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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February 18th, 2015
Many plaintiffs suing their insurers over Superstorm Sandy are alleging that engineering reports were "as part of an effort to minimize insurance payments to flood victims in New York and New Jersey after the 2012 hurricane," The New York Times' David W. Chen reports. A hearing will be held Thursday, February 19, on the engineering reports. Continue Reading
February 17th, 2015
The Lone Star State's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, a county probate judge ruled today, Los Angeles Times' Lauren Raab reports. Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman ruled that Texas' constitutional and statutory bans violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
A federal judge already overturned the bans last year. Continue Reading
February 16th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court currently is considering the standard that should be applied to judge whether someone has stepped outside the bounds of the First Amendment and truly threatened others. Kevin Reed, a magistrate judge in Memphis, wrote in the Washington Post today that the justices should apply an objective standard, not a subjective standard, to true threats. If a subjective intent standard is applied, then prosecutors would have to... Continue Reading
February 16th, 2015
The 370 million indigenous people around the world are being increasingly displaced because large companies are pushing onto their traditional territories to extract resources and because of rising property values, Reuters' Chris Arsenault reports. The International Fund for Agriculture Development reports that "indigenous farming practices are under threat from unclear land ownership structures, climate change and growing... Continue Reading
February 16th, 2015
Last week, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that there is nothing in that country's constitution to require that same-sex couples get marriage rights, The Washington Blade's Michael K. Lavers reports. But the court said that lesbian and gay Italians do have the right to a "'protective'" law to ensure they have the same rights as other unmarried couples. Continue Reading
February 16th, 2015
Constitutional amendments have been proposed to transform the selection of Kansas appellate judges, the Topeka Capital-Journal's Tim Carpenter reports. One plan would abandon a merit-selection system in which a nominating commission forwards finalists for Supreme Court vacancies to the governor. The governor already has the power to pick Court of Appeals judges outright. Another plan would institute elections for both appellate courts... Continue Reading
February 16th, 2015
Foreign Policy's Phelim Kine reports on the many, many threats that Afghanistan journalists face: The Taliban said last year that it would specifically target journalists and NGOs as part of its insurgency, and there were eight journalists killed in 2014. A Human Rights Watch report documented how media outlets are increasingly subject to harassment, threats and violence from security forces and pro-government warlords. And... Continue Reading
February 15th, 2015
After a period of long delays, the highly anticipated rules for the use of unmanned aircraft systems was released for public comment by the Federal Aviation Administration today.
The proposed rules for drones weighing 55 pounds or less include:
* requiring operators to pass a safety certificate test, although operators would not need to have a pilot’s license;
* suggesting that there be a separate category of rules for... Continue Reading
February 12th, 2015
A federal judge has ordered an Alabama probate judge not to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples anymore, the Montgomery Advertiser's Brian Lyman reports. The probate judge closed his marriage-license bureau after Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on Sunday ordered probate judges not to issues licenses to same-sex couples. U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade struck down Alabama's constitutional and statutory bans on same-... Continue Reading
February 12th, 2015
Jesse Eisinger, writing in a column for ProPublica and the New York Times, argues that sunshine is not actually the best mechanism to ensure government accountability. Even though disclosure and transparency has become the answer to every problem in modern society, requiring "corporations and government to release reams of information on food, medicine, household products, consumer financial tools, campaign finance and crime statistics,... Continue Reading
February 12th, 2015
Last year, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that a death row inmate couldn't get DNA testing on evidence in his case because he didn't prove that it contained biological material. According to the Associated Press, now a Texas lawmaker has proposed a reform to the crime-scene DNA testing law that he authored to allow any convicted person to request testing on "evidence that is reasonably likely to contain biological... Continue Reading
February 12th, 2015
The Third Circuit has ruled that the religious exception from the mandate that all health insurance plans cover contraception is fair, The Legal Intelligencer's Saranac Hale Spencer reports. The accommodation for nonprofit religious organizations requires a head of a religious nonprofit to submit a self-certification to insurers that it will be claiming the exception so that the insurer, not the employer, is paying for the... Continue Reading
February 11th, 2015
The Second Circuit has upheld the certification of class actions against law firm Mel Harris and Associates, as well as a debt-buying company and a process serving agency, for allegedly intentionally failing to serve debtors in debt-collection cases and obtaining default judgments in New York City Civil Court, the New York Law Journal's Mark Hamblett reports.
The plaintiffs allege that more than 90 percent of the debtors were... Continue Reading
February 11th, 2015
As the trial proceeds in the murder of Etan Patz, who disappeared in 1979 while walking to a NYC bus, the Associated Press' Adam Geller reports on how confessions like the one in the Patz murder case can be clouded by defendants' mental illnesses. The presiding judge has found that Pedro Hernandez's confession to Patz's murder is admissible, but some experts said the defendant's history of mental illness "raise... Continue Reading
February 11th, 2015
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California has ruled that a group of AT&T customers haven't been able to show they have standing to show that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated by alleged surveillance of all of their Internet communications, The Recorder's Ross Todd reports. Even though a retired AT&T technician Mark Klein reports that the the company's Internet traffic is routed... Continue Reading
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