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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News and Reporting
January 13th, 2015
Politico's David Perera reports on a cybersecurity proposal that President Barack Obama put forth today. One key part, pushed for a long time, would provide limited safe harbors to firms that share cybersecurity information with the government: "A central portion of the White House’s plan would grant targeted liability protection to companies that share cyberthreat information with the government — removing what critics... Continue Reading
January 13th, 2015
David Schultz, writing on MinnPost, argues that Minnesota's system for selecting judges needs to be changed.
While judges are supposed to be elected, "studies have shown that approximately 90 percent of all individuals who become a judge in Minnesota do so initially by gubernatorial appointment, thereby circumventing the election process." Secondly, judicial candidates rarely face contested elections, and "more than a quarter of Minnesotans opt... Continue Reading
January 13th, 2015
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has changed the jury instructions that should be given about eyewitness evidence, which is often more fallible than people think, the Boston Globe's Travis Andersen and Martin Finucane report. While the defendant did not get his conviction overturned, the high court has issued new instructions to be used in criminal cases going forward, including "a warning that a witness’s... Continue Reading
January 13th, 2015
New York Times' James Risen won't be called to testify about his confidential sources after all, his colleague Matt Apuzzo reports. As Jeffrey Sterling goes on trial for allegedly leaking classified information about a CIA operation in Iran, federal prosecutors have dropped their efforts to have Risen testify in the trial on the theory that Sterling was Risen's source. However, Joel Kurtzberg, a lawyer... Continue Reading
January 13th, 2015
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1oth Circuit rejected the requests for stays in four executions in Oklahoma, the Washington Post's Mark Berman reports. The executions are the first since Clayton Lockett's lethal injection was botched: "Lockett grimaced, clenched his jaw and writhed on the gurney before dying inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester on April 29. A state investigation released later found... Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston reports that South Dakota's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down today. U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier applied the highest constitutional test--strict scrutiny--after finding that marriage is a fundamental right that must be open to gays and lesbians. The judge also rejected the argument that federal courts have no jurisdiction over domestic relations, Denniston further reports. Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
Reuters' Lawrence Hurley reports that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal brought by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the Alliance for Natural Health USA, challenging "various aspects of the law known as Obamacare including the so-called individual mandate that requires people to obtain health insurance or pay a tax." Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
Two families of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting two years ago have sued the town of Newtown over allegedy lax security at the school, the Hartford Courant's Dave Altimari reports. The lawsuit alleges that a substitute teacher "had neither a key to lock the door nor any knowledge of the … safety and security protocols rehearsed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in case an intruder or... Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
Shortly after the U.S. Court of Appeals of Fifth Circuit heard oral argument in a case that upheld Louisiana's ban on same-sex marriages, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up that case, The Guardian's Amanda Holpuch reports. There are four other cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that went through the Sixth Cicuit, which is the only federal circuit court to uphold bans on same-sex marriage so far. Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
The Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reports: "Leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees on Friday called on the Justice Department to end the sharing of civil seizure proceeds with local and state police, a change that with few exceptions would cut the flow of hundreds of million of dollars annually to departments in every state." The concern is that law enforcement is incentivized to keep assets because the... Continue Reading
January 12th, 2015
The Justice Department is seeking the dismissal of Twitter's lawsuit in which the social-media firm is challenging restrictions on revealing information about national security requests for user data, the Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reports: "At issue is a letter issued in January 2014 by the Justice Department relaxing limits for companies wishing to disclose the number of such requests they receive. Twitter, which was... Continue Reading
January 11th, 2015
Here's an article I recently did for the Connecticut Law Tribune about a novel lawsuit: can the government take through eminent domain certificates that authorize bus companies to operate on certain routes?
Connecticut is no stranger to landmark eminent domain disputes, with the U.S. Supreme Court having ruled in 2005 that the city of New London could shift from one private owner to another in order to further economic development... Continue Reading
January 11th, 2015
The Washington Post's Josh Hicks reports that "an independent review released last month faulted the IRS for scant oversight of charities, saying the agency examined the groups less frequently while its budget and workforce steadily shrank in recent years." The Government Accountability Office found that the IRS audited 0.7 percent of charities in 2013, down from 0.81 percent in 2011. The... Continue Reading
January 11th, 2015
Eric Taylor McDavid has had his convictions for being a radical, domestic ecoterrorist thrown because thousands of pages of evidence were not turned over by federal prosecutors to his defense counsel, the Sacramento Bee reports. McDavid allegedly plotted to bomb or torch the Nimbus Dam, a U.S. Forest Service lab and cellphone towers in the Sacramento region. McDavid's lawyers said he fell for a FBI informant "who later... Continue Reading
January 11th, 2015
The Associated Press reports that Ohio is changing the two-drug cocktail it uses in executions after it was administered to an "inmate who repeatedly gasped and snorted during a troubling 26-minute execution." The inmate's children are suing the state, arguing their father endured needless pain and suffering.
Instead, the state is going to use thiopental sodium, but that drug is no longer readily available in the... Continue Reading
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