer so that she would tell the judge that his cancer had spread and that he was undergoing chemotherapy.

A Christian student group faced a tough battle before a 9th Circuit panel Tuesday in its First Amendment crusade against Hastings College of the Law. The school refused to recognize the group because it wouldn’t allow gays and non-Christians to be members — violating the school’s nondiscrimination policy. But the panel’s tough questions may not matter, as the judges indicated they might hold off on a decision, pending finality in another case that Chief Judge Alex Kozinski called “completely on point.”

The University Club in Washington, D.C., has responded creatively and controversially to a law aimed at barring federal judges from accepting honorary club memberships valued at more than $50 a year. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., as well as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reported being members as of last year, before the law was passed, and numerous judges on lower courts have also been members.

In response to the recent spate of Ponzi schemes around the U.S., state lawmakers and Congress are attempting to tackle such fraud through legislation. But some lawyers are skeptical about whether new laws are the answer, saying what’s needed is more oversight and more victims who are willing to come forward to name the con artists. Says a DLA Piper partner, “You can have all the FBI agents in the world, and unless they’re involved as investors, they’re not going to know about [a fraud] unless someone drops a dime.”