Appeals Making Headlines: Who Are the Real Animals?

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Polar bears lose the fight against big oil, and a ponzi schemer plans to leave retirees and non-profits holding a $3.65 billion heavy bag. On the one hand, we have man vs. nature - on the other, man vs. man. However, in the opinion of more than a few, both appeals come down to the same basic motivator; greed. Although judges are impartial of such things, the law seems all too often blind to it as well.

Polar Bears vs. Big Oil

Two environment groups argue just because a polar bear has not died due to “industrial activity” since 1993, that doesn’t mean the new regulations will continue to prevent any lethal or otherwise harmful threat to the already threatened polar bear. The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment were recently rejected by the 9th US District Court of Appeals, upholding the lesser court ruling against the two environmental groups.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment appeal that the US Fish and Wildlife Service may have accidentally placed the polar bear in danger when they recently passed new regulations for the oil industry. The appeals court rejected the appeal because “past interaction between the polar bears and the oil industry has been minimal.”

I suppose even when you draw out the big guns, greed still wins. What hope is left for our natural habitats when even large environmental groups - the individual environmentalist’s “big guys in their corner” - are not allowed to speak on their behalf?

Petters and Attorneys Plan to Appeal $3.65 Billion Ponzi Conviction

Even with all of Tom Petters’s assets seized - and almost all liquidated - except “the three suits he wore during the trial”, only 1/15th of the $3.65 billion he schemed out of businessmen and consumers has been recovered. Some of these assets include a Florida beach home, a condo in Colorado, and a Minnesota lake home on sale at a steal of a price - just $6.25 million.

Where did he get all the money to buy so many multi-million dollar homes? Well, the Zimmerman Reed law firm is representing “several dozen” individuals, and two businesses went belly up after they lost a few million as well.

Petters claims he was duped by a co-conspirator - Larry Reynolds, a former Boston felon who was placed in witness protection for cooperating in a 1980’s mob case - to find investors who would fund loans on non-existent merchandise. Investors believed the scheme for some time since early investors were paid with the later investors’ funds.

Tags: appeals, appeals attorneys, Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Environment, ponzi, Tom Petters
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How to File an Appeal

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

If you are thinking that you do not need the services of appeals attorneys then you better think twice. You may have never been in courtroom trials personally but you probably have seen scenes involving courtroom trials in movies and television.

The appellate process is one of the most important element of the judicial system. If you want to fully understand your rights within the judicial system then it is important that you do understand the appellate process and no one can help you better in this endeavor than working with appeals attorneys.

You should know that before an appeal is filed from a criminal or civil case, the trial level court should have its final judgement already. When it is a criminal case, the final judgement comes in the form of the sentence order given by the court. If it is a civil case, the final judgement is considered to come in the form of the disposal of all issues of the parties and the dismissal of the case itself.

If the final judgement has been issued by the court, the next step that you should do is to look for appeals attorneys that can help you and file a Notice of Appeal. The Notice of Appeal is filed with the trial court and the other parties involved in the case. Take note that it is important that the Notice of Appeal should be filed in a timely manner. Appeals attorneys are aware that each state has a specified time frame in which the Notice of Appeal must be filed. If you fail to do the filing in the said time frame then you will be barred forever from raising an appeal on the case. Aside from that, if the Notice of Appeal is not filed in the manner that is prescribed by the law then the appelate court will bot have jurisdiction over the case.

Given the importance and specific process of filing an appeal, you will definitely be undergoing a lot of stress and effort if you push on without the aid of an attorney. Appeals attorneys can make everything easier for you and will give you a higher success rate giving you a better chance to get to appeal to the case.

If the Notice of Appeal is already filed then your case will move on to the appelate court itself. The appelate court will then schedule a time line for the filing of the documents and materials needed in that court. This will include the appelate brief that is filed by the person lodging the appeal in the first instance. After complying, you should now be ready with your case.

Tags: appeals, appeals attorneys, attorneys
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