Did Paul D. Clement forward golf tips to Chief Justice Roberts? Has Justice Sotomayor ever sent adorable cat pics to Donald Verrilli? It’s unlikely, but if they did, we might soon find out. That’s because a journalist from Vice News is currently suing the Department of Justice for access to any emails between the Supreme Court justices and former or current U.S. Solicitors General. That is, should such emails even exist....
The police rolled up on Warnell Reid’s place to arrest his girlfriend, Earnestine Graham, who had herself violated the terms of her federal supervised release. When they got there, the front door was slightly open and Graham was standing inside in her pajamas. She was quickly arrested without incident, a protective sweep of the house was done (because of the presence of minors), and then she was allowed to change....
The NCAA was given a brief reprieve from implementing payments to former college athletes after the Ninth Circuit granted them a stay last Friday. Without the stay, the association would have been required to start making payments to college football and basketball players for the use of their names, images, and likeness, following a player led anti-trust suit last year. That suit, filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and 19 other former college athletes, overturned NCAA rules which had prevented students from sharing in proceeds generated by the use of their likenesses....
The Eighth Circuit today decided four criminal matters and two insurance coverage disputes. In US v. Stephens, No. 09-3706, following defendant’s indictment for child pornography transportation, the district court refused to impose a curfew and electronic monitoring system as required by the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, on the ground that the Act was facially unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit reversed, holding that defendant’s facial challenge failed because he could not establish that there were no child pornography defendants for whom a curfew or electronic monitoring was appropriate....
In US v. Shuler, No. 08-3194, the court of appeals affirmed defendants’ sentences for child pornography production on the grounds that 1) the district court’s explicit statement that “the ultimate sentence of 470 months would be the same even without the four-level increase for sadistic images and other depictions of violence” cured any procedural error; and 2) even if defendant was ignorant of the hidden camera, the tape recorded on the camera was ample evidence defendant enticed the minor victim to produce child pornography....
Pareja v. U.S. Attorney General, 08-4598, concerned a Mexican citizen’s petition for review of BIA’s final order of removal. The court denied in part insofar as it attacks Matter of Monreal and the BIA’s interpretation of the cancellation of removal statute’s hardship standard. The court granted in part to the extent it relates to the BIA’s consideration of the number of petitioner’s qualifying relatives, and the matter is remanded to the BIA for the limited purpose of allowing it to clarify or to reconsider its application of Matter of Recinas to this case....
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action seeking the evidence used to convict Defendant of sexual assault for the purposes of DNA testing, summary judgment for Plaintiff is reversed where, assuming Plaintiff’s claims could be pursued using Section 1983, he had no constitutional right to obtain post-conviction access to the State’s evidence for DNA testing. Read the full decision in District Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial Circuit v. Osborne, No....
By the time this blog publishes, I bet every store will have a policy in place for the pandemic. Most stores are shut down for the time being, though many still have employees working from home or warehouses handling online orders. It raises the question: what happens if you have returns approaching the return window? It can be concerning to have money tied up in online orders that have not arrived yet and returns that can take a week or two to process....
In an employment discrimination action, the dismissal of the complaint based on the res judicata effect of a prior state administrative proceeding is vacated where the state court’s dismissal was not a decision on the merits that would preclude the filing of a renewed state court action. Read Hanrahan v. Riverside Nursing Home, No. 09-0585 Appellate Information Argued: November 2, 2009 Decided: January 25, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Lynch...
District court’s certification of a class action lawsuit involving challenges to the constitutionality of certain intake procedures at a county jail is vacated as the intake procedures detainees are required to undergo on remand to the Sheriff’s custody after a probable cause hearing are an individual issue and thus, not appropriate for class disposition. The matter is remanded for resolution of plaintiff’s individual claims. Read Harper v. Sheriff of Cook County, No....
