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Saturday, October 03, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - Amicus brief authored by Indiana filed in Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York

On August 7th, the ILB's entry headed "Who should decide Indiana's position on national legal issues? Who should know?" , announced that the AG's office had made information available enabling preparation of a Table titled AG Zoeller Amicus Briefs 2009.

Yesterday, Bryan Corbin, Public Information Officer to the AG, sent out this note to the press:

Several of you have asked to be notified whenever the Indiana Attorney General files an amicus brief in a cert petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Indiana recently filed an amicus brief (see below) signed by 19 other states on behalf of the respondent, New York, in a case involving the use of federal racketeering laws.

Our friend-of-the-court brief, authored by Indiana Solicitor General Tom Fisher, explains the Attorney General's use of the federal civil RICO statute in our successful litigation against 27 defendants in the East Chicago "sidewalks for votes" case. The two main defendants, former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick and former mayoral aide James Fife III, were found in default on every count the state alleged. The federal judge has not awarded damages yet but has damages and a legal remedy under advisement. Our previous news release about the default finding is attached also.

In requesting the Supreme Court hear the New York case, Solicitor General Fisher's brief explains how our use of the federal civil RICO statute relates to New York's.

Here is the AG's webpage on the East Chicago RICO case.

Here is Indiana's amicus brief in Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, dated Sept. 23, 2009, posted by the ILB. Note that the case is the first listed in the 2009 Amicus Briefs Table.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 3, 2009 11:25 AM
Posted to Indiana Government