My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
December 19th, 2014
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, who "campaigned as an opponent of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act," now supports expanding Medicaid block-grant funding to more low-income Alabamans, Media Group's Mike Cason reports: Bentley said "he would support an Alabama-designed plan that required recipients to be working or in a work training program. ... Bentley [also] said with a block grant the state... Continue Reading
December 19th, 2014
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed a rule that would require long-term care facilities to extend spousal rights to same-sex married couples, McKnight's Tim Mullaney reports. CMS said in the proposed rule "'our goal is to provide equal treatment to spouses, regardless of their sex, whenever the marriage was valid in the jurisdiction in which it was entered into, without regard to whether the... Continue Reading
December 19th, 2014
The Hawai'i Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday on a challenge to a law authorizing same-sex marriage, the Associated Press' Jennifer Sinco Kelleher reports. The challengers to the law argue that legislators did not have the authority to pass the law because of a constitutional amendment.
Sabrina McKenna, the first openly gay Supreme Court justice in Hawai'i, recused herself. Continue Reading
December 19th, 2014
New York City Councilman Dan Garodnick has introduced a bill to ban the use of all drones in the Big Apple except by law enforcement officers who have warrants, Ars Technica reports. Councilman Paul Vallone introduced a separate bill that would restrict drones, among other limitations, to not being flown at night, out of the operator's eyesight or above 400 feet. Continue Reading
December 18th, 2014
Barrett Brown, a freelance journalist who also has been portrayed as an Anonymous hacktivist, has had his sentencing delayed until January 22, The Intercept's Michelle Garcia reports.
Before taking a plea deal, Brown faced more than 100 years in prison for posting links to stolen credit-card information hacked by others from the servers of security intelligence firms HBGary and Stratfor: "The HBGary hack revealed a coordinated... Continue Reading
December 18th, 2014
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has accepted three cases arising out of an investigation into whether Governor Scott Walker's campaign illegally coordinated with the conservative groups supporting him, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley reports.
The appeals will likely be shrouded with some secrecy: "Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice David Prosser ... expressed concern that much of the court record is... Continue Reading
December 18th, 2014
President Barack Obama has now appointed many more federal judges than his predecessors had by this point in their time in the Oval Office; this will define his presidency long after he is out of office, The Huffington Post's Jennifer Bendery reports: "He'll wrap up his sixth year in office with a grand total of 305 district court and circuit court confirmations -- a tally that puts him well beyond where his predecessors... Continue Reading
December 17th, 2014
The Washington Post's Supreme Court beat reporter Robert Barnes says that the regular pattern for the justices is to take a case before the end of January in order to set render a decision by the end of the term in June. While the court declined to take up the issue of same-sex marriage last fall, this time there is a split between circuit court of appeals on whether same-sex marriage bans are constitutional or not. Barnes notes a... Continue Reading
December 17th, 2014
Maybe Mr. Chen won't go to Washington. The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted the case of a man representing himself in his battle with the city of Baltimore over a rowhouse that has now been torn down, The Wall Street Journal's Brent Kendall and Colleen Wilson report. But Bobby Chen is missing and can't be found at his last known address. His email account is no longer functioning.
While Chen can't be found and his brief is... Continue Reading
December 17th, 2014
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has proposed expanding Medicaid to cover more poor residents of his state, although the plan, if accepted by regulators and conservative legislators, would not follow traditional Medicaid rules, The New York Times' Abby Goodnough reported. Haslam said he still opposes the Obamacare plan to expand Medicaid to everyone earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, but he is proposing a second option... Continue Reading
December 16th, 2014
Clayton Lockett took 43 minutes to die when he was executed by the state of Oklahoma earlier this year. But investigators "downplayed and omitted disturbing details" about the botched execution, including that lawyers from the Attorney General's Office helped select the drug combination used for Lockett's execution, the Tulsa World reports.
Attorneys for death-row inmates said in a motion that a witness said "the... Continue Reading
December 16th, 2014
The families of 20 first-graders killed by Adam Lanza at a Connecticut elementary school have sued the manufacturer of the military assault rifle used in the school shooting, Bloomberg's Phil Milford and Christian Dolmetsch reports. Lawyers for the families said in a statement that the Bushmaster Firearms International LLC rifle was specifically designed for combat, not for defending one's home or for hunting.
Milford and Dolmetsch... Continue Reading
December 16th, 2014
Several judges on the Ninth Circuit, sitting during en banc arguments yesterday, expressed skepticism about whether an actress has a copyright interest in an anti-Muslim video and can show enough "irreparable harm" from the video to force its takedown from YouTube, Bloomberg's Edvard Pettersson reports. A three-judge panel gave Cindy Lee Garcia a copyright interest in her performance in "Innocence of Muslims,... Continue Reading
December 14th, 2014
Alaska Native tribes will now be able to prosecute domestic violence crimes committed against American Indians by non-Natives, The Washington Post's Sari Horwitz reports. A previous amendment to the Violence Against Women Act gave jurisdiction to tribal courts to prosecute domestic violence crimes and address the lack of legal protection that Native women have from assailants, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) added an... Continue Reading
December 14th, 2014
Minnesota lawmakers are mulling whether to legislate drones, including restricting the use of drones by law enforcement, the Associated Press' Kyle Potter reports: "Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union ... and several lawmakers suggested a handful of protections like requiring a search warrant before any drone flight, imposing limits for how long agencies can keep images and requiring law enforcement to get... Continue Reading
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