the fully-informed jury association

LATimes | Last year in Illinois, which has no medical marijuana law, Vietnam veteran Loren Swift, who says he uses marijuana to relieve pain and post-traumatic stress, was charged in LaSalle County after police found 25 pounds of marijuana and 50 pounds of marijuana plants in his home. He was acquitted after only two hours of jury deliberations.

"Some of the jurors got up and they started hugging the guy," said Peter Siena, the deputy prosecutor who tried the case.

"It's becoming an increasing problem. People just don't seem to care about marijuana cases anymore," said Brian Towne, the LaSalle County prosecuting attorney.

The issue is ripe in Montana, which is home to the headquarters of the Fully Informed Jury Assn., a national group that encourages jurors to nullify laws they believe are unjust.

Jury nullification never became an issue in the Missoula drug case; there was never a jury. While Deschamps was wrestling with what to do during a recess, the defendant, Touray Cornell, agreed to accept a conviction on a felony count of distribution of his one-sixteenth of an ounce of dangerous drugs. He was sentenced to 20 years, with 19 years suspended to run concurrently with the sentence on another conviction for conspiring to stage a set-up robbery at a casino.

The prosecutor, Andrew Paul, declined to discuss the case, except to say that Cornell's neighbors had been "complaining about his brazen drug dealing."

"The jury of course knew none of that stuff," Deschamps said. "What they knew was some guy here was charged with criminal sale of a very small amount of marijuana. Were they going to hang him for that?"

The judge, a former prosecutor, said he voted for Montana's medical marijuana initiative in 2004, which has become highly controversial in part because its beneficiaries have become so numerous: More than 12,000 residents hold cards entitling them to use the drug for sometimes doubtful medicinal purposes.

"My personal view, I think for the most part we should legalize marijuana and be done with it. Because I think it's created way more havoc and trouble than it's worth," Deschamps said. "But when you get some guy [like Cornell] that just comes and rubs it in your face.…"

the looming crisis in the states

NYTimes | For most of this year, the state of Illinois has lacked the money to pay its bills. Some of its employees have been evicted from their offices for nonpayment of rent, social service groups have laid off hundreds of workers while waiting for checks, pharmacies have closed for lack of Medicaid payments. Faced with $4.5 billion in overdue payments, Illinois has proposed a precarious plan to sell its delinquent bills to Wall Street investors in exchange for cash, calculating that the interest it must pay the investors will be less than the late fees it owes.

It is no way to run the nation’s fifth largest state, and it is not even clear that investors will agree, but these kinds of shaky deals are likely to become increasingly common as the states try to cope with the greatest fiscal drought since the Great Depression. Starved for revenue and accustomed to decades of overspending, many states have been overwhelmed. They are facing shortfalls of $140 billion next year. Even before the downturn, states jeopardized their futures by accumulating trillions in debt that they swept into some far-off future.

But that future is not so distant, and the crushing debt has made recovery far more difficult to achieve. As The Times reported, Illinois, California and several other states are at increasing risk of being the first states to default since the 1930s. The city of Prichard, Ala., has stopped sending out its pension checks, breaking state law and shocking its employees.

A state or city unable to make its bond payments would send harmful ripples through the financial system that could cause damage even to healthier governments. But if states act quickly to deal with their revenue losses and address their debt — and receive sufficient aid from Washington — there is still time to avoid a crisis.

The most immediate cause of the states’ problems is the decline in tax revenue caused by the downturn, just as the demand for services has increased.

Over the last two years, combined sales, personal and corporate taxes have fallen by more than 10 percent. Although revenue is likely to tick up slightly in 2011, federal stimulus money — which has been keeping many states afloat — is largely scheduled to expire. Renewing a portion of that aid would be one of the most effective ways to assist the economy.

the plight of the highschool homeless

WaPo | During the first days Landis Brewer spent homeless, he maintained a facade of suburban comfort at South County High School, where the all-district running back with the easy smile was the image of teenage aplomb.

But when he left campus, that veneer disappeared. Brewer, 18, slept at a bus stop in Reston and kept his belongings in a garbage bag hidden behind a bush. After his grades started slipping and a teacher caught him dozing off in class, the ugly story tumbled out.

Homelessness had come as a swift, unforgiving series of blows. First, his parents, whose marriage had imploded, disappeared. A few days later, Brewer came home from school to an eviction notice posted on the front door.

Suddenly, he was one of a growing number of teens without parents, guardians or reliable shelter in one of America's richest communities. Fairfax, one of only two counties in the nation with median household incomes above $100,000, counts nearly 2,000 homeless students in its school division - about 200 of whom are, like Brewer, "unaccompanied." The latter figure is twice what the comparable figure was two years ago, a surge reflected nationally as the faltering economy has undermined many families.

The rise has coincided with newly aggressive initiatives by school districts, including Fairfax, that increasingly are getting involved in ensuring their students are not only taught and fed but also housed.

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fannie and freddie foreclosure FAIL!!!

WaPo | As the housing market came crashing down in 2008, the giant mortgage company Fannie Mae took an unprecedented step to help tackle the rising tide of foreclosures. It named an exclusive group of law firms that would help rapidly carry out the unsavory task of filing legal paperwork to remove homeowners from their homes.

Today, problems with documents handled by firms on Fannie's list - and a similar one created by its smaller rival Freddie Mac - are at the heart of federal and state probes over faulty foreclosure practices that now threaten to further undermine the housing market.

Fannie and Freddie, the largest mortgage companies, shaped the practices being challenged in courtrooms around the country. They picked law firms that could foreclose fast and paid them based on how many foreclosures they could process. Speed was essential because delays cost the companies money - and, after they were taken over by the government two years ago, meant losses for taxpayers, too.

