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
October 6th, 2013
Bloomberg reports that Cadbury has lost a court fight with Nestle in the United Kingdom Court of Appeal to exclusively trademark the purple packaging of chocolate bars. Nestle "overturned an October 2012 decision that ruled the color purple was distinctive to the maker of Dairy Milk bars. The ruling allows Nestle, and any other confectioners, to sell chocolate products with the same colored wrapping," Bloomberg also reported... Continue Reading
October 6th, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, speaking at the University of Alabama School of Law last week, said the nation's highest court is a "'very coastal, urban and elite law school court,' alluding to the Yale and Harvard pedigrees of most of the jurists, who are also predominantly from communities on the East or West coasts. 'That seems kind of crazy to me and not a good thing,' she said,"... Continue Reading
October 6th, 2013
The family of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by the state of Texas for allegedly killing his three children by setting his family home on fire, is seeking a post-death pardon for Willingham due to "outdated arson forensics and possible prosecutorial misconduct," the Austin Chronicle reports. In 2009, the New Yorker wrote an extensive and amazing piece on the Willingham case and whether an innocent man was... Continue Reading
October 6th, 2013
The Washington Post reports that three men sentenced as juveniles to serve life without parole might be able to make the case to trial-court judges that their sentences should be adjusted: "The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was at least some reason to think last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Miller v. Alabama, throwing out mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles, should be... Continue Reading
October 4th, 2013
Reuters reports: "California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law on Thursday to give journalists in the state five days' notice before government agencies serve subpoenas on their records held by third parties, such as phone companies and internet service providers." Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
After the move to deinstitutionalize people with mental illness and get them out of asylums, no infrastructure was developed to support them in the community. Instead, many end up in jail and entangled up in the criminal justice system. The Wall Street Journal reports on the depth of the problem: "The country's three biggest jail systems—Cook County, in Illinois; Los Angeles County; and New York City—are on the front lines. With more than 11,000... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
The Wall Street Journal reports on the case of a judge who has plead guilty and agreed to cooperate in a case of judicial corruption: "A West Virginia judge pleaded guilty Wednesday to participating in a scheme to conceal alleged illegal drug use and election-law violations by a sheriff who was murdered earlier this year, amid a widening corruption probe in Mingo County. Michael Thornsbury, 57 years old, who had served as the county... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
Delaware may be an itty-bitty-sized state, but its impact on the American legal system is outsized because so many companies incorporate under Delaware law. Reuters reports "the state's tight-knit legal community is abuzz over whether the outspoken head of the Court of Chancery, Leo Strine, will become chief justice of the state's Supreme Court."
Delaware Law Weekly's Jeff Mordock reported earlier this month "the... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
My piece for Philadelphia City Paper on a proposal to change how poor family-court litigants and criminal defendants get their lawyers:
http://citypaper.net/article.php?Privatizing-legal-representation-for-po...
Since last year, Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration has quietly sought to revolutionize how court-appointed lawyers are provided to poor Philadelphians, through a new office of conflict counsel. But on Monday, Oct. 7,... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
The Legal Intelligencer (my journalism alma mater) reports that the Superior Court rejected all of the appellate arguments made by Jerry Sandusky, the "former Penn State assistant football coach, [who] was convicted by a Centre County jury in June 2012 on 45 of 48 counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period and was subsequently sentenced to 30 to 90 years in prison."
The panel rejected the argument that Sandusky... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled states could not be forced to expand their Medicaid programs for the poor as part of the Obamacare health reform law, that is leaving many of the most impoverished Americans still without health care, The New York Times reports after a detailed analysis of census data. Among its findings: "The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion are home to about half of the country’s... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
Ladar Levison, founder of the now-shuttered secure Lavabit email service, is finally free to talk about the federal government's electronic pursuit of his most famous customer, leaker Edward Snowden, after a court unsealed documents in the case. Levinson told The New York Times that he closed down his business rather than cooperate because law enforcement didn't just want access to Snowden's communications but such broad... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
A federal appellate court, divided 2-1, has ordered the trial judge presiding over the settlement of Gulf of Mexico oil spill lawsuits to reconsider the formula used to calculate claimants' damages, The New York Times reports. "BP has repeatedly complained about the claims process, arguing that the program’s administrator, Patrick Juneau, was approving fabricated payments for business economic losses based on an unsound... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
A plaintiff's lawyer argues that there was no protection for his client, who worked for an American Indian casino, from allegedly being "repeatedly subjected to offensive and explicit conduct based on race, sex and national origin, including being 'dry humped' by his supervisor, having KKK photos emailed to him, being called a Nazi, being given the 'Heil Hitler' salute, having to hear about his... Continue Reading
October 3rd, 2013
California has passed a law to criminalize, as a misdemeanor, posting "identifiable nude pictures of someone else online without permission with the intent to cause emotional distress or humiliation," The Guardian reports. The ACLU opposed the legislation on free-speech grounds. Continue Reading
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