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Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
The reeling prosecution in the Skilling case
On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to hear Conrad Black's appeal of his criminal conviction on honest services wire-fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 ("Section 1346), the Court yesterday granted former Enron...
SCOTUS takes up the honest services issue
Well now, that certainly did not take long, now did it? Just a week after former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling appealed his criminal conviction and monstrous 24-year prison sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court on an allegedly erroneous application...
An uncivilized routine
Former Hollinger International chairman and CEO Conrad Black's daily routine these days is not quite as civilized as the one followed by Winston Churchill, wouldn't you agree?: I get up just after 7 except on the weekends and holidays...
Conrad Black faces the trial penalty
Former Hollinger International chairman and CEO Conrad Black (previous posts here) was sentenced on Monday to six and a half years in prison as a result of his conviction on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction...
Free the Koz
Dan Ackman provides this cogent WSJ ($) op-ed that calls for the reversal of the convictions of former Tyco International executives Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz: Kozlowski wasn't convicted for overspending, nor for defrauding investors -- the most common charges...
Steyn on the criminalization of everything
Still numbed by the experience of blogging the injustice of the Conrad Black trial, Mark Steyn takes up the appalling lack of judgment behind the McMinnville, Oregon district attorney's prosecution of two 7th grade boys as sex offenders. The alleged...
Steyn on the Conrad Black trial
Mark Steyn continues his excellent analysis of the criminal case against Conrad Black (prior posts here) with this lengthy piece on the trial, in which he agrees with me regarding the defense team's decision not to have Lord Black testify:...
Steyn on reforming the criminal justice system
Canadian Mark Steyn's experience in blogging the Conrad Black trial gives him an interesting perspective in proposing several common sense reforms for the federal criminal justice system, most of which have been addressed in this blog over the years: 1)...
Dissecting the expanding realm of white collar prosecutions
Over at Point of Law.com, Moin Yahya, Assistant Professor of Law Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta, is dissecting the prosecution against Conrad Black (earlier posts here) in a series of posts, the first two of which are...
The influence of junk evidence on juries
What do the juries in the Conrad Black , Dr. William Hurwitz and the Enron-related criminal trials have in common? In response to the verdict in Lord Black's trial, Professor Bainbridge observed that the result appeared to be a "compromise"...
The Conrad Black verdict
So, despite being acquitted on 9 of 13 counts, former Hollinger CEO Conrad Black was convicted yesterday in Chicago of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice (previous posts on the case are here). Three...
The next business prosecution
With the Conrad Black trial winding down in Chicago, it's about time for another dubious prosecution of a businessman, this time former Brocade CEO Greg Reyes, who is the first executive to be prosecuted for fraud in connection with backdating...
A risky strategy in the Black trial
Mark Steyn -- who has done a wonderful job blogging the Conrad Black trial -- reports that the case will go to the jury next week after the defense rested this week with Black electing not to testify. The Black's...
The folly of regulation through criminalization
In this recent blog post on the closing days of the Conrad Black criminal trial in Chicago (prior posts here), Mark Steyn explains why criminalization of merely questionable business transactions is a manifestly unfair and arbitrary way to regulate business:...
Giuliani's hypocrisy
Doug Berman notes that Rudy Giuliani thinks that Scooter Libby got a raw deal. That is unquestionably correct, but what Giuliani failed to mention is that he is one of the politicians primarily responsible for the culture of criminalization that...
The Bill Fuhs of the Conrad Black trial
In this post from last week, I noted the similarities between the federal government's vacuous case against Conrad Black and the notorious prosecution of the four former Merrill Lynch executives in the Enron-related case known as the Nigerian Barge case....
More on the Enronesque prosecution of Conrad Black
David Radler, the key prosecution witness against former Hollinger International chairman and CEO Conrad Black, is currently testifying in the trial. Mark Steyn's blog of the trial continues to be the "go to" site for keeping up with the proceedings....
Big Jim's testimony at the Black trial
Big Jim Thompson, the former governor of Illinois, followed fellow Hollinger International director and audit committee member Marie-José Kravis to the witness stand in the criminal trial of Conrad Black this week. Thompson testified that he was just as clueless...
Regulating incompetence? Or incompetent regulation?
Let's see if I've got this straight. As a member of the Hollinger International board of directors and audit committee, Marie-José Kravis, wife of Henry R. Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts fame, approves $60 million in non-compete payments that go...
The real presumption in the Conrad Black trial
As I noted many times in regard to the criminal trial against former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay, the real presumption in the case was not the usual presumption that the defendants were innocent until proven guilty. Rather,...
Steyn on the Black trial
This earlier post on the Conrad Black trial noted that syndicated writer Mark Steyn is blogging the trial and, if you haven't been checking in on Steyn's blog, you're missing some rollicking good fun. Check out this post from Wednesday's...
Georgetown Law Corporate Crime Conference Webcast
This earlier post highlighted the conference that John Hasnas put together last week in Washington at Georgetown Law School that brought together some high caliber talent to discuss the implications of the federal government's increasing regulation of business through criminalization...
The Conrad Black Trial
Former Hollinger International chairman Conrad M. Black goes on trial in Chicago this week on various corporate criminal charges that he looted Hollinger. My post on the indictment from a year and a half ago is here, the NY Times...
The Enronesque prosecution of Conrad Black
Washington attorney Alykhan Velshi writing in this New English Review op-ed examines the Conrad Black indictment and doesn't like what he sees: The trial by attrition of Conrad Black has exposed the dark underbelly of the legal system, where the...
The Lords of Regulation go after Lord Black
Fraud trials have come a long ways in Chicago since the days of Al Capone as federal prosecutors in the Windy City announced the indictment on Thursday of newspaper entrepreneur Conrad Black and three of his former associates in connection...
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