My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
September 23rd, 2013
Remember that scene in West Wing in which Toby Ziegler wanted to use his cell phone while in the air on a commercial passenger jet? Well, he still wouldn't be able to make a cell phone call, but he could read his e-book, listen to a podcast or watch a video. The New York Times reports an advisory panel to the Federal Aviation Authority is expected to make such a proposal soon. "The guidelines are expected to allow reading e-books... Continue Reading
September 23rd, 2013
The New York Times has a report on a putatative class action filed against a Nevada psychiatric center alleging it had the practice of putting patients with mental illness onto buses to San Francisco and other California locales with one-way tickets. “In San Francisco, it’s been urban myth for decades that this sort of practice was going on,” San Franciso City Attorney Dennis Herrera told the New York Times and who is prosecuting the lawsuit. “... Continue Reading
September 22nd, 2013
Attorney Terrence P. Dwyer writes that there is still a question left open by the U.S. Supreme Court "relating to the extent of government use of GPS technology without a warrant, specifically about requirements when there is no physical trespass upon personal property." He writes that some courts are more protective of cell site locator information while others are not (CSLI "can be sought in one of two ways —... Continue Reading
September 22nd, 2013
Philadelphia CityPaper did an incredible job with this enterprise piece on the long-standing violence in Philadelphia's Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. There have been 150 shootings and 30 murders in the last decade involving just three corners in the northwest part of that neighborhood--all stemming from one killing in October 2003. "The street-corner killings that take many young black lives in Philadelphia are... Continue Reading
September 22nd, 2013
Diane J. Humetewa, a Hopi citizen, the first American Indian to serve as a United States attorney, and who has been an appellate court judge for the Hopi Tribe Appellate Court, was nominated this week by President Barack Obama for a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for Arizona. If confirmed, Humetewa would be the first American Indian woman and only the third American Indian overall to serve in the federal judiciary, according... Continue Reading
September 22nd, 2013
CNN has this opinion piece from a Kathryn and Lawrence Ashe Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law professor on three ways to improve the United States Supreme Court:
1. end lifetime service
2. televise oral arguments
3. require nominees to "answer hard questions" during their confirmation hearings in the Senate.
Continue Reading
September 22nd, 2013
Two separate cases have reached the U.S. Supreme Court seeking certiorari on the mandate that all health insurance cover contraception and other means of ending pregnancies. The Tenth Circuit sided with an employer opposing providing such coverage, while the Third Circuit sided against an employer, according to this clip from The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes Catholicism. The stage is now set for a circuit split on the tension... Continue Reading
September 21st, 2013
Echoing similar recent comments by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Elena Kagan told an audience in Kentucky that '"We disagree, but then we put things aside and come back the next day, fresh,'" the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Kagan said she has even gone hunting for quail, pheasant and antelope and traveled out West with Justice Antonin Scalia, who is conservative in his jurisprudence... Continue Reading
September 21st, 2013
The New York Times has this interesting profile of JPMorgan's general counsel, Stephen M. Cutler, who has talked tough in the past on the importance of compliance with financial rules and regulations but on whose watch "JPMorgan had agreed to admit wrongdoing and pay nearly $1 billion in fines for its conduct in the 'London Whale' matter, in which the bank’s chief investment office lost more than $6 billion and bank... Continue Reading
September 21st, 2013
The Albuquerque Journal reports the New Mexico Attorney General argues that same-sex marriage is an issue of civil rights to be decided by the courts, not to be put up as a ballot measure for voters. The New Mexico Supreme Court is going to hear the issue next month. New Mexico is the rare state that does not directly prohibit nor directly authorize same-sex marriages. Continue Reading
September 20th, 2013
The Chicago Sun-Times has this report: "A Will County judge on Friday found a Joliet crime reporter in contempt of court for not divulging how he obtained confidential police reports about a notorious double murder earlier this year. Will County Circuit Court Judge Gerald Kinney on Friday found patch.com reporter Joseph Hosey in contempt of court and gave him 180 days to disclose his source. Hosey faces jail time if he does not reveal who... Continue Reading
September 20th, 2013
A retirement professional has this overview on same-sex spouses getting Social Security benefits in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. One highlight is that the Social Security Administration is paying spouse benefits "if the couple wedded in a state that performs same-sex marriages, and reside at the time of claiming Social Security in a state that recognizes same-sex... Continue Reading
September 20th, 2013
The Associated Press reports the Arkansas Attorney General has approved the popular name and ballot title of a ballot measure that would ask Arkansas voters to repeal the definition of marriage as between only a man and a woman. The ballot measure would only change the state constitution, not a state law that bans same-sex marriage. The AP further reports, "Arkansas' gay marriage ban was approved by 75 percent of voters in 2004. Same-... Continue Reading
September 20th, 2013
John Dean has this analysis of the Jones V. Dirty World Entertainment case heading to the Sixth Circuit, a case which could change the parameters of the law on the safe harbors provided in the Communications Decency Act to Internet Service Providers from defamatory on-line material.
CDA Section 230 protects Internet intermediaries fr0m liability for information provided by other information content providers. According to the trial court... Continue Reading
September 20th, 2013
The Environmental Protection Agency is going to announce the full details of its plan today to start regulating the amount of carbon emissions new coal and gas power plants can emit. Court challenges by the energy industry are predicted, the Washington Post reports.
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
