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
March 25th, 2014
A convicted Pennsylvania child molester argues that his conviction for failing to register as a Megan's Law offender can't stand because the state law in effect at the time was ruled unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, The Scranton Times Leader reports. The law was found unconstitutional because it was in legislation involving several other topics and violated the "single subject rule" in Pennsylvania's... Continue Reading
March 24th, 2014
Electronic health records are being adopted by health care providers at an increasing pace, including due to incentives from the federal government. But "modern EHRs are often overly focused on data entry and typically provide poorly designed data displays with rudimentary functions for searching and organizing patient data. The data entry steals physician time away from direct patient care," Forbes reports. The Government... Continue Reading
March 24th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a petition of certiorari from the Delaware Court of Chancery to consider reinstating secret arbitrations in corporate litigation exceeding $1 million, The Legal Intelligencer's Jeff Mordock reports. Lower courts said the law violated the right of the public to access court proceedings. Continue Reading
March 24th, 2014
After a federal judge struck down Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage last week, 100 couples who wed in the 24 hours or so after the decision are now in legal limbo, the Detroit Free Press reports. The Sixth Circuit issued an order late on Saturday to stay the lower court ruling declaring the ban unconstitutional. An estimated 300 same-sex marriage licenses were issued in Michigan. And the state also has not decided if it will... Continue Reading
March 20th, 2014
A Nevada federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission can sue payday lenders, even if they are affiliated with American Indian tribes, the Legal Times reports. The judge ruled "that the FTC Act is a statute of general applicability, one that does not include an exception for Indian tribes," the Legal Times further reported. Tribes argue that they are sovereign and free from regulation by state governments and the U.... Continue Reading
March 19th, 2014
Earlier this year, I wrote about how many homeowners still waiting for insurance payouts after Superstorm Sandy will soon run out of time to take their cases to court if that is necessary. In Connecticut, it is industry practice to include in homeowners' insurance policies a time limitation on lawsuits. The law lets insurers limit lawsuits by property owners to 18 months after a disaster hits.
Now the Connecticut General Assembly has... Continue Reading
March 19th, 2014
Eugene Volokh and Ilya Shapiro, writing in the Wall Street Journal, say that they support same-sex marriage but that a discrimination case against New Mexico photography business owners who don't want to photograph same-sex wedding and commitment ceremonies would make bad law. The New Mexico Human Rights Commission, in a decision upheld by the New Mexico Supreme Court, found that Elane Photography is subject to state's... Continue Reading
March 18th, 2014
Consent does not protect privacy in the era of big data because it is not meaningful in an era of giving permission through clicks on a screen, said Kate Crawford, a researcher at Microsoft Research and MIT, at the Social, Cultural & Ethical Dimensions of 'Big Data' held last night.
Big data analytics are being sliced and diced to create personalization and segmentation, Crawford said. But predictive analytics can create "... Continue Reading
March 17th, 2014
President Barack Obama's administration had its worst year in transparency since he took office, the Associated Press reports: "More often than ever, the administration censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially... Continue Reading
March 17th, 2014
I wrote a story for Hearst about one of many prayer vigils held around the country to commemorate the people lost to gun violence. Here is an excerpt:
Each pair represented the absence of people killed by guns.
Dale Ferguson's father was one of those people.
Edward Ferguson was a school custodian shot dead outside of the Elizabeth S. Shelton elementary school in Shelton in August 1988. Ferguson was 8 years old.
His... Continue Reading
March 17th, 2014
When we get arrested, do police have the right to search phones without a warrant, Reason's Damon Root asks. Do warrantless cell-phone searches constitute unreasonable searches and seizures?
While it is constitutionally permissible for police to search arrestees, their possessions and the immediate vicinity around the arrest site without a warrant, "cell phones contain previously unimaginable amounts of personal information,... Continue Reading
March 17th, 2014
A federal judge struck down an Arkansas law banning most abortions starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy, if a fetal heartbeat could be detected by standard ultrasound, as unconstitutional, Reuters reports: "U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the law 'impermissibly infringes a woman's Fourteenth Amendment right to elect to terminate a pregnancy before viability' of the fetus, as established by the U.S. Supreme... Continue Reading
March 16th, 2014
A federal judge in Tennessee has issued a preliminary injunction against applying that state's ban on same-sex marriage to three couples married in other states that do recognize same-sex marriage, The Tennessean reports. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger said the ban "fails to meet constitutional standards under even a minimal review," The Tennessean further reports.
A lawsuit also is planned to challenge the ban "... Continue Reading
March 16th, 2014
Heather Sweetland, a retiring judge in Minnesota, wrote in an opinion piece for the Duluth News Tribune that diversity is important in the selection of new judges. Minnesota has a merit selection system in which a commission, appointed by the governor and the Minnesota Supreme Court, suggest a slate of candidates for the governor to choose new judges from.
Sweetland said diversity doesn't just mean gender and ethnicity, but diversity in... Continue Reading
March 14th, 2014
The implications of a decision by an administrative law judge that the Federal Aviation Administration can't impose a $10,000 fine for the commercial use of a small UAV, or drone, is overstated, C. Andrew Keisner, an attorney writing in TVNewser, says. The FAA will likely proceed to create binding rules for drones under the Administrative Procedure Act, and it is "risky for advertising & media companies engaging UAV operators... Continue Reading
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