Cultivated Compendium

United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya said at a meeting earlier this month that one of the challenges for indigenous peoples' health is "how indigenous women living near oil, gas and mining operations are '"vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, which are often introduced with a rapid increase of extractive workers in indigenous areas,'" The First Perspective, Canada's source for news about indigenous peoples, reports. Anaya, who is the rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, also noted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires "'in its articles 21, 22(1), 23 and 24 a framework for protecting and promoting indigenous peoples’ health. Together, these articles affirm indigenous peoples’ equal right to the 'highest attainable standard of physical and mental health' (art. 24); their right to improve their economic and social conditions (art. 21); and their right to 'determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development' (art. 23)."

The Republican governor of Utah has announced an expansion of Medicaid, Huffington Post reports. Many Republican states have resisted the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare as too expensive. But Governor Gary Herbert "pointed to the 60,000 individuals in the state who will gain coverage under the state's expansion of the program, saying it's 'not fair' to leave them without a solution," Huffington Post further reports.

The Medicaid expansion was a key part of ensuring that lower-income Americans, including many working poor, would get health-care coverage under the new mandate that all Americans have health insurance. But the U.S. Supreme Court said that the expansion could not be mandated to the states by the federal government. That has left it up to the states on whether they'll accept federal dollars to implement the expansions.

Gigaom reports on the adverse affects the Federal Circuit is having on patent law: "There are many explanations for the sorry state of the U.S. patent system, but one that comes up on a regular basis is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The pro-patent proclivity of the court, which hears every patent appeal in the land, has given it a 'rogue' reputation and forced the Supreme Court to reverse its decisions again and again. This week, the Supremes did so once more."

The issue, SCOTUSblog reports, is who "bears the burden of persuasion when a user of technology files suit against a patent-holder, seeking a declaratory judgment that its actions do not infringe a particular patent." Under the Supreme Court's ruling, the burden of proof rests with the patent-holder, not with the alleged infringer seeking the declaratory judgment.

The ruling should help tech firms and inventors keep one step ahead of patent trolls wielding their intellectual-property troves as revenue-generating swords through patent-infringement lawsuits.

The Indiana House has advanced a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the Associated Press reports. So far the full House only took a technical vote to accept the action of the House Elections Committee in favor of the measure. A floor debate is expected next week.

The greater level of child abuse, domestic violence, and violence against women on American Indian reservations is horrifying. One of the recommendations of the nine-member Indian Law and Order Commission in "A Roadmap to Making Native America Safer" to improve that situation is to allow tribes to opt of currently existing law enforcement systems in favor of their own--along with the establishment of a "U.S. Court of Indian Appeals to which a defendant could appeal on the grounds that his 4th, 5th, 6th or 8th amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution had been violated," Indian Country Today Media Network reports. The report argues for an American Indian law-centric circuit court '"because it would establish a more consistent, uniform, and predictable body of case law dealing with civil rights issues and matters of Federal law interpretation arising in Indian country."'

The localism of such a system reflects the strand in American polity that favors smaller government and also would promote the sovereignty of tribes at the same time. Commission Chairman Troy Eid, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, told Indian Country Media Network,  the commision's report '"is not to tell anyone what to do, but it's also to say, 'Local government works best; it's the American way.' It's emphatically a better way to prevent crime…. It's clear that many Native governments, even those with not a lot of means, want to and will sacrifice in order to put sovereignty into action through enforcing their own criminal laws."'

The Indiana House Elections Committee voted in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage last night, the Indianpolis Star reports. Nine Republicans were in favor and three Democrats were against the measure. If passed, the measure would go onto the November ballot for voters to consider. The measure has already been passed by legislators once before, but it has to be passed again before voters get the chance to decide whether to amend the state constitution to incorporate the ban.

The bill was changed from the Judiciary Committee to the Elections Committee because there were not enough votes to pass it out of the Judiciary Committee, The Star further reports.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is slated to announce later today that the state government will join the two same-sex couples asking a federal court to strike down the state's ban on same-sex matrimony as unconstitutional, The Washington Post reports. The action "is a result of November elections in which Democrats swept the state's top offices," The Post reports. Herring will note that Virginia has been on the wrong side of landmark legal issues like school desegregation and interracial marriage, and this is an opportunity to be on the right side what would be a civil-rights milestone, The Post further reports.

After the Third Circuit rejected the Delaware Court of Chancery from overseeing private arbitrations, Delaware has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review what some called "secret trials," Reuters reports. "The arbitration process was seen by Delaware attorneys as a key to boosting the attractiveness of the Court of Chancery," Reuters further reports. "It was also considered economically important to the state, as at least one company in an arbitration dispute had to be incorporated in Delaware."

Six same-sex couples in Florida have sued over that state's ban on same-sex marriage, Miami New Times reports. While the ban is only five years old, polling shows "that nearly 75 percent of Floridians approve of some sort of recognition of gay couples," the blog further reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Raging Bull copyrght case today. Reuters reports. The plaintiff, who inherited rights to the screenplay after her father's death in 1981, is seeking damages for alleged copyright violations. MGM, however, raised a laches defense, arguing that the plaintiff took too long to seek redress.