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An inmate who was possibly a little too flower-power for his own good had his guitar seizure case dismissed by the Tenth Circuit’s Court of Appeals. In a desperate bid to get his instrument back, the plaintiff started blustering his way through the court system, trying to throw every possible legal theory he had at his case. He lost. Guitar Seizure = Due Process Violation? The plaintiff, a pro se inmate, brought a case against the New Mexico Corrections Department after his jailers took away his guitar....

Dismissal of Short-Swing Trading Action Affirmed in Part In Simmonds v. Credit Suisse Secs. (USA) LLC, No. 09-35262, an action alleging that the defendant-appellee investment banks violated Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by engaging in prohibited “short-swing” transactions in connection with the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of the fifty-four defendant corporations between 1999 and 2000, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint in part where plaintiff failed to present an adequate demand letter to the issuing companies prior to filing her lawsuits....

Schmidt v. Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co., No. 08-35845, concerned an action raising a negligent injury claim under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) based on injuries suffered by plaintiff-railroad worker. The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment for defendant, on the ground that plaintiff presented adequate evidence for a rational jury to find that defendant could control critical aspects of plaintiff’s daily work, including those aspects that may have caused his injury....

It was a big morning for Supreme Court orders with four granted cases to be heard in three oral arguments, two issued opinions, one hot-button immigration case … and a partridge in a pear tree. Let’s start with what will surely be the second-most talked-about case of the year: the Arizona immigration law challenge. The Court has granted certiorari in Arizona v. U.S., questioning the constitutionality of Arizona S.B. 1070. While no date has been set for oral arguments, the Justices will consider whether federal immigration laws preclude Arizona’s attempt at cooperative law enforcement and facially preempt four provisions of S....

Defendant’s conviction for using a facility of interstate commerce with the intent that a murder be committed in consideration for payment of money under 18 U.S.C. section 1958(b)(1) is affirmed where the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that defendant agreed to pay an undercover agent, not just to cover expenses, but also as consideration for the murder of her estranged husband. Read US v. Acierno, No. 07-4473 Appellate Information...

Conviction for aggravated sexual abuse and attempted aggravated sexual abuse is affirmed where: 1) the district court did not err in denying a motion to dismiss the indictment for alleged government misconduct as the jury’s guilty verdict rendered any error harmless; 2) the court did not abuse its discretion in excluding certain evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 412(b)(1)(A), as the court conducted the required balancing and properly found admission would violated Rule 403; 3) the exclusion of evidence under Rule 412(b)(1)(C) was not arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes served by the exclusion; and 4) the court did not abuse its discretion in including a jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of attempted aggravated sexual abuse....

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) waives the government’s sovereign immunity from tort suits, but certain intentional torts – including battery – are excluded from the waiver. Monday, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the Gonzalez Act abrogates the FTCA’s intentional tort exception and permits a medical battery suit against the U.S. Levin sued the Navy doctor who performed the surgery and the U.S. government. The government challenged jurisdiction under the battery exception to the FTCA....

We recently covered some of the most user-friendly free video conferencing platforms, but we also know that security is a significant concern for many attorneys. Below we discuss the most common form of protection for online communication, which platforms offer it, and a few other tips. What Is End-to-End Encryption? End-to-end encryption basically prevents others from “eavesdropping” on data while it is in transit between users. It scrambles the data so that only the sender and receiver can decipher it....

After Miguel Gutierrez-Carranza pleaded guilty to reentering the U.S. following a prior deportation, the district court sentenced him to three years of supervised release. Gutierrez-Carranza appealed, making the fairly straightforward argument that, since he was bound to be deported anyway, the supervised release was unreasonable. After all, he won’t be in the country to be supervised. That’s not unreasonable enough for the Tenth Circuit, though. The court found that supervised release could provide deterrence against Gutierrez-Carranza illegally returning to see his family and children....

Take a look at a dollar bill or a coin. Ever noticed the phrase, “In God We Trust?” Yeah, me neither. But thanks to 31 U.S.C. §§ 5112(d)(1) and 5114(b), the slogan is mandatory on coinage and paper currency. Eleven individuals, including a coin collector, a teacher, atheists, secular humanists, and others, all argue that they are harmed by the placement of the slogan. It might’ve been an interesting argument – if it weren’t the umpteenth time the argument has been brought, unsuccessfully, in federal court....

