Category Archives: Supreme Court

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Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Legal News, Supreme Court

Best Buy- FBI link explored in Newport doctor’s effort to toss out computer photos in child porn case

Best Buy employees Thursday denied allegations by a Newport Beach doctor’s legal team that the FBI directed them to look for illicit material on customers’ computers during repairs.

Attorneys for Dr. Mark Albert Rettenmaier, a gynecological oncologist who practiced at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach until he was indicted in 2014 on two felony counts of possession of child pornography, are asking a federal judge to throw out photographic evidence in the case, alleging that it was discovered by Best Buy’s Geek Squad technicians improperly acting as paid FBI informants.

Thursday’s hearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana was the second and final day of testimony in which Judge Cormac Carney allowed Rettenmaier’s attorneys to call witnesses to examine the relationship between the FBI and Geek Squad technicians.

Rettenmaier’s case began in November 2011 when he took a computer hard drive to a Best Buy store in Chino for repairs.

Read Full – http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-rettenmaier-20170112-story.html

Blog, Civil Rights, Legal News, Supreme Court

Illinois getting nearly 200 new laws to start 2017

By Kevin P. Craverof the Morris Daily Herald

More than 190 changes to Illinois law take effect with the new year.

No, none of them are an actual state budget or meaningful pension reform. But Illinois does enter 2017 with an official state archaeological artifact.

House Bill 538 officially designates the pirogue, a narrow canoe carved from a tree trunk, as the official state artifact of Illinois.

Some of the new laws are meant to save you money at the checkout line, others seek to keep your local governments from wasting money, others have public safety in mind, and a handful give the appearance that some of our state lawmakers may have too much free time on their hands

In the first category, sales tax on tampons, pads and menstrual cups is lifted under Senate Bill 2746. They previously had been charged the same sales tax as other items, including shampoo.

Shenanigans at the College of DuPage and Northern Illinois University inspired several government spending reforms.

Read Full – http://www.pjstar.com/news/20161230/illinois-getting-nearly-200-new-laws-to-start-2017

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Supreme Court

Decision on Attorney-Client Privilege Spooks Defense Bar

Charles Toutant and Vanessa Blum, The Recorder

A closely divided California Supreme Court on Thursday limited the protection afforded to legal bills under the attorney-client privilege when those bills are sent to government entities and sought under the state’s Public Records Act.

The court ruled 4-3 that a law firm’s invoices to a government agency are exempt from disclosure only when they pertain to active matters. Just how a big a chink that cuts in the privilege for legal bills generated outside government representation isn’t immediately clear.

“That’s the $1 million question,” said Steven Fleischman, a partner at Horvitz & Levy. “Are courts going to find this decision only applies to public records cases? Or are they going to read it as saying attorney bills are no longer privileged once the case ends. I certainly hope it’s the former.”

In a vigorous dissent, Justice Katheryn Werdegar scolded her colleagues for undermining a “pillar of our jurisprudence” by finding that legal bills aren’t universally shielded by attorney-client privilege and accused the majority of twisting California’s Evidence Code to “discover a heretofore hidden meaning.”

“The majority’s decision … is unsupported by law,” she wrote.

In a somewhat unlikely alliance, the court’s majority opinion was written by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and joined by Ming Chin, Goodwin Liu and Leondra Kruger. Cuellar, Liu and Kruger are the court’s three newest justices; all graduated from Yale Law School and were appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Chin, generally seen as a conservative voice on the court, has held his seat for 20 years.

Read Full – http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202775795778/Decision-on-AttorneyClient-Privilege-Spooks-Defense-Bar?slreturn=20170002234747

Blog, Civil Rights, Legal News, Supreme Court

Texas’s 2016 Execution Tally Was the Lowest Since 1996 — Here’s Why

Houston-based Texas Defender Services is trying to ensure the judicial system functions properly even in the most extreme circumstances.

By Adam Doster 12/29/2016 at 8:00am

A few weeks after a bad breakup, in 1995, Duane Buck stormed into the Houston home of his ex-girlfriend and murdered her while her three children watched. He also killed the man he thought she was sleeping with and shot his own stepsister, a bystander who survived. Though remorseful (and high at the time), Buck never disputed these facts. By the spring of 2011, when Kate Black first reviewed the resulting criminal case, the Harris County District Attorney’s office had already set Buck’s execution date. He had six months to live.

Black is a staff attorney at the Houston-based legal non-profit Texas Defender Services (TDS), charged with directing the impending clemency proceedings for death row inmates. The group is at the center of a small community of elite death-penalty defense practitioners in Texas, who try hard to ensure the judicial system functions properly even in the most extreme circumstances.

“We were doing the petition,” Black says, “and in the course of investigating it, we realized there was this huge issue that hadn’t been litigated.”

Texas allows death sentences only if prosecutors can show that a defendant poses a future danger to society. At Buck’s sentencing hearing, his initial court-appointed defense attorney, Jerry Guerinot, presented testimony from a psychiatrist named Walter Quijano. It was unlikely that Buck, an African-American with no prior violent convictions, would commit similar acts in the future, Quijano stated, but Buck’s race nonetheless “increased the probability.” The claim was scientifically inaccurate and morally bankrupt. The prosecution leaned on it heavily during closing arguments.

Read Full – https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2016/12/29/texas-2016-execution-tally-lowest-since-1996

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Drug Companies, Legal News, Organized Crime, Supreme Court

6 pharma executives face criminal charges for alleged fentanyl racketeering scheme

Written by Molly Gamble (Twitter | Google+)  | December 08, 2016 | Print |

Six pharmaceutical executives who worked for Chandler, Ariz.-based Insys Therapeutics were arrested Thursday on charges that they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe clinicians to unnecessarily prescribe fentanyl-based pain medication, according to the Department of Justice.

The government claims the executives conspired to bribe physicians and medical practitioners in several states, many of whom worked in pain clinics, to prescribe their pain medication called Subsys. This narcotic contains fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opioid, and is intended to treat cancer patients suffering intense episodes of breakthrough pain.

In exchange for kickbacks and bribes, practitioners allegedly wrote large numbers of prescriptions for patients, few of whom were diagnosed with cancer. The indictment also alleges the former Insys executives conspired to defraud health insurers that showed reluctance to approve payment for Subsys when it was prescribed to non-cancer patients. The defendants allegedly did so by establishing a “reimbursement unit” that obtained prior authorization directly from insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.

Here are the names of the defendants, all of whom are no longer employed by Insys Therapeutics, along with the respective charges they face:

  • Michael Babich, former president and CEO: conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law
  • Alec Burlakoff, former vice president of sales: Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy, mail fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law
  • Richard M. Simon, former national director of sales: RICO conspiracy, mail fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law
  • Sunrise Lee, former regional sales director: RICO conspiracy, mail fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law
  • Joseph A. Rowan, former regional sales director: RICO conspiracy, mail fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law
  • Michael J. Gurry, former vice president of managed markets: RICO conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy

Criminal charges are rarely pressed in cases involving pharmaceutical companies, and several agents noted the severity of the charges in statements.

Full Read – http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/6-pharma-executives-face-criminal-charges-for-alleged-fentanyl-racketeering-scheme.html