The Supreme Court Justices of the United States are John G. Roberts (Chief Justice), John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor. UPI/Gary Fabiano/PoolUPI/Gary Fabiano/Pool

The high court in a 7-2 judgment reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered “sexually dangerous.”

“The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing the majority opinion.

Five federal prisoners had brought the case. Lead challenger Graydon Comstock was six days before he was to finish a sentence in November 2006 for possession of child pornography when he was certified by the attorney general as “sexually dangerous.” Since then Comstock has been confined at a federal prison in North Carolina

President George W. Bush in 2006 signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which authorized the civil commitment of sexually dangerous federal inmates.

The act, named after the son of “America’s Most Wanted” television host John Walsh, was challenged by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but prison officials said there would be a risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if they were released.

A fifth man who also was part of the legal challenge was charged with child sex abuse, but declared incompetent to stand trial.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled last year that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing the government to hold indefinitely people who are considered “sexually dangerous.”

Stephen Breyer

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress’ ability to control the release of dangerous prisoners stems from its broad power under the Constitution to enact laws governing prisons. He added that Congress has long been involved in mental health care for federal prisoners, including their civil commitment.

Most broadly, the court said the power to confine inmates whose sentences have ended arises from Congress’ authority in the Constitution to make laws “necessary and proper” to carry out its powers.

Breyer noted that the law has been applied to only a small fraction of prisoners. He referred to a statement by Solicitor General Elena Kagan at January oral arguments that 105 individuals have been subject to the law, out of more than 188,000 federal inmates.

Elena Kagan

Kagan had argued that the federal government was trying to fill a gap left by the states. “The federal government has mentally ill, seriously dangerous persons in its custody,” Kagan had argued. “It knows that those persons, if released, will commit serious sexual offenses, and it knows too that states are not often in a position to deal with those dangers.”

Kagan was appealing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, that said Congress had overstepped its power in the 2006 law authorizing civil commitment of certain prisoners.

But “we conclude that the Constitution grants Congress legislative power sufficient to enact” this law, Breyer said.

Dissenting Monday were Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying Congress can only pass laws that deal with the federal powers listed in the Constitution.

Nothing in the Constitution “expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the Constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such a power,” Thomas said.

Thomas was joined in part on his dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Chief Justice John Roberts last year granted an administration request to block the release of up to 77 inmates at a federal prison in North Carolina. These were people whose prison terms for sex offenses were ending. The justice’s order was designed to allow time for the high court to consider the administration’s appeal.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions are not being challenged.

State laws allowing civil commitments of sex offenders also are unaffected.

Complaint lodged against Bernie Madoff in New York Supreme Court by California Law Firm

Attorneys who interviewed Madoff in jail in July used information obtained from him to file a series of claims against major banks and accountancy firms, in an action that also throws light on Madoff’s life behind bars…

The 272-page complaint was lodged with the New York Supreme Court by the Californian law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy.

According to the document submitted to the court: “Madoff now shares a cell with a 21-year-old inmate convicted of drug crimes. Madoff sleeps in the lower bunk and he eats pizza cooked by an inmate convicted of child molestation.”

The document describes how Madoff’s recreation time “consists of walking around the prison track at night”.

“He now spends time with former Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted of spying for Israel,” the complaint said. “Most of his fellow inmates are in prison for drug crimes or sex crimes and Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison with them.”

The legal action was brought by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy on behalf of Jay Wexler, a New York resident who invested in Rye Select Broad Market Prime Fund, a fund managed by Tremont Group, the hedge fund business of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance.

Pfizer found guity of criminal fraud

Pfizer pleaded guilty to a felony crime for “…for misbranding Bextra with the intent to defraud or mislead.”  Read more from the actual DOJ documents.

The feds relied heavily on evidence from a half-dozen whistleblowers  who give testimony that eventually proved  Pfizer fraudulently marketed Bextra.  This settlement is  the largest health fraud settlement in U.S. history.