Before you make your own Halloween costume out of unconventional materials, ask yourself: WWMD? What would Martha do? Of course we’re referring to domestic goddess Martha Stewart, who we suspect would only incorporate non-flammable materials into her homemade Halloween costumes. And with good reason: some jurisdictions, like the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, are hesitant to award damages in failure to warn/Halloween costume lawsuits. Susan and Frank Ferlito learned this lesson the hard way after Frank’s homemade sheep costume turned into a homemade fireball....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action claiming that the state, as a condition for dismissing the criminal assault and battery charges pending against plaintiff, wrongfully required plaintiff to agree to temporarily refrain from filing a civil lawsuit against the parties with whom he had a physical altercation, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where a prosecutor’s allegedly improper motive alone is not enough to defeat absolute immunity, so long as the general nature of his actions falls within the scope of his duties as an advocate for the state....

Since Elon Musk took over, Twitter has been a free-for-all of fake news and misinformation. The coveted blue check mark, which used to mean Twitter had verified that an account was authentic, now looks like it is available for purchase to anyone at $8 a month through a Twitter Blue subscription. Verified accounts are not necessarily authentic any longer. Musk says that the new verification system is supposed to reduce or eliminate bots and promote free speech....

Doyle v. Medford, No. 07-35753, involved an action alleging that a city’s policy of denying health insurance coverage to retirees violated their due process rights. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant, holding that, under the Oregon Supreme Court’s interpretation of Or. Rev. Stat. section 243.303, neither that statute nor Resolution No. 5715 created a protected property interest. James v. Rowlands, No. 08-16642, concerned an action claiming that defendants violated plaintiff’s substantive and procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to notify him of their investigation into allegations that his daughter had been molested and that someone had coerced her to change her testimony in the trial that followed....

Mills v. City of Grand Forks, No. 09-2119, concerned a federal civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against the City of Grand Forks claiming that the City, in fining plaintiff for a traffic violation under a city ordinance, with the fine exceeding the amount of money authorized under North Dakota state law, violated various federal constitutional rights. The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of the complaint on the grounds that 1) even if the City in fact violated state law, a mere violation of a state law does not give rise to a federal due process violation; 2) based on plaintiff’s own pleadings, it appeared that all drivers cited for careless driving received the same fine, and thus, the City treated similar offenders the same; and 3) plaintiff did not show that the City’s fines were grossly disproportionate in a constitutional sense....

Estrada-Ramos v. Holder, No. 09-3611, concerned a Mexican citizen’s petition for review of BIA’s affirmance of DHS’s decision rendering invalid petitioner’s move to permanent resident status, on the basis of a criminal conviction in California in 1991 that was later set aside pursuant to state law. In denying the petition, the court held that petitioner’s conviction must have been set aside for ameliorative purposes as he does not dispute that he was convicted of cocaine possession with intent to sell and he does not claim there was any defect in the California proceeding against him....

Lawmakers keep saying no, but Americans keep saying yes to legal marijuana. The results are in, and five more states — Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota — are either introducing or expanding legal weed programs, and the results weren’t particularly close. Medical Marijuana Remains Undefeated By a 68%-32% margin, voters in Mississippi approved the creation of a medical marijuana program for their state. Then, by a 74%-26% margin, they chose a much stronger constitutional amendment that will allow medical pot for more than 20 qualifying conditions, allow individuals to possess up to 2....

Perhaps these requests have something to do with the Seventh Circuit’s cancellation of previously scheduled oral arguments in two gay marriage appeals out of Wisconsin and Indiana. Earlier this month, the appeals were combined and fast-tracked for oral arguments on August 13. Late last week, however, the Seventh Circuit issued this release (H/T to Equality on Trial): Okay, but why? It might have something to do with requests from the states of Indiana and Wisconsin to proceed directly to an en banc hearing of the case, rather than the typical three-judge panel....

In US v. Durham, No. 09-2951, the court affirmed in part defendant’s sentence for knowingly receiving child pornography, holding that, if an oral sentence and the written judgment conflict, the oral sentence controls. However, the court reversed in part on the ground that defendant presented “concrete evidence” of his ignorance of the pornography’s distribution, and as a result, even under the stricter Dodd standard, the district court’s application of the distribution enhancement was improper....

The Tenth Circuit could be sending a native up to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, President Trump announced that Neil Gorsuch will be his nominee to replace the late Justice Scalia. If confirmed by the Senate, Gorsuch would be the first Coloradan on the Court since Justice Byron White and the first Tenth Circuit judge, by our count, to ever make it to the High Court. With just over ten years serving on the Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch has penned many opinions worth review....