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
May 7th, 2014
Outside spending has been increasing in judicial campaigns, including in a primary race for the North Carolina Supreme Court, the New York Times reports. The race for the seat of North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson has drawn more than $1 million, the Times further reports: "The costly and fierce primary shows how the revolution in financing political campaigns, with the surging role of 'super PACs' and... Continue Reading
May 7th, 2014
Media outlets have filed an amicus brief in support of a drone hobbyist facing a $10,000 fine for using a drone to make a promotional video, Gigaom reports. The media companies argue that the Federal Aviation Administration is violating the First Amendment by banning the use of unmanned aircraft for news photography.
Read the full brief here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/222414475/NYT-Et-Al-Amicus-for-Drones Continue Reading
May 6th, 2014
A study shows that U.S. Supreme Court justices back freedom of speech when the speakers share a similar political world view, the New York Times' Adam Liptak reports. For example, Justice Antonin Scalia voted to uphold the free speech rights of conservative speakers 65 percent of the time and liberal ones 21 percent. Continue Reading
May 6th, 2014
A Las Vegas judge has sanctioned defense attorneys in a trial over Actos for disobeying court orders and disrupting court proceedings, The National Law Journal's Amanda Bronstad (and my colleague) reports: the lawyers, according to the trial judge's opinion, have "'“repeatedly engaged in disruptive and disrespectful behavior towards the court.'" The jury will be told of the sanctions and the judge plans to... Continue Reading
May 5th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4, has upheld legislative prayer in the Town of Greece v. Galloway case, Volokh Conspiracy reports. The majority ruled that opening legislative sessions with Christian prayers doesn't violate the First Amendment's ban on the government establishing religious practices. Here's the opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-696_4f57.pdf Continue Reading
May 5th, 2014
I have written a piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune about four Muslim men alleging they were placed on the no-fly list because they refused to become FBI informants:
A West Haven man claims he refused to become an FBI informant.
The result, Naveed Shinwari says in court papers, was he was put on the United States no-fly list and was unable to board a flight to take a temporary job in Florida. The Afghani American and practicing... Continue Reading
May 5th, 2014
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 4-2, has ruled that warrantless searches of cars are permissible, the Harrisburg Patriot-News reports. The Supreme Court adopted a probable cause standard. Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, the author for the majority, said Pennsylvania would now have a uniform standard in federal and state court and would "'avoid unnecessary confusion, conflict and inconsistency in this often-litigated area.'... Continue Reading
May 4th, 2014
The Washington Post's Robert Barnes writes about the glee that has resulted from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's mistake in his dissent in a case about the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate pollution.
Scalia said the EPA had advocated a cost-conscious approach to setting air quality standards in a 2001 case, but it was the industry that asked the court to consider costs. Scalia's opinion... Continue Reading
May 4th, 2014
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week on World Press Freedom Day that "freedom of expression, independent media and universal access to knowledge will fortify our efforts to achieve lasting results for people and the planet," Pakistan's The Nation reports. The secretary general also criticized attacks on journalists. Continue Reading
May 4th, 2014
Hearst published a story (DNT20140426.pdf) I wrote about the lack of support young adults with disabilities and their families face after they age out of the public school system:
Jill Edelman’s daughter is 24, attended a boarding school on Cape Cod focused on special education, and now is living in an apartment with another young woman in Ridgefield and attending a day program that... Continue Reading
May 4th, 2014
A liberal Protestant denomination filed a lawsuit last week challenging North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage, arguing that the freedom of religion of its clergy members is violated because they are not able to join same-sex couples in matrimony, the New York Times reports. The lawsuit is the "first such case brought by a national religious denomination challenging a state’s marriage laws," the Times... Continue Reading
May 3rd, 2014
The Connecticut Post and the Danbury News-Times published my piece (DNT20140428.pdf) about adoptees who are trying to change the law so they can have access to their birth certificates.
Joan DiGiulio doesn’t know who she is.
Until the age of 45, DiGiulio didn’t know she was adopted. She only discovered her past when she went to get her birth certificate in New York City before taking a trip to Europe... Continue Reading
May 3rd, 2014
As it becomes increasingly clear that Ukraine is likely to lose its eastern territory, Maria Popova, writing in Foreign Affairs, says that a plan to purge Ukraine's judiciary is going to backfire. The judiciary has severe problems with political subservience and corruption, she says. But cleaning up the judiciary through "lustration -- the process of weeding out (and denying future office to) the current judicial leadership... Continue Reading
May 3rd, 2014
John Paul Stevens, the retired U.S. Supreme Court justice, testified this week that the United States should adopt a constitutional amendment for campaign finance reform, the Legal Times reports. He wants the amendment to read: "'Neither the First Amendment nor any provision of this Constitution'" would prohibit "'reasonable'" limits on campaign contributions at the federal or state level.
The Senate... Continue Reading
May 1st, 2014
The Washington Post reported last week on how some federal magistrate judges are "balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and other sensitive personal data, declaring the demands overly broad and at odds with basic constitutional rights." For example, D.C. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, "deemed a law enforcement request for the entire contents of an e-mail account 'repugnant'... Continue Reading
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