Court observations of Northern California federal district cases

San Fran Court Observation

Court Visited: Northern California Federal District Court

Judge: Harold Baer Jr.

Plaintiff: United States

Defendant: Douglas Alan Goldberg

Sentencing Hearing

Holding: Goldberg was sentenced commensurate with a plea deal arranged in 2010 as a return favor from the government for testifying against former fellow CDR employees Z. Stewart Wolmark, Evan Zarefsky and Matthew Rothman (who were sentenced that same day to terms ranging from 18 months to 6 months)

Your Remarks: Pretty basic sentencing based on the fact that the sentence was already agreed to in advance between the defendant and the authorities and Goldberg presumably met the terms of the deal.

Based on some research the author of this response gave, this was part of a much larger scheme that involved municipal bond rigging at places like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, Wells Fargo and General Electric Company. United States v. Rubin/Chambers is a related case in Manhattan, NY. Rubin faces 35 years in jail.

Court Visited: Northern California District Court

Day/Time: April 11th, 2013

Judge: Three Judge Panel (Reinhardt, Karlton & Henderson)

Plaintiff: Coleman and Plata (two different cases)

Defendant: Plata and Brown (respectively, as with the two cases above)

Issue: Copyright Infringement Accusation

Holding: Summary judgment was given to Sony Pictures and Mr. Quirk's accusations about copyright infringement was dismissed. The ruling was justified on the grounds that Quirk's claim was inherently flawed and that copyright pertains to "expression, not ideas."

Your Remarks: Pretty common nowadays for an obscure/starving artist to claim that a big-time motion picture was their idea and yet this claim often comes only after the picture has run its course in theaters. What made this case unique was that it was clear that the idea/concept behind the movie was adapted from a similar project/concept called "Ultimate Rush." The court said quite plainly that Quirk could not prove anything he was asserting beyond any sort of reasonable doubt so he was ruled against in this case.