My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
January 1st, 2014
The Wall Street Journal reports that more judges are speaking publicly beyond their opinions and court proceedings, including U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf of Nebraska starting a blog. "The old taboo seemed to take a hit this past year. Judges and legal experts point to several reasons judges may be speaking more freely now: A Supreme Court whose justices are frequently in the public eye, a desire among judges to defend... Continue Reading
December 28th, 2013
Matthew H. Birkhold, a visiting scholar at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, writes for Bloomberg that it was a double-edged sword for the Annenberg Foundation to purchase 24 sacred American Indian objects that were auctioned off by a Paris auction house. The foundation plans to return the objects to the Hopi and the San Carlos Apache tribes. Even though the foundation denounced the sale of cultural property, it legitimized commerce in... Continue Reading
December 27th, 2013
Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief who has been asked by the international membership organization to prepare a report on protection of the right to privacy, said that international action led to the end of apartheid in South Africa and that it can again lead to the end of massive surveillance of online activity, The Guardian reports. The experience of international action on apartheid "inspires me to go on and address the... Continue Reading
December 27th, 2013
A federal judge in New York has issued a conflicting ruling with that of a federal judge in D.C. over the legality of the National Security Agency's surveillance of nearly every phone call made in America, CNN reports: "In his ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge William Pauley said the NSA's bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act was legal. The program was revealed in classified leaks by former NSA... Continue Reading
December 27th, 2013
Monsignor William Lynn, the first Catholic Church officially to be criminal convicted for the sexual abuse done to youth that he had responsibility for (but did not directly abuse), won his appeal, Zack Needles, my former colleague at The Legal Intelligencer, reports: "Lynn's lawyers had argued following his conviction that the trial judge had refused to address the defense argument that a pre-amended version of Pennsylvania's law... Continue Reading
December 27th, 2013
Bloomberg reports on the plans of Utah governmental officials to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block same-sex marriages. A federal district court has ruled that Utah's ban on same-sex nuptials violates constitutional rights to equal protection and due process, but the Tenth Circuit ruled against holding the trial court in abeyance while Utah appeals the decision. Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
ProPublica reports on how the criminal prosecution of Etan Patz's alleged killer might have been jeopardized because police did not tape the interrogation: the "interrogation room, it turns out, was fully equipped to do what a growing body of expert opinion has insisted be done in such moments: a full videotaping of a suspect’s interaction with detectives, from the start of an interrogation through any possible formal confession... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The National Law Journal's Zoe Tillman reports on the likely appeal of U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's decision that the National Security Agency's surveillance most likely violates the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit's makeup could be quite different by the time an appeal is ready to be heard: "Three new judges appointed by President Obama could be sitting on the D.C. Circuit by the time a panel is chosen to review... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle reports on the U.S. Supreme Court's spring 2014 term: "The term may seem a little blockbuster-light compared with back-to-back historic terms involving health care, immigration, same-sex marriages and voting rights. But there are a number of headline grabbers and the new year brings two possible game changers for the executive branch," including on the issue of whether the president has... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
Two Arizona reporters have received a $3.75 million settlement because they were falsely arrested in 2007 by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Phoenix New Times reports that their co-founders "Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and jailed on misdemeanor charges alleging that they violated the secrecy of a grand jury -- which turned out never to have been convened."
Two-and-a-half years after... Continue Reading
December 23rd, 2013
The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black ruled today that Ohio's 9-year-old ban on same-sex marriage cannot extend to refusing to recognize valid same-sex marriages from other states on death certificates. The ruling is likely to have a broader impact than just on death certificates because of the judge's sweeping language. According to the AP, the judge reasoned: "'The question presented is whether... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
The New York Times reports that the White House has asserted the state secrets privilege in two federal cases pending in California. The plaintiffs are challenging the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance programs. "The government said that despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, that made public a fuller scope of the surveillance and data collection programs put... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, writing in the Los Angeles Times, argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should follow the lead of the 9th Circuit and add live streaming of court proceedings: "When Justice David H. Souter uttered his now-infamous declaration in 1996 that cameras would roll into the Supreme Court over his dead body, the Internet was relatively new and Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the iPhone were as... Continue Reading
December 22nd, 2013
United Press International has this roundup of cases to watch when the U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes January 13: "The big dog in the rest of the Supreme Court term which ends when the justices 'rise; for the summer recess -- when the supreme backsides leave their comfortable rocking chairs behind the bench -- is the challenge to the Affordable Care Act... Continue Reading
December 20th, 2013
FierceEMR reports that consolidation and new business relationships between healthcare providers will create issues regarding patient privacy and electronic health records, according to two healthcare attorneys interviewed by the blog.
Health law attorneys Michael Kline and Elizabeth Litten with Fox Rothschild in Princeton, N.J., told FierceEMR that the issues could include:
a. the expansion of health care entities "increases the... Continue Reading
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