John O’Connor, Justice Sandra Day’s Husband, Died Today

The Associated Press reports that John J. O’Connor III died today at 79 of complications arising from Alzheimer’s disease.

John and Sandra Day O’Connor met as law students at Stanford.

The O’Connors were married in 1952 and became a leading couple on Washington’s social scene when they moved from Arizona in 1981 following her confirmation as the first woman on the Supreme Court.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stepped down from the Supreme Court in 2005 in order to care for her husband as his Alzheimer’s disease worsened.

Husband of retired Justice O’Connor dies [Associated Press]
Justice O’Connor’s Husband Dead at 79 [BLT]
Sandra Day O’Connor’s Husband Dies [Washington Post]

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Introducing the Man Who Will Represent Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan

We blogged on Monday a story out of the Houston Chronicle about what was likely to happen to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 and wounding dozens of people last week at the Fort Hood military base. Click here, as well, for a WSJ story, from Dionne Searcey, Gary Fields and Nathan Koppel, picking up the thread.

“It’s really going to be a long road, even if he’s convicted and receives the death penalty,” said Michelle Lindo McCluer, director of the National Institute of Military Justice at American University’s Washington College of Law, to the WSJ.

On Tuesday, thanks to reporting from the WSJ reporters Stephanie Simon, Miguel Bastillo and Ann Davis, we learned a little bit more about the lawyer who will plead Hasan’s case. His name: John Galligan.

According to the story (link not yet available), Galligan, a retired Army colonel .

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Breaking News: Bear Defendants Found Not Guilty on All Charges

This just in: a jury in Brooklyn has found the defendants in the Bear Stearns case, Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, not guilty on all charges. Click here for the story, from Amir Efrati.

The former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, were on trial for various fraud counts, essentially accused of lying to their investors about the health of two funds as they were collapsing in 2007.

The trial didn’t go altogether smoothly for the government. More than one government witness strayed from the script, and ended up providing testimony that wasn’t exactly damaging to the defendants’ cases. The judge on the case, Frederick Block, ruled the jury couldn’t consider one of the prosecution’s emails, as well.

Jury deliberations began Monday morning.

The verdict brought to an end a two-year saga involving the former managers, Cioffi and Tannin, who were accused of lying to their investors about the health of two mortgage-related funds that collapsed in 2007. Those failures were the first of several blows . . .

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Minnesota vs. National Arbitration Forum

The National Arbitration Forum and the Attorney General of Minnesota have reached an agreement under which NAF will cease accepting new arbitration cases involving consumers, including collection actions by credit card companies. The consent decree (dated July 17, 2009) does not apply to ICANN domain name disputes nor to certain other types of arbitration matters currently administered by NAF.

See also the AG's press release, her earlier complaint against NAF, and NAF's statement on the settlement.

The Attorney General has also asked the American Arbitration Association to exit the consumer arbitration field. (Another company, JAMS, also offers consumer arbitration services, but apparently has not been approached by the AG.)

Update, 7/22/09: The American Arbitration Association says it will stop handling consumer debt collection cases "until some standards or safeguards are established." Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2009, page A1 (full text of story here). See also Deepak Gupta's take in CL&P Blog. Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky is seeking to seize more than one hundred gambling-related domain names. A judge initially rejected the governor's bid and has scheduled a hearing for October 7. See coverage in the Louisville Courier-Journal, DomainNews, and The Iconoclast.

John Levine's take on the issue sounds right to me. I doubt very much that Kentucky has adequate grounds for jurisdiction over the domain names, the registrants, the registrars, or the registries. Any registrar that voluntarily forfeits a domain name on behalf of a registrant is likely asking to be sued.

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