My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
October 27th, 2013
The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral argments last week in a case in which conservative plaintiffs argue the state's domestic partner registry violates the state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has a conservative-leaning majority, The Associated Press reported. The registry gives legal rights to same-sex couples like "the right to visit each other in hospitals and make end-of-life decisions for... Continue Reading
October 27th, 2013
The Washington Post reports that a defendant in a terrorism case has been informed by the U.S. Department of Justice that federal prosecutors want to use evidence generated from warrantless surveillance against him. The case is expect to generate a constitutional challenge. The case also could generated a U.S. Supreme Court test case. The Supreme Court rejected prior challenges to warrantless surveillance because the "lawyers, journalists... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
AP Editor William J. Kole writes that reason that his news organization requested the tapes of 911 calls made about the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., is because it would be in the public interest to examine "the law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history." But, while Kole said a prosecutor's refusal to release the records breaks the law, he also points out... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
The New York Times' Jim Dwyer makes the point that confessions, but not entire interrogiations, are recorded in New York. But it's documenting entire interrogations that could stop people being wrongfully convicted after they give false confessions. Dwyer writes: "They’ve been recording confessions for years — true confessions, false confessions, they pretty much all look the same. But after so many people who... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission is set to regulate connected devices that share consumer data. Or as GigaOm more pithily says it: the Internet of Things. Why does this matter? GigaOm reports: "There are two issues at play here, one being the privacy of consumer data and the other being the security of the networks delivering that data. The privacy issue, however, also contains a security dimension since the devices can share things that... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
Even as China's economy continues to thrive, issues with consumer safety have arisen not only with products sold abroad in the United States but domestically. In a promising sign that the rule of law is catching up to China's economic growth, Chinese consumer safety rules have been tightened. The changes, Reuters reported, "increase consumer powers, add rules for the booming Internet shopping sector and stiffen punishments for businesses that... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
The Second Circuit has rejected a $150,000 cap on individual donations to political action committees and independent-expenditure groups, Newsday reports. The ruling rises out of legsl action by supporters for NYC Republican Mayoral Candidate Joe Lhota.
The court granted injunctive relief on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United holding "that the government has no anti-corruption interest in limited independent... Continue Reading
October 25th, 2013
The Guardian has another scoop based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden: during the second term of the Bush presidential administration the National Security Agency memorialized that it tapped the phone calls of 35 world leaders after getting their numbers from a U.S. official in another department. The secret document stated no actionable intelligence arose from all that surveillance, The Guardian also reported. Continue Reading
October 24th, 2013
The New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is contemplating entering a deferred-prosecution agreement with JPMorgan for the Wall Street bank allegedly turning a blind eye to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. There is no record of any other investment bank entering such an agreement to resolve criminal charges, The Times also reported.
The consequences of bringing criminal charges against JPMorgan is potential harm... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
The Third Circuit has ruled that the Delaware Court of Chancery's private arbitration program violates the public's First Amendment right to access court proceedings, The Legal Intelligencer reports. The panel was divided 2-1.
"Allowing public access to state-sponsored arbitrations would give stockholders and the public a better understanding of how Delaware resolves major business disputes," according to The... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the Philadelphia area earlier this week, told a group of college students that "'nobody is born a justice,"' The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The first Latina to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and the third woman to serve on the court recalled that her first goal was to graduate college, then to finish law school and now it is to become a better justice. '... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
Due to Obamacare's expansion under the Medicaid program in the states that have opted for it, more people facing criminal charges might have access to health care and might get diverted away from the justice system. According to The Crime Report, "for law enforcement and courts, that could mean a greater ability to quickly identify alternatives to incarceration for those with mental illness and substance abuse issues. Tim Murray... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, might have broken into tears because the lack of a global agreement on climate change is "condemning future generations before they are even born," BBC reported. But Figueres still said that a deal can be done by 2015 and the pitfalls that doomed the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations for an international climate-change... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
The New Mexico Supreme Court heard oral argument today on whether that state's laws would allow same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. New Mexico is the rare state that does not explicitly authorize or bar same-sex marriage. While "the marriage laws — unchanged since 1961 — include a marriage license application with sections for male and female applicants" and references husbands-and-wives, at... Continue Reading
October 23rd, 2013
Chet Kanojia, CEO of television Internet streaming service Aereo, said that his business model of transmitting free broadcast television on the Internet through individual antennas dedicated to each subscriber “has gone from the back of my napkin two years ago, in my house, to in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and national policy in about a 20-month period. So, what else could you ask for, right?” Xconomy reported.
Broadcasters... Continue Reading
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