Cultivated Compendium is my personal website with the occasional link to my reporting and to important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news.
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June 14th, 2015
Class actions will face a new test in the U.S. Supreme Court next year after the justices granted certiorari on two issues:
1) Can workers at an Iowa meatpacking plant rely on statistical sampling to establish liability and damages regarding wages?
2) Can a class be certified when it contains membesr who weren't injured and have no legal right to damages?
Reuters' Alison Frankel says in her analysis that class action... Continue Reading
June 14th, 2015
The Legal Intelligencer's Ben Seal reports about how the Philadelphia public interest legal community is going through a sea change in leadership. This also is happening nationally as a generational shift occurs at legal services agencies for low-income clients. Cathy Carr, the retiring leader of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, attributes the "increase in national turnover to the aging of the baby-boom generation. Many... Continue Reading
June 13th, 2015
New York court officials are looking to expand the rules governing the use of cameras in the courtroom so they can be used to "'to the fullest extent permissible by the law,'" New York Law Journal's Andrew Keshner reports. The rules for the use of cameras in the courtroom haven't been updated since the 1990s.
The proposed new roles would insert new language saying "'in order to maintain the broadest... Continue Reading
June 11th, 2015
Arkansas has decided against imposing cost-sharing on people who are receiving Medicaid coverage under the Obamacare expansion if they are below the federal poverty level, Modern Healthcare's Virgil Dickson reports.
President Obama's administration has allowed Arkansas to mandate that beneficiaries make monthly contributions to "health independence accounts" if they enrolled in private plans on the new insurance exchange.... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
The New York Board of Parole has been held in contempt for failing to give an explanation as to why it denied parole for a convicted murderer, The New York Law Journal's Ben Bedell reports. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sciortino had already vacated the 2013 denial of parole to convicted murderer Michael Cassidy. When the parole board denied Cassidy release a second time, Sciortino said their explanation of why restated "... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
Attempts by legislative leaders to use Alaska's budget to stop the governor from accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid are likely unconstitutional, the Alaska Dispatch's Pat Forgey reports.
The governor wants to expand healthcare coverage to 20,000 or more low-income Alaskans. Legislators included provisions in the operating budget aiming to stop Governor Bill Walker from unilaterally accepting $130 million in federal... Continue Reading
June 8th, 2015
Kansas has enacted a law that would strip the state courts of their funding if that state's Supreme Court rules against a separate law that removed some of its powers, The New York Times' John Eligon reports.
Gov. Sam Brownback signed a courts budget tying funding to a law that took the authority to appoint district court judges from the Supreme Court to the district courts themselves. The measure was promoted by the Kansas... Continue Reading
June 7th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that homeowners who declare bankruptcy can't void second mortgages even if their homes aren't worth what they owe on their primary mortgages, the Associated Press reports. The court was unanimous in the decision.
The Floridian homeowners said their second loans were worthless. Continue Reading
June 7th, 2015
Even though a medical marijuana dispensary violates federal law, it still has the right to recover money stolen from it by an attorney, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Bob Egelko reports that the now-defunct Northbay Wellness Group of Santa Rose can seek to reclaim its $25,000 stolen by now-disbarred attorney Michael Beyries. Beyries has declared bankruptcy, and the former... Continue Reading
June 5th, 2015
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the President Obama's nominees to serve on the circuit courts of appeal won't be confirmed anymore, The Huffington Post's Jen Bendery reports. McConnell said on a conservative radio show that "'so far, the only judges we’ve confirmed have been federal district judges that have been signed off on by Republican senators,” and he expects that to be the case... Continue Reading
June 5th, 2015
Former judge Amanda Williams has been indicted for allegedly lying to a grand jury, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bill Rankin reports. Williams came to national attention after This American Life reported that "she behaved in a tyrannical manner and locked up some drug court defendants indefinitely," Rankin writes. Continue Reading
June 5th, 2015
The first non-lawyer legal technicians authorized to provide some legal services in Washington state have passed their qualifying examination, Robert Ambrogi blogs on Law Sites. Seven of nine passed.
The program seeks to help bridge the access-to-justice gap by licensing non-lawyers to provide legal advice in some areas, including domestic relations. Continue Reading
June 2nd, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court has made it harder for prosecutors to convict people who make threats on social media, The Washington Post's Robert Barnes reports.
Petitioner Anthony Elonis was convicted of threatening to kill his estranged wife, law enforcement officials and a kindergarten class through Facebook posts written in a rap lyric-esque way; he was convicted under a federal law that makes it a crime to communicate '''... Continue Reading
May 31st, 2015
Texas has enacted a law making it easier for convicted defendants to get DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project.
People who have been convicted of crimes now have to show that there a reasonable likelihood that evidence contains DNA, Texas Lawyer's Angela Morris reports. The law was enacted in response to Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rulings strictly interpreting Texas' "post-conviction DNA testing statute... Continue Reading
May 31st, 2015
The D.C. Circuit has refused to block the release of videos showing a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay being force-fed, The Intercept's Cora Currier reports. Media organizations are seeking footage of Abu Wa'el Dhiab's force-feedings, and the district court granted their motion to unseal and release the video.
The court concluded that the district court's decision was not an immediately appealable order and that it lacks... Continue Reading
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