Salon.com > Paul Elias

Barry Bonds found guilty of obstruction of justice

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:12:00 +0000

Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice but a jury failed to reach a verdict on three other counts that the home run king lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he specifically denied that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone.

Following a 12-day trial and almost four full days of deliberation, a jury could not reach a unanimous vote on three of four counts, a messy end to a case that put the slugger in the spotlight for more than three years.

Bonds sat stone-faced through the verdict, displaying no emotion.

The case also represented the culmination of the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids ring. Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department will have to decide whether to retry Bonds on the unresolved counts.

Man quits job, makes living suing spammers

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 22:08:55 +0000

Daniel Balsam hates spam. Most everybody does, of course. But he has acted on his hate as few have, going far beyond simply hitting the delete button. He sues them.

Eight years ago, Balsam was working as a marketer when he received one too many e-mail pitches to enlarge his breasts.

Enraged, he launched a Web site called Danhatesspam.com, quit a career in marketing to go to law school and is making a decent living suing companies who flood his e-mail inboxes with offers of cheap drugs, free sex and unbelievable vacations.

"I feel like I'm doing a little bit of good cleaning up the Internet," Balsam said.

From San Francisco Superior Court small claims court to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Balsam, based in San Francisco, has filed many lawsuits, including dozens before he graduated law school in 2008, against e-mail marketers he says violate anti-spamming laws.

His many victories are mere rain drops in the ocean considering that Cisco Systems Inc. estimates that there are 200 billion spam messages circulating a day, accounting for 90 percent of all e-mail.

Still, Balsam settles enough lawsuits and collects enough from judgments to make a living. He has racked up well in excess of $1 million in court judgments and lawsuit settlements with companies accused of sending illegal spam.

Prop. 8 appeal attracts C-SPAN audience

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:30:00 +0000

The legal fight over California's same-sex marriage ban went before a federal appeals court Monday in a hearing that reached a nationwide TV audience anxious for a final decision on whether the measure violates the U.S. Constitution.

The hearing before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also focused on whether supporters of voter-approved Proposition 8 have legal standing to challenge a lower court ruling that the ban was unconstitutional.

The judges did not issue an immediate ruling.

C-SPAN piped the nearly three-hour hearing into law schools, courthouses, community centers and elsewhere across the country, giving the public outside the courtroom its first -- and possibly last -- direct look at the debate raging in the federal case.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a lower court from broadcasting the full trial earlier this year, and the high court has a blanket ban on televising its own proceedings. That means the issue would be blacked out if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, as many legal experts and lawyers on both sides believe it will.

Prop. 8 appeal to go before judge with ACLU connections

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:30:00 +0000

An attempt to oust a liberal judge from hearing a landmark gay marriage case in California ended Thursday almost as quickly as it began.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request that he recuse himself from the case because his wife, Ramona Ripston, is a former head of the American Civil Liberties Union's Southern California office.

The ACLU is an outspoken opponent of Proposition 8.

Supporters of the gay marriage ban argued in court papers Wednesday that the judge appointed by President Carter would have trouble remaining impartial because of his wife's link to the ACLU.

They noted Reinhardt had recused himself in the past when the ACLU was involved in cases before him and asked him to step down from the three-judge panel considering their appeal of a lower court decision striking down the gay marriage ban.

"I will be able to rule impartially on this appeal, and I will do so," Reinhardt said in his brief order.

Hours later, Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for the organization ProtectMarriage.com that's pursuing the appeal, said it accepts Reinhardt's decision and will drop the recusal attempt.

Schwarzenegger: Allow same-sex marriages to resume

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:34:00 +0000

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who twice vetoed legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage, has surprised gay rights supporters by urging a federal judge to allow gay couples to resume marrying in the state without further delay.

Lawyers for Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, two gay couples and the city of San Francisco all filed legal motions Friday asking Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to implement his ruling striking California's voter-approved same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional.

"The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the court's judgment to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," the Republican governor's lawyers said on his behalf. "Doing so is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect."

In his 136-page decision overturning Proposition 8 Wednesday, Walker said he was ordering the state to cease enforcing the 22-month-old ban. But he agreed to suspend the order until he could review the briefs submitted Friday.

Appeal filed over gay marriage ruling

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:52:03 +0000

Supporters of California's gay marriage ban filed an appeal Thursday of a federal judge's ruling striking down the voter-approved law.

The appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was expected, as lawyers on both sides of the legal battle repeatedly vowed to carry the fight to a higher court if they lost.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco overturned California's Proposition 8, which restricts a marriage to one man and one woman. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled the law violates federal equal protections and due process laws.

The 9th Circuit court has no deadlines to hear the case, which will be randomly assigned to a three-judge panel. It's expected that the panel will order both sides to submit written legal arguments before scheduling a hearing.

The outcome in the appeals court could force the U.S. Supreme Court to confront the question of whether gays have a constitutional right to wed.

"This ruling, if allowed to stand, threatens not only Prop 8 in California but the laws in 45 other states that define marriage as one man and one woman," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which helped fund the 2008 campaign that led to the ban's passage.

Court documents released in iPhone case

Fri, 14 May 2010 23:05:00 +0000

Brian Hogan's world closed in fast almost as soon as he sold the next-generation iPhone he found in a Silicon Valley bar to a popular technology Web site for a stack of $100 bills, according to court documents released Friday.

By April 19, Hogan's roommate was cooperating with investigators, Apple's top lawyers were meeting with police to press for criminal charges and Steve Jobs himself was personally demanding the iPhone's return.

The saga began March 25, when Apple engineer Robert "Gray" Powell left the iPhone prototype in the bar area of Redwood City's Gourmet Haus Staud restaurant, according to a sworn statement by San Mateo Sheriff's Detective Matthew Broad that was unsealed Friday.

Broad's 10-page statement was used to obtain a search warrant for the home and car of Jason Chen, an editor with the technology website Gizmodo.

It said Gizmodo paid Hogan $5,000 for the device, cracked it opened and posted images of it on April 20 despite a phone call from Jobs the day before demanding website editors return the gadget. Gizmodo promised Hogan an additional $3,500 bonus if Apple formally unveiled the device by July, according to Broad.

Walmart gender discrimination suit gets go-ahead

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:45:00 +0000

A sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial.

In its 6-5 ruling, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the world's largest private employer will have to face charges that it pays women less than men for the same jobs and that female employees receive fewer promotions and have to wait longer for those promotions than male counterparts.

The retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., has fiercely fought the lawsuit since it was first filed by six women in federal court in San Francisco in 2001, losing two previous rulings in the trial court and again in the appeals court in 2007.

Wal-Mart successfully convinced the appeals court to revisit its 2007 ruling made by a three-judge panel with a larger 11-judge panel, arguing that women who allege discrimination should file individual lawsuits. The retailer argued that the number of litigants that the lawsuit purports to represent is too big to defend.

Judge: Bush wire-tapping illegal

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:25:00 +0000

In a repudiation of the Bush administration's now-defunct terrorist surveillance effort, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs provided enough evidence to show "they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance" by the National Security Agency.

The judge's 45-page ruling focused narrowly on the case involving the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, touching vaguely on the larger question of the program's legality.

Nonetheless, Al-Haramain lawyer Jon Eisenberg said the ruling had larger implications.

"By virtue of finding what the Bush administration did to our clients was illegal, he found that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was unlawful," Eisenberg said.

President Bush authorized the surveillance program shortly after 9/11, allowing NSA officials to bypass the courts and intercept electronic communications believed connected to al-Qaida.

Generally, government investigators are required to obtain search warrants signed by judges to eavesdrop on domestic phone calls, e-mail traffic and other electronic communications.