Cultivated Compendium

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 Legal's account of the majority opinion. "Opening the proceedings would also allay the public's concern about a process only accessible to litigants in business disputes who are able to afford the expense of litigation. In addition, public access would expose litigants, lawyers and the Chancery Court judge alike to scrutiny from peers and the press."

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. '"I am learning to write shorter opinions, ask less questions, and think more globally about the decisions I make,"' The Inquirer also reported.

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, executive director of the Pretrial Justice Institute, said that healthcare and substance abuse counseling is more effective at mitigating risk than jail."

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 accord could be avoided, BBC also reported.

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 least one judge also has ruled denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples is unconstitutional, the AP also reports.

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 have appealed a decision in the Second Circuit that Aereo is not violating their copyright in their programming. One of their biggest arguments is that a ruling in favor of Aereo would excuse cable networks from paying for broadcast programming.

For his part, Kanojia said that a ruling in Aereo's favor would protect "the consumer in the midst of all this profiteering,” Xconomy also reported.

The European Parliament voted to suspend a data-sharing agreement with the United States that allows access to financial transactions for the purposes of tracking the financing of terrorists, GigaOm reported, although only the European Commission can actually suspend the agreement.

Edward Snowden's leaks exposed that the National Security Agency has been tapping the SWIFT database of international transactions "directly in order to extract information, thus breaking the terms of the agreement with the EU. The intelligence agency has apparently also been illegally accessing credit card transaction data in Europe, the Middle East and Africa," GigaOm also reported.

New York Times reporter James Risen has asked the Fourth Circuit to put on hold its ruling denying that a reporters privilege applies in a criminal case in which he could be forced to testify, Politico reports. Meanwhile, Risen will seek for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue.

The underlying criminal case involves former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who "has been indicted for leaking Risen information about a CIA operation to provide Iran with flawed nuclear designs as part of an effort to set back that country's alleged nuclear weapons program," according to Politico.

Risen has vowed to go to jail before revealing who his source was.
 

Reuters reports the "state-run New Express tabloid printed a front-page commentary begging police in the south-central city of Changsha to set reporter Chen Yongzhou free under the headline: 'Please release him."'

Chen was detained on defamation charges after "writing more than a dozen stories criticizing the finances of a major state-owned construction equipment maker," including that the company "engaged in sales fraud, exaggerated its profits and used public relations to defame its competitors," Reuters also reports.

Upshot? A reporter is arrested for alleged defamation after exposing alleged defamation and other alleged wrongdoings of a Chinese business.

A younger group of American Indians are challenging the Washington Redskins trademark after prior challengers to the trademark lost on the grounds that they waited too long to bring their challenge. "The current petitioners are five Native Americans from different tribes who say they are offended by the team’s name. A decision by the trademark appeal board could come any day," The Wall Street Journal reported. The footbal team argues that what matters is how a term was perceived at the time of its registration, not whether it is disparaging in 2013, The Journal also reported.