My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
February 10th, 2014
While American Indian reservations are sovereign nations, tribes have not had the legal authority to arrest non-Indian women who assault or rape Indian women on reservations, The Washington Post reports. But the Violence Against Women Act, signed in March, will for the first time give Indian tribes jurisdiction over some crimes of domestic violence committed by "non-Indians in Indian Country," The Post further reports (The law won... Continue Reading
February 10th, 2014
While the U.S. Supreme Court case over Internet streaming service Aereo's business model is pending, broadcaster Fox is seeking a preliminary junction against Aereo in the 10th Circuit, Multichannel News reports. A Utah district court will hear the request to enjoin Aereo in the six states over which the 10th Circuit has jurisdiction. Continue Reading
February 9th, 2014
Reuters reports on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement this weekend that the Justice Department is going to expand LGBT rights. This includes recognizing the right of same-sex spouses not to testify against each other, to visit each other in federal prison, in how some debts are handled in federal bankruptcy proceedings and in eligibility for death benefits for survivors of law enforcement officers killed in the line of... Continue Reading
February 9th, 2014
As Kansas "braces for the federal courts striking down Kansas' ban on gay marriage," a House legislative committee has passed a bill that would shield business owners from being forced to service same-sex weddings if that would be against their religious beliefs, the Associated Press reports. The bill would bar governmental sanctions and anti-discrimination lawsuits in those circumstances.
LGBT-rights advocates criticized the... Continue Reading
February 9th, 2014
The Connecticut Supreme Court has taken up a case of a man convicted of murder in which an eyewitness identified him as the shooter even though she was 265 feet away in a fifth-floor apartment, the Associated Press reports. As part of the case, the Supreme Court is considering "whether Connecticut should join other states and abandon a balancing test created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977 and used by judges nationwide to determine... Continue Reading
February 9th, 2014
Joan Orie Melvin, the former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice appealing her criminal conviction for political corruption, should have her conviction and her sentence upheld, prosecutors argued in a court filing, the Associated Press reported. As part of her sentence, Melvin was ordered to write an apology to every judge in the state on a picture of her in handcuffs.
February 8th, 2014
Intellectual Property Watch reports that "a panel addressing negotiators this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization asserted the property rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities over traditional knowledge and genetic resources and called on delegates to draft an international instrument compliant with their internationally recognised rights." The WIPO meeting took place this week.
James Anaya, United... Continue Reading
February 8th, 2014
The Chicago Tribune reports on how a "little-known" provision in the Medicaid health-insurance expansion is going to increase the practice of the government asserting liens on patients' assets to recoup expenditures on medical costs: "The issue arises because of a provision in the long-standing laws governing Medicaid that compel states to recoup certain medical costs after a person dies, either via liens placed on... Continue Reading
February 7th, 2014
President Obama's administration reports that the the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has agreeed to modify the surveillance program collecting telephone metadata. James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said in a statement: "As a first step in that transition, the President directed the Attorney General to work with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ensure that, absent a true emergency, the telephony... Continue Reading
February 7th, 2014
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore mailed letters this week to all 50 governors asking them to urge their legislatures to call for a national convention on amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. The chief justice also is "known on the national stage for fighting to display the Ten Commandments in a judicial building," the AP reports. Moore told the AP it's the only... Continue Reading
February 6th, 2014
Attorney counseling terrorism suspects have faced the violation of attorney-client privilege because of governmental surveillance, The Nation reports. One attorney discovered that every one of 42 phone calls with his clients had been recorded. Conversations between indicted defendants are off limits, but pre-indictment suspects are having their conversations with their lawyers surveilled, The Nation reports. Despite the arguments of many... Continue Reading
February 6th, 2014
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was in Hawaii this week, the Associated Press reports. When asked about Korematsu v. United States, in which the Supreme Court upheld the convictions of two Japanese Americans for not reporting to an internment camp, Scalia said that it was wrongly decided. "But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again," Scalia said, according to the AP. Scalia... Continue Reading
February 6th, 2014
A group of 73 "organic and conventional family farmers, seed companies and public advocacy interests" lost their effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider lower-court rulings that they could not be sued for violating Monsant's biotech seed patents if their fields became "inadvertently contaminated with its patented genetic traits for corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and other crops," Midwest Producer reports.... Continue Reading
February 5th, 2014
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week that the reason she uses the term "undocumented immigrants" instead of "illegal alien" is that "labeling immigrants criminals seem[s] insulting to her," the Associated Press report. Sotomayor further said: "'I think people then paint those individuals as something less than worthy human beings and it changes the conversation,'" the AP... Continue Reading
February 5th, 2014
Legislation to ban employment discrimination against LGBT Americans is stalled in Congress. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has cleared the way for President Barack Obama to protect LGBT federal contractors through executive action, Huffington Post reports. While backers of the legislation would prefer for the legislation to pass, they also would like to see the president protect as many people as possible as his authority allows for.... Continue Reading
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