My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
April 15th, 2015
The California Indian Law Association has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to get more information about an alleged "confession of error" by former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katya that his office made misrepresentations to the U.S. Supreme Court in American Indian law cases, The Legal Times' Tony Mauro reports. Katyal made his remarks in a video for the Federal Bar Association's annual Indian law conference... Continue Reading
April 13th, 2015
The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has ruled that Missouri can't limit the ability of insurance navigators in helping consumers sign up for coverage through the federally run online exchange, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Samantha Liss reports. Missouri legislators passed legislation barring navigators from providing advice to consumers about health plans sold outside of the federally-run exchange. Continue Reading
April 13th, 2015
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has struck down a ban in Michigan on outdoor charity collection bins, the Michigan Radio Newsroom's Virginia Gordon reports. The appellate court ruled that the ban likely violates the free speech rights of Planet Aid. Continue Reading
April 12th, 2015
The number of civil cases awaiting resolution in the federal courts for three years or more has exceeded 30,000 for the fifth time in the past decade, The Wall Street Journal's Joe Palazzolo reports. The number of cases pending is up nearly 20 percent from a decade ago.
The Eastern District for California has a particularly deep backlog, with the number of case filed per judge is almost twice the national average, Palazzolo reports... Continue Reading
April 12th, 2015
The Obama administration's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has taken vendors of electronic health records "to task for making it costly and cumbersome to share patient information and frustrating a $30 billion push to use digital records to improve quality and cut costs," The Wall Street Journal's Melinda Beck reports.
For example, vendors are requiring customers to use proprietary... Continue Reading
April 12th, 2015
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has come out in favor of merit selection for judges on the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, Arkansas News' John Lyon reports. Hutchison said "'I am willing to give that some gubernatorial support, some gubernatorial initiative to help drive that re-examination to look at how we can better elect our judges and also have the people continue to be involved in that process.”'
Last... Continue Reading
April 9th, 2015
After Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday to allow that state's Supreme Court justices to vote on who should lead the court, the current chief justice has filed a lawsuit against the amendment, the Associated Press' Scott Bauer reports.
Before the amendment was approved, the most senior jurist on the Wisconsin Supreme Court filled the chief justice position. Shirley Abrahamson, a liberal member of... Continue Reading
April 6th, 2015
The New York Times' Mitch Smith reports that Tuesday's election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court could reshape that judicial body. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, member of the court's liberal minority, is up for election (Judge James Daley is Bradley's opponent and is supported by Republicans, while she is supported by Democrats), and voters are being asked to approve a constitutional amendment to change how the chief... Continue Reading
April 6th, 2015
Steven J. Harper, has written a column in The American Lawyer challenging Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon's piece in the New York Times in which Solomon argued that the current state of the legal profession is improving. Point by point, Harper says there is not support for Solomon's argument that new law graduates are entering an improved job market. Overall, employment in the legal market "is still tens of thousands... Continue Reading
April 6th, 2015
New York Times editor Gretchen Morgenson argues that investors need a more muscular Securities and Exchange Commission. Even though billions of dollars have been paid by financial firms to settle regulatory and legal actions related to the mortgage crisis, most of that money went to the Department of Treasury or states. The SEC has collected $2.6 billion in penalties and disgorgement of profits in its actions, but class actions on... Continue Reading
April 5th, 2015
Research by social scientists shows that criminals, even violent ones, mature out of lawbreaking before middle age, The Marshall Project's Dana Goldstein reports: "Homicide and drug-arrest rates peak at age 19, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, while arrest rates for forcible rape peak at 18. Some crimes, such as vandalism, crest even earlier, at age 16, while arrest rates for forgery, fraud and embezzlement peak in... Continue Reading
April 5th, 2015
Foreign Affairs' Timothy William Waters suggests that--now that the Palestinian Authority has joined the International Criminal Court and the ICC has acknowledged that Palestine accepts its jurisdiction--there could be trouble for the ICC if it prosecutes a case against Israeli forces operating in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel argues that Palestine is not a state, and the "ICC is a weak institution; prosecuting Israel could prove... Continue Reading
April 5th, 2015
The Huffington Post's Nick Wing examines how rap lyrics are being used to incriminate young black men. Jurors are being told to view lyrics as "as literal autobiography, rather than metaphorical or exaggerated storytelling. This works with disturbing effectiveness, critics say, because rap songs often contain lyrics that reinforce racial stereotypes about black males and hyper-sexuality or violence -- helpful when the prosecutor is... Continue Reading
April 5th, 2015
People with disabilities are fighting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposed changes to long-term managed care in the state's budget, The Marshfield News-Herald's Liz Welter reports. They are concerned that changes to managed care would trade a community-centered system with a state-wide approach run by out-of-state insurance companies. They also are concerned that the autonomy the current system gives them to direct how some... Continue Reading
April 5th, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4, ruled in the past week that healthcare providers can't force states to raise Medicaid rates to keep up with rising medical costs, the Associated Press' Sam Hananel reports. The mostly more conservative justices in the majority said that private medical providers have no private right to enforce Medicaid funding laws because Congress did not create such a right.
The case involved five... Continue Reading
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