An old joke among insolvency lawyers is that hotels are such a bad investment that no owner makes any money on it until at least three prior owners have gone bust. This Portland Tribune article indicates that basketball arenas may have the same problem.
Dallas-based Jenkens & Gilchrist reached a $75 million settlement yesterday with investors who had filed lawsuits accusing it of designing and selling questionable tax shelters. As noted earlier here, the firm and its clients remain subject to a Justice Department investigation into alleged fraud involved in the promotion of the tax shelters.
Some 140 Iranian and Iraqi Shiite pilgrims died earlier this week in suicide bombings in Baghdad and Karbala, and another 43 Pakistani Shiites were killed in Quetta, Pakistan. Moreover, yesterday, Shiite Muslims in Iraq refused to sign the U.S. sponsored Iraqi Constitution unless changes are made to strengthen Shiite power. These developments highlight a grave problem that confronts American foreign policy — i.e., the conflict between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims in Iraq threatens a religious war throughout Muslim regions of the Middle East and Asia. In this David Warren piece and in this Vali Nasr piece, Mr. Warren and Professor Nasr examine Wahhabi Sunni Muslim antipathy toward Shiite Muslims, and the growth of the conflict between those two factions of Islam over the past decade. These are excellent analyses of this primary barrier to stability in Islamic countries.
As noted earlier here, the decision of Martha Stewart’s defense team not to have Ms. Stewart testify was a risky one. This NY Times story confirms the downside of such a strategy, reflected best by this quote from one of the jurors:
One juror called the decision to not put the defendants on the stand “a serious mistake.” “How could we tell anything about how smart either of them was if they never took the stand?” asked Amos Matthew Mellinger, 55, a freelance market researcher from Riverdale, the Bronx, who was Juror No. 4 in the trial.
Similarly, this Reuters article refers to another juror’s remarks:
Chappelle Hartridge, 47, a computer technician from New York’s Bronx borough, said he and fellow jurors saw the domestic style-setter, who built a fortune on homemaking advice and interior decor, as a corporate bigwig. “Maybe she thought she was above everything and didn’t have to do things other people have to do,” he said.
Again, particularly in white collar criminal cases, jurors want to hear from the defendant. Accordingly, exercise the right not to testify with great care.