Posts

Justice Alito, who presides over matters coming out of the Third Circuit, has rejected the appeal of Pennsylvania’s GOP leaders over the state’s High Court ruling requiring the overly Republican-friendly voting map be redrawn. Challengers asserted that the court did not have the authority to redraw voting districts, but that only state legislatures could do so. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court disagreed with that position and denied the existence of a federal question, and the now U....

Felony Murder Habeas Petition In Premo v. Moore, No. 09-658, a felony murder prosecution, the court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s reversal of the district court’s denial of petitioner’s habeas petition where 1) the state court would not have been unreasonable to accept as a justification for counsel’s action that suppression of petitioner’s confession would have been futile in light of petitioner’s other admissible confession to two witnesses; and 2) the state court also reasonably could have concluded that petitioner was not prejudiced by counsel’s actions....

We get it. Sometimes someone insults you, and the best response is a haughty “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” The rules, however, are slightly different when someone insults your complaint in a lawsuit. When a defendant moves for summary judgment based on your “complete lack of proof concerning all of the essential elements” of your claim, you can’t just attack the perceived deficiencies of his claim without offering any evidence to support your case....

The Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders violate the Eight Amendment. The question immediately arose: would juveniles who had received such sentences before the ruling be able to have their sentences revisited? No, according to the Eighth. Miller does not require courts to revisit sentences given prior to the ruling, the Eighth Circuit held on Monday. Prisoners who were given mandatory sentences of life without parole for crimes they committed as children cannot have those sentences retroactively changed....

Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, No. 08-905, concerned a 2003 securities fraud class action alleging that Merck & Co. knowingly misrepresented the heart-attack risks associated with its drug Vioxx. The Supreme Court affirmed the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ reversal of the district court’s dismissal of the complaint as untimely, on the grounds that 1) the limitations period in 28 U.S.C. section 1658(b)(1) begins to run once the plaintiff actually discovers or a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have discovered the facts constituting the violation (including scienter), whichever came first; and 2) prior to November 6, 2001, the plaintiffs did not discover, and Merck did not show that a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have discovered the facts constituting the violation....

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated a lawsuit filed by the family of Henry Green against Columbus Police officers Zachary Rosen and Jason Bare, who fatally shot Green in 2016. The officers claim Green shot at them and they returned fire, but witnesses say the plainclothes officers did not identify themselves as police before the shootout began. In 2017, the officers were cleared by an internal investigation, and a grand jury declined to indict them for their use of deadly force....

Eyeblaster, Inc. v. Fed. Ins. Co., No. 08-3640, involved an action arising out of defendant’s denial of coverage under two insurance policies. The court of appeals reversed summary judgment for defendant on the grounds that 1) defendant failed to meet its burden to prove that the “sudden and accidental physical injury” exclusion in the policy applied; and 2) defendant owed a duty to plaintiff under its Errors or Omissions policy....

Evelyn Litwok is a happy woman this week. Monday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Litwok’s tax evasion convictions for the 1996 and 1997 tax years due to lack of sufficient evidence, and vacated and remanded her convictions for mail fraud and tax evasion for 1995 because the counts were improperly joined, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to the government, Litwok routinely commingled her corporate and personal funds and used funds she received from her corporate investors to pay for personal expenses and gifts....

Conviction for drug crimes and firearms possession is affirmed where the district court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for a mistrial as the prosecutor’s challenged remarks were not improper, and the weight of the evidence presented at trial was more than sufficient to establish defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Read US v. Lauderdale, No. 08-2428Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois....

Conviction for production and possession of child pornography is affirmed where: 1) the district court properly denied a motion to suppress as a search warrant did not violate the First Amendment by allowing police to seize materials protected by the First Amendment as there was probable cause to believe those materials also contained evidence of a crime; 2) defendant’s due process rights were not violated as he failed to establish that he was prejudiced by the fact that the assistant prosecutor who presented the warrant application worked at a firm which had represented defendant in unrelated matters; 3) the court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant a Franks hearing; 4) the court did not abuse its discretion under the Speedy Trial Act in deciding to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, and defendant’s right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment was not violated; 5) a denial of a continuance was not an abuse of the court’s discretion; and 6) evidence of a prior incident of child molestation was admissible as it was similar to the incidents charged in this prosecution and was highly probative....