What Pfizer did was ask the FDA for the approval of Bextra to be used for several diseases and conditions, but the FDA refused those approvals. Pfizer then went ahead anyway and off-label marketed the drugs for those diseases and conditions.

The key whistleblower was  West Point grad John Kopchinski, who was hired by Pfizer as a sales rep when he left the Army in 1992. Kopchinski, 45,  was fired by the company in 2003.

Kopchinsk was talking with lawyers by then about evidence he had accumulated on how Pfizer was marketing  Bextra, a painkiller withdrawn from the market in 2005 amid safety concerns…

When Kopchinski was asked about blowing the whistle he said,  “You have to live with yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror,” he told us in a telephone interview.

According to the DOJ following statement:

Pfizer has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs — Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug — and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs. The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company.

“Six whistleblowers will receive payments totaling more than $102 million from the federal share of the civil recovery,” says the DOJ.

Along with this admission of guilt for committing a felony crime, Pfizer is paying well over $1 billion in criminal fines, plus another $1 billion or so to resolve civil allegations against its fraudulent marketing practices. In all, the multi-billion dollar health fraud settlement is the largest in the history of the DOJ.

Related searches:

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Rapper "C Murder" sentenced to life

The Huffington Post writes:

Rapper Corey “C-Murder” Miller has been sentenced to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction.

District Judge Hans Liljeberg gave Miller the mandatory life sentence on Friday, days after the rapper was found guilty of the 2002 killing by a Louisiana jury.

The 38-year-old Miller was convicted of shooting 16-year-old fan Steve Thomas at a now-closed nightclub in Harvey.

It was the second time that a jury convicted Miller in the case, but a 2003 conviction was overturned.

Miller has been in jail after pleading no contest to two counts of attempted murder in a separate altercation at a nightclub in Baton Rouge in 2001.

Find a lawyer at locatealawyer.com

UNDERHILL, Vt. – The unassuming ship captain who escaped the clutches of Somali pirates said upon his triumphant arrival home Friday that he was just an ordinary seaman doing his job, not a hero, and he praised the Navy for its daring rescue mission.

“They’re the superheroes,” Richard Phillips said. “They’re the titans. They’re impossible men doing an impossible job, and they did the impossible with me. … They’re at the point of the sword every day, doing an impossible job every day.”…

Phillips was saved on Easter Sunday, when Navy snipers killed three pirates with three simultaneous nighttime gunshots.

“I’m not a hero, the military is,” he said, appearing healthy and invigorated at a brief airport news conference shortly after his arrival.

Phillips’ wife, Andrea, and their adult children, Daniel and Mariah, went on board the corporate jet to greet him at the Burlington airport. Phillips, wearing a cap from the USS Bainbridge destroyer, which rescued him, waved to a small, cheering crowd and hugged his daughter as he walked inside a building for a private reunion.

He later emerged to praise his fellow crew members of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship.

“We did it,” he said. “We did what we were trained to do.”

When Phillips was rescued, his arms were bound. On Friday, abrasions and scabs could be seen on the insides of his forearms. Asked what the high-seas hostage experience was like, he said: “Indescribable, indescribable.”

The captain, who spoke for just a couple of minutes, was to be feted later at his home in nearby Underhill with his favorite beer and a homemade meal.

Police escort
After his airport appearance, Phillips, 53, was driven home in a dark sport utility vehicle, a Vermont State Police cruiser leading the way into the small rural community where he lives, past freshly tilled farm fields, a pen with spring lambs in it and clusters of neighbors who came out of their houses to wave as he passed.

He doffed the baseball cap and waved it out the window as he passed Chamberlin’s Garden & Farm Market, where four cars sat idling, their drivers honking their horns.

Arriving at his small white farmhouse, he found it festooned with ribbons, “Welcome Home” balloons and signs, with a flag-waving contingent of about 25 people standing on the other side of the road, cheering.

“To be able to come home, safe and sound, from such a harrowing experience … oh, how Andrea’s heart must be filled with joy right now,” said Kathy Wright, of neighboring Jericho, a friend who waved red, white and blue pompoms when Phillips’ vehicle pulled into the driveway.

