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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
TERRY ANN TATUM,
Defendant-Appellant.


No. 07-5733

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Tennessee at Jackson.
No. 05-10066—James D. Todd, Chief District Judge.
Argued: February 8, 2008
Decided and Filed: March 5, 2008
Before: KENNEDY, MARTIN, and COLE, Circuit Judges.

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OPINION
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R. GUY COLE, JR., Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant Terry Ann Tatum pleaded guilty to ten counts of bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344. She appeals the district court’s application of the United States Sentencing Guideline § 3B1.3 sentencing enhancement. Because this Court finds that § 3B1.3 was erroneously applied, we VACATE the sentence and REMAND for resentencing.


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J&R MARKETING, SEP, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
GENERAL MOTORS CORP., et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.


No. 07-1411

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 06-10201—Nancy G. Edmunds, District Judge.
Argued: February 7, 2008
Decided and Filed: March 5, 2008
Before: KENNEDY, MARTIN, and COLE, Circuit Judges.

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OPINION
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KENNEDY, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs, purchasers of bonds registered by GMAC in September 2003, brought suit under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 against GMAC and its control persons, including General Motors, which at the time wholly-owned GMAC. Plaintiffs alleged that GMAC had breached its disclosure obligations as well as made material misstatements in its registration statements and prospectuses for multiple offerings of bonds registered in 2003 and 2004. The defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint for failure to state a claim. The district court granted the defendants’ motion. It found that plaintiffs lacked statutory standing to bring claims regarding offerings other than the one in which they had purchased. The district court also found that the plaintiffs had no claim regarding a duty to disclose because Item 303, the regulatory authority relied on by plaintiffs, did not give rise to a duty to disclose the information the plaintiffs sought because the information was not “firm specific” to GMAC. Additionally, the district court found that there was no material omission because the affirmative statements made by GMAC were not rendered misleading by the absence of the information cited by plaintiffs. Lastly, the district court held that most of GMAC’s statements were not false, and the ones that were arguably false were not material to bond investors. We find that the named plaintiffs’ own claims are without merit because the offering materials did not have material omissions because (1) Item 303 only imposes a duty to make forward-looking projections regarding known information, and plaintiffs pleaded only that the information was “knowable”; and (2) GMAC’s affirmative statements were not rendered misleading by the absence of the information described by plaintiffs. We also find that the offering materials for the offering in which plaintiffs’ purchased did not include material misstatements, because the affirmative statements made by GMAC were in fact true. Since the named plaintiffs’ individual claims cannot succeed on the merits, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court dismissing plaintiffs’ complaint.


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CITIZENS FOR TAX REFORM and JEFFREY P. LEDBETTER,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
JOSEPH DETERS et al.,
Defendants,
STATE OF OHIO,
Intervenor Defendant-Appellant.


No. 07-3031

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Ohio at Cincinnati.
No. 05-00212—Susan J. Dlott, District Judge.
Argued: November 30, 2007
Decided and Filed: March 5, 2008
Before: SILER, GIBBONS, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.

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OPINION
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McKEAGUE, Circuit Judge. As with the law in general, the First Amendment is a jealous mistress. It enables the people to exchange ideas (popular and unpopular alike), to assemble with the hope of changing minds, and to alter or preserve how we govern ourselves. But in return, it demands that sometimes seemingly reasonable measures enacted by our governments give way.

The State of Ohio enacted a provision making it a felony to pay anyone for gathering signatures on election-related petitions on any basis other than the time worked. It did so for the sensible purpose of reducing fraudulent signatures. The provision, however, runs afoul of the First Amendment because it creates a significant burden on a core political speech right that is not narrowly tailored. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment against the State.