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The march of medicinal and recreational marijuana continues across the country. Voters continue to say that governments and law enforcement should stop the reefer madness and create a regulated, taxed industry that will benefit everyone. At the very least, many states that do not have legal medicinal or recreational weed have decriminalized the possession of small to moderate amounts of weed. Not ruining someone’s life for smoking a joint also benefits everyone....

In a dispute involving a denial of long-term disability benefits, district court judgment is vacated and remanded where, although the court properly reviewed defendant’s decision under the abuse-of-discretion standard, the case must be remanded to allow the court to adequately account for defendant’s structural conflict of interest as required by the decision in Glenn. Read Raybourne v. Cigna Life Ins. Co. of New York, No. 08-2754 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division....

If Planned Parenthood has a war room, the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuit Courts of Appeal are in the middle of the battle plan. The federal circuits take up the center ground in the United States, including Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio. The appeals courts are dealing with contentious abortion issues in all their jurisdictions. A judge in the Sixth Circuit struck an abortion ultrasound law a month ago, and now the Seventh Circuit is deciding a similar issue....

Liberian national’s petition for review of BIA’s denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and other relief is granted and the case remanded to the BIA as it failed to consider many if not most of the atrocities to which petitioner was subjected, such as her testimony that she will be killed if she is returned to Liberia and the documentary evidence in the case. Read Sheriff v. Atttorney Gen....

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that a trio of Missouri social workers are entitled to qualified immunity after recommending a guardianship arrangement for a child that allegedly led to the child’s death. Lynn and Jason Hutson filed a civil rights lawsuit against Jude Walker, Julie Baumgardner, and Sallie West – the social workers – after the employees recommended that custody of their son, A.H., be granted to his grandparents, Carolyn and Patrick Cattin....

The Supreme Court declined to hear arguments over whether former President Trump violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution this week - and ordered lower courts to dismiss the cases as moot. The order, which came with no discussion or dissent, leaves open an important and novel question: Did Trump violate the Constitution by retaining an interest in his businesses, and allowing those businesses to take money from foreign governments while he was in office?...

Mail Theft Suppression Order Affirmed In US v. Capers, No. 07-1830, a prosecution for mail theft, the court affirmed the district court’s order suppressing inculpatory statements made by defendant while in custody, holding that the initial interrogation conducted by an investigator aware of the obvious need for a Miranda warning, followed 90 minutes later by a second, post-Miranda interrogation by the same investigator, on the same subject matter, under similar circumstances and with no explicit curative language amounted to a deliberate, two-step interrogation technique designed to undermine the defendant’s Miranda rights....

District court’s decision to deviate from a 30-37 month Guideline range down to a sentence of five years probation for a defendant convicted of knowing possession of child pornography is vacated as procedurally and substantively unreasonable where the district court failed to properly consider the 18 U.S.C. section 3553 factors and failed to offer a sufficient justification for its imposition of a sentence so substantially below the applicable Guidelines range. Read US v....

Methamphetamine Sentence Affirmed In US v. Resinos, No. 10-1607, the court affirmed defendant’s sentence for five counts of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, holding that 1) the district court properly reached the 50-gram threshold of 18 U.S.C. section 841(b)(1)(A); and 2) because section 841(b)(1) established minimum sentences based on the amount of the specific substance “involv[ed]” in the violation of section 841(a), Jenkins II necessarily decided that the cash converted came entirely from the sale of cocaine base....

With police use of excessive force all over the news these days, we turn now to police involvement with a nine-year-old boy. One judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has had enough. In this unpublished case from the Tenth Circuit, via Utah, a nine-year-old was put in a “control hold” after he stole an iPad. The court affirmed the district court’s judgment that using the control hold was not excessive force....

Federal courts are occasionally asked to decide seemingly frivolous points of law, like the value of a red wax seal or the essence of golf. Last week, it was the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals’ turn to weigh in on one of the more philosophical points of law: What is the value of a deer? In this particular case, the value factored into two brothers’ sentences for poaching violations under the Lacey Act....

The modern American health care system can seem like a mess. Many of us have health insurance through our employers, with different coverage options, deductibles, and copays. Many others are on Obamacare, with its own enrollment period, possible penalties if you’re not covered, and legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid covers low-income people who don’t have the financial means to afford health care on the private market. And then there is Medicare, which applies to everyone aged 65 or older who has paid into the system, usually through payroll or self-employment taxes....

In a case involving whether, after NFL quarterback Michael Vick was convicted of dog fighting charges, his team was entitled to recover certain bonus money he earned, rulings against the NFL are affirmed where: 1) the district court properly rejected the NFL’s argument that Vick’s roster bonuses were signing bonus allocations subject to the years-performed test; and 2) it did not err in determining that the bonuses were earned when Vick met the roster provisions in his contract, and were thus not subject to forfeiture pursuant to the terms of a settlement in an antitrust class action and the CBA....

Back in February, the Eighth Circuit upheld James “Hot Rod” Faulkner’s conspiracy and distribution drug conviction in U.S. v. Faulkner. In August, Faulkner filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court to challenge a traffic stop that factored into that conviction. On the evening of October 31, 2008, Lieutenant Steven Stange of the University of Iowa Police Department stopped Faulkner as he was driving a car, claiming that Faulkner ran a red light....

Back in the days of the Watergate scandal, Congress vowed to beef up tax-donor and privacy protections in order to minimize “potential and actual disclosure.” Over time, it became widely accepted that donors could make monetary contributions to organizations listed as non-profits without the need to file the usual “Schedule B.” Enter California Attorney General Kamala Harris who began to demand the filing of Schedule Bs under the threat of sanction and fees against the donees....

In a breach of warranty case affecting many Focus owners, the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court’s ruling that plaintiffs who owned ’tire-eating’ Ford Focus models from 2005-11 failed to show that the cars became unsalable within the duration of implied warranty. Judge Donald Mallor twisted the knife further when he found that the language of the express warranty was ambiguous. He slapped Ford under the doctrine of contra proferentem....

In a petition for review of a BIA order denying an application for cancellation of removal claiming that petitioner was improperly denied an opportunity to complete an application for naturalization, the case is remanded to the district court where the district court needed to determine the circumstances of petitioner’s alleged failure to file tax returns, whether his first naturalization proceeding was terminated for failure to surrender his green card, and if a premature termination occurred, whether petitioner would have proceeded to the point in the citizenship process where he would have become eligible to take the oath of allegiance....

District court judgment granting a petition for writ of habeas corpus is affirmed where: 1) the court did not err in concluding that the Minnesota Supreme Court unreasonably applied Crawford v. Washington when it found petitioner’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights were not violated by the admission of statements the victim made to a social worker in the presence of a detective, as the statements were testimonial in nature; and 2) the admission of the statements was not harmless error as the prosecution’s case rested heavily on the social worker’s testimony and her videotape of the interview with the victim....

Whether it’s a scripted show or real-life cases presided over by Judge Judy, it’s clear that people enjoy watching courtroom dramas on television. So, it makes sense that a new video platform called Quibi would greenlight a comedy called Chrissy’s Court. The show is set to premiere in 2020 and will have Chrissy Teigen act as a “judge” over real small claims cases. The show will also feature her mother, Vilailuck “Pepper Thai” Teigen, as a “bailiff....

In US v. Ortiz, No. 08-2648, the court affirmed defendant’s sentence for various firearms and narcotics offenses, holding that the sentence did not violate the Ex Post Facto Law clause because defendant’s sentencing range under the unamended Sentencing Guidelines would have been 151 to 188 months, under the amended Guidelines the range would have been 168 to 210 months, and the district court imposed a non-Guidelines sentence of 120 months....