My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
July 23rd, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court is being criticized for not doing enough to open public access to court proceedings by a coalition formed to increase transparency in the judiciary, Legal Times' Tony Mauro reports: "'There remains much to be done to bring the institution in line with our expectations of openness from our nation’s top legal officials,' according to an end-of-term report issued by the Coalition for... Continue Reading
July 22nd, 2014
Congressional leaders blasted the lack of interoperability between different vendors' electronic health records systems, Politico reports. The harshest criticism came from "Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), who charged that Verona, Wis.-based Epic Systems, the leading EHR company, was operating 'closed platforms' that did not allow information to easily flow into and out of its electronic health records systems," Politico... Continue Reading
July 22nd, 2014
Just hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out the federal tax regulation that implements the Obamacare subsidies available to people with annual incomes of up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, the Fourth Circuit has upheld them, the National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle reports: "In King v. Burwell, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected... Continue Reading
July 22nd, 2014
A major blow has been delivered today to Obamacare, Reuters reports: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit accepted one of the main legal challenges to the policy by conservatives opposed to an expansion of the federal government" and threw out the federal tax regulation that implements Obamacare subsidies available to people with annual incomes of up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Continue Reading
July 21st, 2014
The Tenth Circuit has once again acted to strike down a state ban on same-sex marriage. The same panel of judges, 2-1, that voted to strike down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage voted to strike down Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage, USA Today's Richard Wolf reports. The dissenting judge, Judge Paul Kelly, is the first federal judge to oppose same-sex marriage in any case, USA Today reports. Continue Reading
July 21st, 2014
Navi Pillay, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights, argues in a draft report that digital privacy is a human right, the Washington Post reports. Wide-ranging surveillance by the National Security Agency and the United Kingdom's General Communications Headquarters undermine that right, Pillay argues. Pillay's draft report argues "'the best remedy of all is to establish strong legal protections to ensure... Continue Reading
July 20th, 2014
A federal court has dismissed a Texas search-and-rescue group's challenge to the Federal Aviation Adminstration's drone policy, the Wall Street Journal reports. The D.C. Circuit ruled that informal emails from regulators, expressing a view of what the law requires, aren't subject to judicial review. Continue Reading
July 17th, 2014
According to the Associated Press, the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation is being accused of violating a law meant to protect the cultural property of American Indian tribes. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has told the Interior Department to investigate if the bureau has violated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which provides a way for American Indian remains and other cultural property to be... Continue Reading
July 17th, 2014
Florida's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down today by Florida Circuit Judge Luis M. Garcia, the Associated Press reports. Garcia characterized the issue as one of equal protection for a powerless minority: "'Whether it is ... when Nazi supremacists won the right to march in Skokie, Illinois, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood; or when a black woman wanted to marry a white man in Virginia; or when black children wanted to go... Continue Reading
July 17th, 2014
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney has ruled that decades-long delays in carrying out the death penalty sentence of an inmate violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel or unusual punishment, the Los Angeles Times reports. Whether the ruling will be upheld on appeal is uncertain. "'I think it has a shot in the 9th Circuit, but I don't know about the U.S. Supreme Court,'" Gerald Uelmen, a Santa... Continue Reading
July 14th, 2014
After a Colorado state judge ruled that the state's same-sex marriage ban is "hanging on by a thread," at least three counties have been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Associated Press reports.
In one decision, Adams District Judge C. Scott Crabtree ruled Wednesday that the ban violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause and the arguments in support of the ban about... Continue Reading
July 8th, 2014
USA Today reports that the incentives being provided by the federal government to get doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records are being offered even though those EHRs "currently make it easier for health care providers to defraud government-paid health programs." The issue, according to USA Today, is that the EHRs don't have auditing safeguards in place to prevent fraud or the safeguards are "vulnerable... Continue Reading
July 8th, 2014
Investigative journalist Will Potter is hoping to get around ag gag laws making it illegal to sneak onto agricultural operations by using drones to photograph factory farms from the air, Fast Company reports. He has started a Kickstarter campaign to pay for drones, legal expenses and video production. One thing he hopes to expose are farms that generate meat labeled as "humane" or "free range" "for what they are:... Continue Reading
July 6th, 2014
The Washington Post has a compelling feature of Nora Sandigo, who is a guardian to hundreds of U.S. children born to undocumented immigrants who are subject to deportation. Sandigo began caring for the U.S.-citizen children of deported parents five years ago and she has become "Miami's most popular solution to a growing problem in immigration enforcement affecting what the government refers to as 'mixed-status families.'... Continue Reading
July 6th, 2014
The Canada Supreme Court ruled for the first time in favor of issuing a declaration of aboriginal title, or that an aboriginal group owns their land, David C. Nahwegahbow writes for CBC. The decision was in favor of the Tsilhqot'in Nation, who reside in the British Columbia province and who say they were not consulted about forestry operations within thier lands. According to Nahwegahbow, the Supreme Court... Continue Reading
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