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Most criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains. In a plea bargain, a defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for concessions from prosecutors when it comes to sentencing. Courts also often encourage plea deals because they reduce backlogs, and judges typically abide by the deals. But not always. Though the practice is rare, judges can reject plea deals. And that is what happened on Jan. 31 in the federal prosecution related to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia....

This week, the Senate officially started the process of impeaching former President Donald Trump for the second time. This happened after the House (222 Democrats and 10 Republicans) voted to impeach him for incitement of insurrection. The timing of the impeachment, however, remains an unsettled legal question. Can Congress actually impeach a President after they leave office? The Constitution Is Intentionally Unclear This is actually a topic of debate among lawyers, political scientists, and other nerds, and much like anything else remotely political, a consensus does not exist....

It’s not easy to make a career in crime these days. The banks are cracking down on scoff-law traders, Google Earth is tracking your illegal logging, and even old-fashioned, violent criminals are routinely given decade-long sabbaticals due to sentencing enhancements. What exactly qualifies as such a crime can be hard for career criminals and federal courts to determine. And that’s exactly the problem, the Supreme Court ruled in one of its last cases of the term....

There’s a reason doctors advise pregnant women to avoid eating fish – there’s a high risk that they are contaminated by mercury, a powerful neurotoxin to which pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable. In 2011, the EPA released new regulations under the Clean Air Act in order to stem mercury pollution and other air toxins by requiring pollution controls on coal-burning power plants. The Supreme Court struck those regulations down yesterday, saying that the EPA had failed to look closely enough at the costs of the pollution controls before limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants....

Thirteen deaf and hard of hearing lawyers will be sworn in at the Supreme Court next week. The attorneys are members of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Bar Association, a professional association of “deaf, hard of hearing, and late-deafened attorneys, judges, law school graduates, law students, and legal professionals.” And while Supreme Court swearing-in ceremonies are regular events, occurring just about every day the Court is in session, this will mark the first time a member of the DHHBA has joined the Supreme Court Bar....

Barber v. Thomas, No. 09-5201, concerned an action by inmates claiming that the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) good-time credit calculation method was unlawful because 18 U.S.C. section 3624(b)(1) required a calculation based on the length of the term of imprisonment imposed by the sentencing judge, not the length of time the prisoner actually served. The Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s affirmance of summary judgment for defendants, on the ground that, because the BOP’s method for calculating good time credit reflected the most natural reading of the statute, it was lawful....

“A tortoise and a hare take the LSAT” is not the start of some terrible joke. It’s the premise of a recent two-part Revisionist History podcast hosted by Malcolm Gladwell on the LSAT and legal education in the U.S. generally. His starting premise is that the LSAT unduly rewards quick-thinkers and punishes people who take their time to work out solutions. In fact, Gladwell argues, it is the plodding and deliberate thinkers who make the best lawyers....

Before you sign a contract to buy a dog, make sure you read the fine print. That is the takeaway from an April 13 settlement announcement by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. A California-based financial services company agreed to pay $930,000 to resolve allegations that it was illegally leasing dogs in Massachusetts. If you were unaware that dog leasing exists, neither did some of the victims in the Bay State. One of them, Catalina Ortiz-Sierra, fell behind on loan payments after losing her job in 2019 and a collection agent threatened to take away her dog, Milo....

The Justice Department announced a grand jury indictment yesterday against Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., on charges of lying to federal investigators and concealing the source of illegal campaign contributions. Ho-hum. Another corrupt politician getting caught. On to the next one. Except that the details of Fortenberry’s case provide lessons for the rest of us. It shouldn’t be such an obvious lesson, but here we are (and this is why we’re sharing this post in Legally Weird instead of Courtside)....

You know the feeling. Your favorite sports team or TV show is about to premiere. You have friends and family over, the snacks are out, and everyone has their favorite spot on the couch. Click the TV on to the right channel and – nothing. Subscribers across the nation experienced a similar situation (give or take the snacks and guests) on July 3, when the biggest TV station operator in the U....