Not only did the companies urge swift foreclosures, but in at least one case Fannie executives also greenlighted working with a firm that they knew firsthand had engaged in legally questionable practices, according to documents and interviews with lawyers and industry officials.

That firm was the Law Offices of David J. Stern in Florida, which built a hundred-million-dollar-plus business foreclosing on the tens of thousands of borrowers who lost their homes in the housing crash.

In 2000, the Fannie executive responsible for overseeing outside law firms in Florida was questioned about Stern's firm in connection with a class-action lawsuit alleging it had charged borrowers bogus fees based on fraudulent paperwork.

In a deposition, Susan Reid, an associate general counsel who oversaw Stern's firm for Fannie until two months ago, was asked by a lawyer representing borrowers why her company hired law firms such as Stern's to handle foreclosures.

"We felt that timelines and the time it took to foreclose on a piece of property . . . could be improved," she responded. She explained that with "every month" that passed, "we're losing money."

Did Fannie, she was then asked, have any safeguards to ensure that law firms, rushing to foreclosure, followed the law? "I don't know of any policies and procedures," she answered.

To the contrary: Fannie and Freddie over the years have prodded law firms and mortgage servicers that collect payments to move even faster.

When law firms or servicers have taken too long to foreclose, Fannie and Freddie have threatened to charge them a penalty fee, according to industry sources and documents. And every few months, the two mortgage companies have sent servicers report cards ranking them on how rapidly they completed foreclosures compared with their peers.

Sharga Says Decline in Home Foreclosures Won't Continue
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WaPo | Since the meltdown in the housing market began more than three years ago, Maryland and the District have changed their foreclosure laws to give borrowers greater protection. Virginia has moved in the opposite direction.

Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law making it easier for lenders to defend themselves when accused of giving homeowners too little warning of impending foreclosures.

The process moves so quickly in Virginia - one of the fastest states in the nation - that homeowners can receive less than two weeks' notice that their house is about to be sold on the courthouse steps.

That confronts homeowners with an almost impossible deadline. To get a court to stop the sale in that narrow window, they must gather evidence, file a lawsuit and potentially post a bond with the court that could total thousands of dollars. Instead of trying to find a lawyer and prepare a suit, many borrowers run out the clock trying to deal with their lender.

At a time when lenders have been cutting corners and using phony documents to seize huge numbers of houses, the hurdles can be insurmountable, according to lawyers, consumer advocates and borrowers who have tried to save their homes.

"There's no question that people are losing their homes when they should not be," said James W. "Jay" Speer, executive director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, which is part of a legal-aid network.

In many states, homeowners facing foreclosure automatically get a day in court, a chance to tell a judge why they should keep their homes. The judicial process provides at least a modest check on error and abuse.

But in Virginia and 28 other states, as well as the District, according to the RealtyTrac foreclosure information service, borrowers have no such luck. They face "nonjudicial" foreclosure processes, meaning lenders can foreclose without going through the courts.

garden state foreclosure freeze?

NYTimes | Six lenders that together have filed nearly 30,000 foreclosure actions in New Jersey this year face the possible suspension of such operations next month. The possible suspension came under a court order announced on Monday by the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Stuart J. Rabner.

The action follows a report submitted to the Supreme Court that, citing depositions and court filings in other states, paints a picture of systemic abuses in the filing of foreclosures that include so-called robo-signing, in which employees signed hundreds of documents without checking them for accuracy.

The lenders were ordered to appear on Jan. 19 to demonstrate why the state should not suspend their foreclosure actions. They are Ally Financial, formerly GMAC; BAC Home Loan Servicing, a subsidiary of Bank of America; Chase Home Finance, part of JPMorgan Chase; OneWest; Wells Fargo Financial New Jersey; and CitiResidential Living, a subsidiary of Citibank.

“It’s important that the judiciary ensures judges are not rubber-stamping documents that may not be reliable,” Judge Rabner said on a conference call.

Wells Fargo plans to fight the move, a spokesman said. Representatives for the other banks either declined to comment or could not be reached.

no foreclosure representation in cali

NYTimes | In California, where foreclosures are more abundant than in any other state, homeowners trying to win a loan modification have always had a tough time.

Now they face yet another obstacle: hiring a lawyer.

Sharon Bell, a retiree who lives in Laguna Niguel, southeast of Los Angeles, needs a modification to keep her home. She says she is scared of her bank and its plentiful resources, so much so that she cannot even open its certified letters inquiring where her mortgage payments may be. Yet the half-dozen lawyers she has called have refused to represent her.

“They said they couldn’t help,” said Ms. Bell, 63. “But I’ve got to find help, because I’m dying every day.”

Lawyers throughout California say they have no choice but to reject clients like Ms. Bell because of a new state law that sharply restricts how they can be paid. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by the State Legislature and backed by the state bar association, lawyers who work on loan modifications cannot receive any money until the work is complete. The bar association says that under the law, clients cannot put retainers in trust accounts.

The law, which has few parallels in other states, was devised to eliminate swindles in which modification firms made promises about what their lawyers could do, charged hefty fees and then disappeared. But foreclosure specialists say there has been an unintended consequence: the honest lawyers can no longer afford to assist Ms. Bell and all the others who feel helpless before lenders that they see as elusive, unyielding and skilled at losing paperwork.

The revelations three months ago that large banks were sloppy and negligent in preparing foreclosure documents underscore just how important it is for distressed homeowners to have representation, lawyers and consumer advocates say. Homeowners whose cases were handled improperly have little way of knowing it. Even if they found out, they would be hard-pressed to challenge a lender without a lawyer.

“Consumers just don’t know what is going on,” said Walter Hackett, a former banker who is now a lawyer for a nonprofit service in Riverside. “They get a piece of paper saying they are going to lose their homes and they freak out.”