A few weeks ago, I wrote a story about Joe Ferrierro's chances of winning an appeal from his federal conviction for fraud.  Those chances appear to have gone up. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two of the three honest services fraud cases that are on this year's calendar.  The court expressed great skepticism about the law, with most of the justices thinking it too vague and therefore unconstitutional. It also did not seem like the Court had much interest in reshaping the law to mak...
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Yesterday, a New York court rejected the eminent domain plan being used by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to enable Columbia University to build a massive campus expansion.  The court found that ESDC hired the same consulting firm that Columbia used, the studies done to show blight in the area (the pretext upon which ESDC was basing its use of eminent domain) were entirely fabricated by the agency and its conflicted consultants and that Columbia was responsible for the blight...
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