My home state is burning and it is a disturbing sight to behold. Protestors, mad about the death of an unarmed teenager, are tearing down their own neighborhood. Police officers, defending one of their own, are hiding the officer’s identify and responding in a militaristic fashion against unarmed citizens and reporters. Let’s be very clear here, we’re not taking a side, but with so many videos and accounts of seemingly unconstitutional acts by local law enforcement, lawyers may be wondering along with us: how would one defend some of these violations?...

Thanks to this week’s big news in the Smithkline Beecham case, where the Ninth Circuit held that gays are protected by a heightened form of scrutiny, a full report of retired Judge Richard Cebull’s misconduct, which was released on the eve of the holiday weekend, got swept under the rug. We missed out on misconduct? Say it ain’t so. Lets take a closer look, shall we? Last year, we covered Judge Cebull’s retirement in the wake of an email scandal....

Many of us have endured mixed reactions when we inform someone that we’re an attorney. Sometimes it’s apprehension, other times, it opens a Pandora’s box of information we did not want about an acquaintance. But how many of us have been asked to leave a public arts venue because of where we work? That’s what Kelly Conlon says happened when she tried to bring her daughter to see a Rockettes performance at Radio City Music Hall this past holiday season....

In plaintiff’s action raising various constitutional and statutory claims relating to child custody proceedings and the registration of foreign custody orders against his ex-wife and others, dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint and denial of his motion for reconsideration is affirmed where: 1) the Younger abstention doctrine requires dismissal of plaintiff’s challenge to the registration of the 2004 French custody orders in its entirety; 2) plaintiff’s claim, which he sought to reopen in the name of his daughter, that the registration of the French orders violated his daughter’s rights because the Delaware courts did not apply Greek law, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the “best interest of the child” standard, is dismissed as plaintiff may not represent his child in federal court as a non-lawyer parent; 3) district court properly dismissed plaintiff’s claim that his ex-wife and her attorneys conspired to violate his civil rights as they are without merit; and 4) the district court properly denied plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration....

Earl Patterson was just doing his maintenance job, when Pennsylvania police detained him and questioned him about robbing a liquor store. He didn’t rob anybody; he worked for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. But a store employee said a “black guy” had tried to rob the store. He sued for race discrimination in Patterson v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the board was immune from liability....

After Brandon Betterman pleaded guilty to bail jumping, he spent over 14 months in jail, simply waiting to be sentenced. Betterman eventually appealed, arguing that the year-long delay violated his right to a speedy trial. But, unfortunately for Betterman and the many other individuals who can wait months before being sentenced, the Sixth Amendment’s speedy trial guarantee does not include a right to a speedy sentencing, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous opinion released this morning....

In a rather circuitous line of cases generally revolving the issue of free speech, a plaintiff in Laguna Beach California successfully convinced the Ninth Circuit that he was entitled to attorneys’ fees because his primary goal was not money, but some other injunctive relief. Looks like you have to not want money to get money. The nexus of this attorneys’ fees controversy all began in sunny California in the city of Laguna Beach....

In an environmental action brought under the Clean Water Act and other laws, district court’s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisidiction is affirmed where plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they were concretely affected by the activities they challenge and thus do not have standing to pursue this case. Read Pollack v. US Dep’t of Justice, No. 08-3857 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division....

Duvall v. Georgia-Pac. Consumer Prods., L.P., No. 08-7096, concerned an action under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for failure to grant plaintiff a reasonable accommodation. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant, on the ground that the shipping department and storeroom positions filled by temporary workers were not “vacant” within the meaning of the ADA. Porter Trust v. Bower, No. 09-6070, involved an action by landowners whose property was within the boundaries of the water and sewer district served by the defendant, seeking to de-annex the property from the defendant’s district....

The United States Supreme Court has decided to weigh in on the abortion clinic restrictions case out of Louisiana, and due to the urgency of the matter, has issued an administrative stay of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision until February 7. As the short order issued by the Court on February 1 explained, the stay is due to the timing of action rather than the merits. The filings for the application for a stay in the case had not been received until February 1, and the law would be taking effect on February 4....