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
December 27th, 2013
Bloomberg reports on the plans of Utah governmental officials to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block same-sex marriages. A federal district court has ruled that Utah's ban on same-sex nuptials violates constitutional rights to equal protection and due process, but the Tenth Circuit ruled against holding the trial court in abeyance while Utah appeals the decision. Continue Reading
December 25th, 2013
A year ago I spent Christmas with my husband in Newtown, Connecticut, as he covered the community in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings. Such grave loss was a reminder to be grateful for what is good in a time that should be about happiness and celebration, not hate and condolence. Here is the blog I wrote a year ago today on the experience:
When I envisioned spending Christmas accompanying my photojournalist husband on... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
ProPublica reports on how the criminal prosecution of Etan Patz's alleged killer might have been jeopardized because police did not tape the interrogation: the "interrogation room, it turns out, was fully equipped to do what a growing body of expert opinion has insisted be done in such moments: a full videotaping of a suspect’s interaction with detectives, from the start of an interrogation through any possible formal confession... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The National Law Journal's Zoe Tillman reports on the likely appeal of U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's decision that the National Security Agency's surveillance most likely violates the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit's makeup could be quite different by the time an appeal is ready to be heard: "Three new judges appointed by President Obama could be sitting on the D.C. Circuit by the time a panel is chosen to review... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle reports on the U.S. Supreme Court's spring 2014 term: "The term may seem a little blockbuster-light compared with back-to-back historic terms involving health care, immigration, same-sex marriages and voting rights. But there are a number of headline grabbers and the new year brings two possible game changers for the executive branch," including on the issue of whether the president has... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
Two Arizona reporters have received a $3.75 million settlement because they were falsely arrested in 2007 by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Phoenix New Times reports that their co-founders "Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and jailed on misdemeanor charges alleging that they violated the secrecy of a grand jury -- which turned out never to have been convened."
Two-and-a-half years after... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ruled today that Ohio's 9-year-old ban on same-sex marriage cannot extend to refusing to recognize valid same-sex marriages from other states on death certificates. The ruling is likely to have a broader impact than just on death certificates because of the judge's sweeping language. According to the AP, the judge reasoned: "'The question presented is whether... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
The New York Times reports that the White House has asserted the state secrets privilege in two federal cases pending in California. The plaintiffs are challenging the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance programs. "The government said that despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, that made public a fuller scope of the surveillance and data collection programs put... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, writing in the Los Angeles Times, argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should follow the lead of the 9th Circuit and add live streaming of court proceedings: "When Justice David H. Souter uttered his now-infamous declaration in 1996 that cameras would roll into the Supreme Court over his dead body, the Internet was relatively new and Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the iPhone were as... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
United Press International has this roundup of cases to watch when the U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes January 13: "The big dog in the rest of the Supreme Court term which ends when the justices 'rise; for the summer recess -- when the supreme backsides leave their comfortable rocking chairs behind the bench -- is the challenge to the Affordable Care Act... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
FierceEMR reports that consolidation and new business relationships between healthcare providers will create issues regarding patient privacy and electronic health records, according to two healthcare attorneys interviewed by the blog.
Health law attorneys Michael Kline and Elizabeth Litten with Fox Rothschild in Princeton, N.J., told FierceEMR that the issues could include:
a. the expansion of health care entities "increases the... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
A federal judge struck down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage as violative of LGBT couples' rights to due process and equal protection, the AP reports. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby's ruling could prime the issue for the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, while ruling this year that a ban on federal benefits for gay couples is unconstitutional, did not address whether there is a fundamental right for same-sex couples to... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
The Wall Street Journal reports that research by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee found that data brokers are maintaining health records as part of their massive data collection: "Marketers maintain databases that purport to track and sell the names of people who have diabetes, depression, and osteoporosis, as well as how often women visit a gynecologist."
There is little oversight of data brokers, including from the... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
The Philadelphia City Paper reports on multiple legislative proposals pending in Pennsylvania to deny prisoners access to open records. On one hand, access to public records allows prisoners, including "jailhouse lawyers," to investigate the conditions of their confinement. On the other hand, public officials report being inundated with public-records requests from inmates, including flr personal information about the public... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
The Legal Intelligencer's Max Mitchell reports that grand jury documents show that it was unclear whether Cynthia Baldwin, the former general counsel for Penn State, represented the institution or three former university administrators in a grand jury probe into convicted serial sex-abuser Jerry Sandusky. For example, "according to the transcripts of grand jury proceedings from April 13, 2011, before former university... Continue Reading
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