My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
September 16th, 2013
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said that it would be toxic for a Republican presidential candidate to support same-sex marriage during the primary season, but that the nominee would likely come out in favor of same-sex unions after securing the nomination.
September 15th, 2013
The ACLU has raised concerns that the Alaskan Health Information Exchange for sharing electronic health records is not secure against hackers and governemental intrusion by the NSA. For example, the ACLU opined: "Let’s be clear: electronic medical records can be a good thing. They can improve our health and make it easier for doctors to care for us. But a medical exchange that isn’t secure against spies and hackers... Continue Reading
September 15th, 2013
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders. Now the Alabama Supreme Court has set out a 14-factor test that judges can use to decide if juveniles convicted of murder can be sentenced to life with or without the possiblity of parole. The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog noted that the Alabama Supreme... Continue Reading
September 15th, 2013
While some New Mexico county clerks are issuing same-sex marriage licenses, one county is not doing so after a local judge put a case on hold-pending a ruling on same-sex marriage by the New Mexico Supreme Court. New Mexico's laws are silent on whether same-sex marriages are prohibited or allowable. That state's Supreme Court is picking up the issue after "clerks from all of New Mexico’s 33 counties voted Aug. 28... Continue Reading
September 14th, 2013
A federal judge from the Middle District of Pennsylvania has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to require farmers and developers and others to reduce the amount of pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay watershed upstream from the terrifically polluted bay. The Washington Post reports the six-state effort is one of the most sweeping efforts ever to address pollution. Continue Reading
September 14th, 2013
After the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that a wedding photographer's refusal to photograph same-sex weddings violates the state's Human Rights Act, the photographer is seeking certiorari in the US Supreme Court. SCOTUS Blog reports that the photography business argues that complying with the law forces them to violate their Christian beliefs and violates their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. If the court takes... Continue Reading
September 14th, 2013
After a hearing officer from Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission recommended that 911 calls related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown be released, a prosecutor has objected on the grounds, among others, that the commission does not have jurisdiction and that the recommendation would violate a new state law exempting many records of the shooting from the right-to-know arena. The media outlets seeking... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
Almost 40 years ago, Arizona adopted a judicial merit-selection system in which a nonpartisan commission recommends a panel of at least three candidates for judicial vacancies, and the governor must make his or her judicial appointment out of those nominees. Then Arizona enacted a law this spring requiring that the commission submit at least five nominees to the governor unless two-thirds of the commission rejected an applicant. Today, the... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
After the British phone-hacking scandal led to the Leveson report, libel reform is on the horizon. One possible change is to make it so losing plaintiffs would only have to pay their legal costs, not the costs of their winning opponents.
September 13th, 2013
Yahoo is softening CEO Marissa Mayer's remark this week that the reason the firm isn't doing more to push back against court orders that the tech firm can't reveal how much surveillance has been requested the government is because doing so would result in imprisonment on grounds of treason.
A Yahoo spokeswoman, according to the Wall Street Journal, explained: '"The point is that Yahoo fought in lower court and then... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
PBS NewsHour has a fascinating transcript of an interview with the CEO of Aereo, one of the new subscription streaming services available to "space-shift" and "time-shift" free TV broadcasts to our computers and mobile devices. Aereo was plainly designed to get around copyright restrictions on public performance rights by being set up with individualized antennas for each customer, and Aereo CEO argues that not only does... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
Electronic health records are going to become more and more prevalent as the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services have offered payments to health-care providers to implement EHRS with 'meaningful use': http://www.healthit.gov/policy-researchers-implementers/meaningful-use
But with this new way of managing patient information and records comes likely problems, including medical identity theft. Gigaom reports on a survey that... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
Aereo, the television digital distributor, is arguing that an injunction entered in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against its competitor, FilmOn X, does not affect its legal grounds to rebroadcast free TV programming over the Internet because it uses different technology. Hearst, which has a TV station in the Boston area, argues in the District of Massachusetts that the D.C. injunction against Aereo-competitor... Continue Reading
September 13th, 2013
A Connecticut judge has ordered that the school records of Adam Lanza, the deceased Sandy Hook school shooter, be turned over to a state panel that reviews the fatalities of children.
September 13th, 2013
Bloomberg has an interesting piece on how the IRS decision to require same-sex spouses to file joint returns will play out. Prior to the feds' decision, same-sex couples would have to file jointly in the states that recognized their marriages but fill out 'fake' individual returns to file their federal taxes. Now same-sex spouses who live in states that don't recognize their legal relationships after getting married... Continue Reading
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