The rise of self-styled, armed “militias" appearing at street protests this year raises concerns that these same groups will be appearing at polling sites on Election Day. Some have even pledged that they will be present at these sites. Can they do that? Of course, they can. The more important question, though, is: What can they legally do at polling sites? But before we try to answer that question, it is important to point out something that has often been overlooked during this crazy year: Citizen militias in the U....

Paula Davis-Laack was killing it. Her practice was so busy lunch was a bag of peanuts and a contract. But then she hit a wall – that wall every lawyer hits on the way to burnout. She literally couldn’t breathe, and rushed to a health clinic. It was a combination of stress and anxiety. Law practice was killing her. Practice Well-Being Everybody knows stress can be a killer. For Davis-Laack, it was close enough....

Douglas Duane Bahl sued the City of St. Paul under the anti-discrimination provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, §504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Minnesota Human Rights Act, after a traffic stop turned into a scuffle that turned into a hospital visit and an arrest. Bahl, who is deaf and uses American Sign Language (ASL) as his primary language, claimed that the entire unpleasant ordeal should have been avoided because St....

“People use terms like flow or effortless to describe writing that they regard as really superb. They’re not saying effortless in terms of it didn’t seem like the writer spent any work. It simply requires no effort to read it." - Bryan Garner Lawyers write for a captive audience, a privilege that is easy to abuse. Instead of writing to engage the interest of the reader, lawyers often write for their own benefit....

In plaintiffs’ suit against a Gibraltar-based company which hosts online poker games alleging breach of contract, misrepresentations, and violation of Ohio consumer protection laws, sua sponte dismissal of the suit on forum non conveniens grounds is affirmed where: 1) in this diversity suit, the enforceability of the forum selection clause is governed by federal law; 2) plaintiffs have not met the burden of showing that the clause is unenforceable; 3) the district court did not abuse its discretion by sua sponte raising the forum non conveniens issue as it could not have enforced the forum selection clause through defendant’s motion to dismiss under FRCP 12(b)(3); and 4) the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Gibraltar was an appropriate alternative forum, in finding that public and private factors weigh in favor of a Gibraltar forum, and by not giving deference to plaintiffs’ choice of home forum....

If you are the officers in this situation, what do you do? The Sixth Circuit’s Judge Sutton, in a light-hearted opinion, suggested using Google Maps – sorry, but there’s no street view for either address – or checking to see which side of the street had odd-numbered houses. Instead, the officers went to the house that appeared occupied. The lady who answered the door promptly slammed it in their faces. When the door was eventually re-opened, the officers declared that they had a warrant for “this address....

Police officers may not enjoy qualified immunity protection following the Eighth Circuit’s reversal of a lower court’s dismissal of a 2012 case. In a 2-1 decision, the controversy has been remanded back to the lower federal district court. The plaintiff in this case was a double amputee who sustained physical injuries and also claimed his encounter with the police injured him mentally. The Incident The plaintiff is Leroy Duffie who, one late September evening in 2011, was pulled over in his late 90s Astro van as he traveled southbound on a Nebraska highway....

Miller appealed his convictions to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), citing alleged improper statements to the jury by both the prosecutor and the judge, as well as ineffective assistance of counsel claims due to his lawyer’s failure to object. What were those statements? In the prosecutor’s closing argument, he made a number of statements that the defendant did not object to at the time, but now claims were improper, including:...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals implemented five changes to its Local Appellate Rules this week. The amendments, which became effective on August 1, affect Local Appellate Rules 26.1.0, 31.4, 33.0, 39.3, 46.3. Changes to the rules address corporate disclosure statements, brief extension timelines, electronic filing in mediation, document reproduction costs, and law student eligibility to appear before the court. Details of the changes are outlined below. The Local Appellate Rules are supplementary to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure....

An oddball case has made it to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, alleging that inmates in Tennessee were unduly coerced into agreeing to have a vasectomy in exchange for credit for time served in custody, and that the offer violated the civil rights of inmates. Shortly after the news of the judge created policy broke in the summer of 2017, it was rescinded under public pressure. However, as noted in appellate argument, some inmates were still being awarded the credits under the policy....