If you don’t know the honey badger, don’t worry. It doesn’t care, and that’s what made it famous. “Honey Badger Don’t Care” became one of America’s hottest brands after Christopher Gordon created a popular YouTube video that went viral. In the National Geographic video, Gordon adds his comedic commentary about how “Honey Badger Don’t Care” as the beast attacks and eats just about anything. In Gordon v. Draper Creative, Inc., Gordon attacked because the defendants used his catchphrases on greeting cards....
Hopefully, all of us know that jailhouse phone calls are recorded. This presents a problem for attorney/client communications, which are privileged. Iowa has a statute requiring police to inform an arrested suspect in jail of his right to a confidential, in-person conference with his attorney once the suspect requests privacy for the communication. That didn’t happen in the case of David Hellstern. After he was arrested for DUI, an officer denied his request for privacy during a phone call and didn’t fulfill his statutory obligation to tell Hellstern he had a right to a private, in-person conference....
Today’s practitioner tip from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: If your client has been collecting ADA settlements from businesses because they weren’t wheelchair-accessible, she can’t argue in a lawsuit that she has to use a Segway because wheelchairs are impractical. That’ll just earn you a judicial estoppel ruling. Baughman sued Disney under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), claiming that Disney denied her full and equal access to Disneyland. The district court held that Baughman was judicially estopped from claiming she can’t use a motorized wheelchair, so there was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether it was “necessary” for Baughman to use a Segway to visit Disneyland....
We’ve got a double-dose of Supreme Court-related news today: A Supreme Court justice officiated a same-sex marriage over the weekend. And though Justice Elena Kagan isn’t the first current or retired justice to do so, it’s sure to draw some complaints and questions about bias, with the Court set to hear same-sex marriage cases at some point this term. Speaking of same-sex marriage, in one week, the Supreme Court will consider the handful of petitions floating in the cert....
A New Jersey judge has ruled that the Garden State must extend its constitutional protections and allow gay marriage beginning in October. The ruling comes soon after the U.S. Supreme Court’s United States v. Windsor decision, and may be a bellwether for other states. To understand the opinion by the New Jersey Superior Court for Mercer County, one must first understand the changing landscape of the law; we now examine existing New Jersey law and precedent, as well as the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision....
Many religious organizations benefit from immigrants who come to the U.S. and work for little or no pay, many of them having taken vows of poverty. A recently published rule by the Department of Homeland Security, however, threatens to make it far more difficult for these people to stay and work in the U.S. The rule, which is scheduled to go into effect Oct. 15, is aimed at migrants who are perceived as likely to become a “public charge,” a person who relies primarily on government assistance....
The NLRB’s petition to enforce a consent judgment providing that Respondent would reinstate unlawfully terminated employees is granted, where the burden was on Respondent to provide proper proof, satisfactory to the NLRB, of the unauthorized status of those individuals it claims were unauthorized aliens it was not permitted to rehire. Read NLRB v. C&C Roofing Supply, Inc., No. 08-70335 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted June 10, 2009 Filed June 25, 2009...
We’ve read a lot of appeals from paroled criminals who want to keep their guns. They’re starting to blur together. Every time we spot another felon-in-possession Second Amendment defense in a published opinion, it raises the same questions: Haven’t the courts already resolved this issue? Why is this a published opinion? This week, we started to dismiss a Second Circuit Second Amendment defense in a similar fashion. Ron Bryant was sentenced to 81 months in prison for possession with intent to distribute cocaine base and unlawful possession of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime....
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been many things in her long life: an activist, an advocate, a disc jockey, an opera star, not to mention a Supreme Court justice. Now, she’s about to add another row to her resume: Justice Ginsburg, spoken-word artist. That’s right, Her Notoriousness has been working on a short spoken-word album, the justice revealed last night at a speech at the Kennedy Center. “Some thoughts can’t be expressed in a majority opinion,” Ginsburg explained....
The case of Domineque Ray surprised many people across the country. Ray was convicted of rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl, and sentenced to death. And while there may not be too much surprising about a death sentence for rape and murder of a minor, his final appeal strikes a chord with civil rights advocates, regardless of their stance on the death penalty. Ray challenged the fact that he was not allowed to have a spiritual leader from his faith present at the execution....