There was no immediate plan for a parade or public celebration, owing to the family’s status as somewhat reluctant celebrities.

“We’re respecting the family’s wishes and waiting to see what they’d like to do,” said Kari Papelbon, the town’s zoning administrator.

Yellow ribbons of hope
But all around town, the yellow ribbons that came to symbolize Underhill’s hope during the five days of Phillips’ captivity fluttered in a spring breeze, with lots of late additions as his arrival drew near.

There was a “Welcome Home Captain” sign in front of the Stitch In Time yarn shop, a “Welcome Home Captain Phillips” sign in front of Browns River Middle School and a “Welcome Home Captain Phillips” tar paper sign affixed to a red barn across the street from the family’s home.

Just as telling were a pair of posterboard signs on the fence in front of Phillips’ home.

“Thank You for Your Prayers,” said one.

“Please Give Us Some Time as a Family,” said another, a polite message to members of the media and anyone else hoping to get close.

Police also had kept people away from the airport. Still, two women inspired by the bravery of Phillips, who gave himself to the pirates as a hostage to save his Maersk Alabama crew, sat in the airport’s parking lot with a sign to welcome him home: “You’re a good man, Captain Phillips,” it read.

‘He’s a good man’
“We’re so, so proud of him,” said Lynn Coeby, of Ripton, alongside her mother, Eleanor Coeby. “We think that he has such character and morals and ethics to potentially put his life at risk for his crew, and we wanted to be here to say we think he’s a good man.”

TEHRAN, Iran – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday she is “deeply disappointed” by Iran’s sentencing of an American journalist in closed-door trial.

A lawyer for journalist Roxana Saberi said the 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen was convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Clinton said in a statement the U.S. is working with Swiss diplomats in Iran to get details about the court’s decision and to ensure Saberi’s well-being. Clinton said the U.S. will “vigorously raise our concerns” with Tehran. She said Saberi was in Iran to learn more about her cultural heritage.

Saberi, a dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States…

She appeared before an Iranian court behind closed doors on Monday in an unusually swift one-day trial. The Fargo, North Dakota, native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

“Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail. I’ll definitely appeal the verdict,” lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi told The Associated Press.

The United States has called the charges against Saberi baseless and has demanded her release, and the conviction and prison sentence could put strains on efforts to improve ties.

President Barack Obama has said it wants to engage Iran in talks on its nuclear program and other issues — a departure from the tough talk of the Bush administration.

Iran has been mostly lukewarm to the idea, but on Thursday Iran’s hard-line president gave the clearest signal yet that the Islamic Republic was also willing to start a new relationship with Washington.

U.S.: Jailing not helpful
In a speech Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was preparing new proposals aimed at breaking an impasse with the West over its nuclear program.

But it was uncertain how Washington would react to Saberi’s conviction. On Thursday, the State Department said Saberi’s jailing was not helpful and that Iran would gain U.S. good will if it “responded in a positive way” to the case.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran after its 1979 Islamic revolution and takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic government through what it calls a “soft revolution.” But they were never put on trial and were eventually released from prison.

Iran has released few details about the charges against Saberi. Iranian officials initially said she had been arrested for working in the Islamic Republic without press credentials and she had told her father in a phone conversation that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine.

An Iranian investigative judge involved in the case charged that Saberi was passing classified information to U.S. intelligence services.

Her parents, who traveled to Iran from their home in Fargo in a bid to help win their daughter’s release, could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder said CIA interrogators would not be held accountable because their actions had been sanctioned by the Justice Department. Holder also said the government would defend them against any lawsuits and seek to indemnify them against monetary judgments.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution,” Obama said in a statement. “We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero criticized the decision not to prosecute those who authorized and conducted the interrogations. “There can be no more excuses for putting off criminal investigations of officials who … broke the law,” he said.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in late January found that nearly two-thirds of Americans favored investigations into the torture allegations. Four in 10 wanted criminal probes.