Cultivated Compendium

The U.S. Supreme Court, voting 5-4, has upheld the use of a drug in Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol that has been criticized as likely to cause inmates cruel and unusual punishment, The Huffington Post's Kim Bellware reports. Lawyers for the inmates on Oklahoma's death row aruged that midazolam "can't reliably render an inmate unconscious and free of pain while the second and third drugs paralyze him and stop his heart, thus making the execution cruel and unusual punishment."

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of tax subsidies for people buying health insurance on the federal exchange in King v. Burwell, business groups are going to press Congress to modify elements of the Affordable Care Act, Hospitals & Health Networks Daily's Marty Stempniak reports: "Trade groups representing employers — such as the National Retail Federation and American Benefits Council — urged Congress to 'seize the opportunity' and address what they say are shortcomings in the law. Those include repealing the employer mandate and Cadillac tax on pricier plans, reforming reporting requirements, and upping the 30-hour work week standard for eligibility to 40 hours."

Healthcare advocates also are going to push for the expansion of Medicaid in the Republican-led states that have refused to allow for it. Dr. John Ayanian, director of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan, told Stempniak that federal regulators may allow more flexibility in Medicaid programs, which could entice more states to participate in Medicaid expansion.

The next frontier in civil rights for LGBT Americans will be fighting bias in jobs and housing, The New York Times' Erik Eckholm reports. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the right to marry as a civil right for gays and lesbians, many gay civil rights leaders are turning their attention to getting legal protections from discrimination by employers and in housing. The majority of states don't bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. However, religious conservatives are concerned that such laws will be used to force people to violate their religious beliefs, such as having to hire gays and lesbians in church-related jobs, Eckholm reports. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat representing Oregon, said he planned to introduce a bill within the next few months to add protections for gays and transgender people to the Civil Rights Act, but he is not hopeful the bill will pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. He told Eckholm, "'People are going to realize that you can get married in the morning and be fired from your job or refused entry to a restaurant in the afternoon. That is unacceptable.”'

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a historical decision finding that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the next fight for LGBT rights will be when they conflict with religious rights, CNN's Daniel Burke writes.

The dissenting justices in the U.S. Supreme Court chided Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, for not mentioning the First Amendment's clause protecting the free exercise of religion, Burke reports. For example, Chief Justice John Roberts asked what will happen when a religious college provides student housing only to heterosexual couples or a faith-based adoption agency refuses to place children with same-sex spouses. '""There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this Court. Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today,'" Roberts opined in dissent.
 

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government can provide tax subsidies to help low-income and midde-class Americans buy health insurance, whether they buy their policies on the federally-run exchange or state-run exchanges, The New York Times' Adam Liptak reports. The decision was 6-3 with only Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissenting.

At issue was whether subsidies were only available to people buying insurance on "an exchange established by the state."

About 85 percent of customers using the exchanges qualify for subsidies, Liptak reports.

 

 

Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down that state's ban on doctors prescribing abortion-inducing pills to patients via video teleconferencing, the Associated Press reports. Iowa was the first state to allow doctors to dispense abortion-inducing medications through telemedicine.

The court ruled that it placed an undue burden on a woman's right to get an abortion. The Iowa Board of Medicine enacted a rule requiring a doctor be physically present with a patient before prescribing such drugs. However, the board had allowed telemedicine for other procedures.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is defending its use of in-house courts to handle enforcement of financial regulations, The Wall Street Journal's Jean Eaglesham reports: "The SEC accused several defendants of 'judge shopping' by trying to get a case heard in a particular court and in another instance asked one of its own judges to submit a formal statement about whether he has ever felt pressure to favor the agency."

Seven cases have been brought by defendants against those in-house courts, and they argue the administrative-law process denies them important protections. One federal judge has said the process is likely unconstitutional.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has ruled that attorneys can't ghostwrite court filings for pro se litigants unless they sign the documents and disclose how much they assisted with the documents, Nicole Benjamin blogs for JDSupra Business Advisor.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court addressed this issue of first impression regarding three attorneys who ghostwrote pleadings on behalf of pro se defendants in three separate debt collection cases. The case is FIA CARD SERVICES, NA v. Pichette.

Benjamin notes that some legal advocates favor ghostwriting because it's one way to unbundle legal services and provide pro se litigants greater access to the legal system. On the other hand, attorneys who ghostwrite court filings aren't held to account under rules of civil procedure and professional conduct. And pro se litigants, who get greater leniency from courts in how their pleadings are construed, could benefit unfairly, Benjamin writes.

Theresa Amato, writing in an op-ed in The New York Times, questions why the demand of Americans for legal services for life-altering civil matters can't be met by all the lawyers who are unemployed (The U.S. ranks 65th for accessibility of its civil justice, she notes).

The reason that unemployed lawyers can't plunge in right away to address the civil justice gap is because 86 percent of lawyers have six-figure debts, she says. But she offers some solutions: professors who have represented clients should be hired to train practice-ready lawyers. Congress should continue the program that forgives law-school debt for lawyers who work in the nonprofit or government sector for a decade. And more incubator programs should be funded by philanthropists to help young lawyers start "low bono" law offices in which clients are charged low prices for legal services.

Hat tip on this piece to my former law school classmate, Joe Ross, who has started a weekly newsletter of his own roundup of important legal news. Check it out at: http://joeross.me/blog/

A federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has determined that an expert isn't required to present an opposing view to the government on the newly minted USA Freedom Act if the legal conclusion is "obvious," The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reports. This was the first time a judge examined when the USA Freedom Act requires that technical experts be appointed in a case involving a novel or significant issue. 

Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told The Post the requirement that technical experts be appointed to provide amicus briefs "'shouldn't depend on whether an issue seems obvious before the court has heard any counter arguments.'"