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Judge Gilman: Alright, then why didn’t you raise this [lack-of-luggage] argument in your first argument on summation? Assistant U.S. Attorney, Steve Miller: Because I don’t believe that I needed to. Judge Gilman: Aren’t you sandbagging a bit – to wait for rebuttal? Miller: Yes I was. Right there, during the last oral argument, the government admitted to sandbagging and making an argument on rebuttal that was based on evidence not presented at trial....

There’s not a lot of major news on First Street today, but there are a handful of updates. For one, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg still isn’t retiring. No seriously, she’s not. Glad she cleared that up (again). She also reflected on her experience as one of the first female justices. Meantime her BFF, Justice Antonin Scalia, made a pair of speeches in which he stressed the importance of oral arguments and of the Court as an institution....

If you think the run-up to the Nov. 3 general election couldn’t become more confusing, you’re probably not paying close enough attention. At the moment, more than 200 voting-related lawsuits are awaiting resolution in state and federal courts. Election-year legal challenges over voting procedures are nothing new, but there’s never been anything like this year. Even before the emergence of the coronavirus, experts anticipated a record number of election-year lawsuits directed at state voting restrictions....

In a motion to vacate an arbitral award, the district court’s order affirming the arbitrator’s original award and vacating subsequent amendments to the award by the arbitrator is affirmed in part where the award did not manifestly disregard the law because the arbitrator’s process of calculating damages constituted a reasonable interpretation of the legal distinction between the diminution-in-value damages that were available to respondent under the N.Y. U.C.C. and the consequential damages that were excluded by the parties’ contracts....

In 2010, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a formal investigation into claims that 2010 Toyota Prius vehicles were experiencing momentary loss of braking capability. A few days later, Toyota announced a voluntary recall of the affected Prii and 2010 Lexus HS 250h vehicles to repair a software glitch that was the alleged culprit. According to the Plaintiffs, Toyota knew about the issues as early as June 2009 but did nothing....

Though commentators were just starting to posit that the Azar v. Garza matter was doomed in SCOTUS conference limbo, this week, the Justices issued a unanimous decision. And if you feel like this decision was unexpected, well, you’re not alone, as the High Court never heard an oral argument. The case involved an undocumented teen who needed a court order in order to be allowed to get an abortion. And since the abortion actually happened promptly after the D....

In an appeal from the district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. section 3582(c)(2), the order is affirmed where the district court lacked authority to reduce defendant’s sentence because the sentence, which was eleven years shorter than the low end of the applicable advisory Guidelines range, was not based on a sentencing range that had subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission. Read US v....

Conviction and sentence for attempted arson is affirmed where: 1) even if the government erred and made improper statements at closing, defendant was not prejudiced by the statements, and thus he failed to show a violation of his right to a fair trial or a Confrontation Clause violation; 2) no error occurred at sentencing and remand is unnecessary as the court considered the guidelines range to be advisory, took into account defendant’s apparent change in behavior and job history, and imposed a sentence below the guidelines range; and 3) the court properly considered defendant’s acquitted conduct during sentencing as those actions had been proven by a preponderance of the evidence....

Challenge to the sentence in conviction for unlawful entry US v. Perez-Molina, 10-2427, concerned a challenge to the district court’s imposition of 34-month sentence, more than twice as long as the high end of the applicable sentencing guideline range, in a conviction of defendant for unlawful entry into the United States following removal. In affirming the sentence, the court held that the district court adequately justified its above-guideline sentence and acted well within its discretion by imposing a higher sentence to deter the defendant from continued reentry and criminal activity in the United States....

The death of Lisa Marie Presley highlights many estate planning issues, such as owing money to the IRS, the fate of the Graceland Estate, and her trust. However, another major concern is what happens to her 14-year-old daughters. Presley has two children with her first husband, Danny Keogh. One of those children died in 2020. She also has two teenage twins from her fourth husband, Michael Lockwood. Presley and Lockwood divorced and had a five-year custody dispute that gave Presley 60% custody and Lockwood 40% custody....

It may just feel like a goofy photo app, but make no mistake about it: you can get arrested for your Snapchats. As with any other social media platform, Snapchat can be an innocuous, fun way to communicate in the right hands. But like all means of communication, it’s what you say that matters, not where you say it. Here are three ways posts on Snapchat might get you arrested:...

Though federal courts around the country have been more and more accepting of LGBT litigants over the years, the federal appellate court bench has been rather devoid of LGBT representation. President Trump has nominated an openly gay judge to one of the open seats on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Notably, the nominee, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Bumatay, would be the second ever openly gay federal appellate court judge, and the first for the Ninth Circuit (Judge Walker was not open about it and did not confirm his sexual orientation until after retiring from the bench)....

Just when U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff was about wallow in his robes crying, “No one understands me” like a 17-year-old girl in a young adult novel, The Wall Street Journal reports that a group of law professors have stepped up to say that Rakoff was well within his power to reject the proposed settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citigroup. Last November, Judge Rakoff blocked the settlement over a mortgage-bond deal because the SEC didn’t provide the court with facts “upon which to exercise even a modest degree of independent judgment....

In the recently argued Nielsen v. Preap case, the High Court was asked to weigh in on whether the federal government waived their right to detain individuals for removal proceedings after being released from state custody if the individual was not detained immediately, or within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately for the Court, and a likely reason as to how the case even landed there, the parties seemed hung up what Congress meant in using the word “when” in the statute....

Who doesn’t love free money? But there’s always a catch, isn’t there? News broke early last week that credit reporting agency Equifax agreed to a $700 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission as a punishment for a data breach that affected 147 million people. Included in that settlement was this nugget: $125 free for anyone whose personal data was affected by the breach. The news went viral. Well, Not Exactly Like most eye-popping class action settlement amounts, it’s important to appreciate the fine print....

Tasers allow cops to incapacitate resistant suspects for a brief period of time with “relatively few risks.” But there are still risks. A police officer in Columbus, Ohio, used a Taser to subdue Patrick Hagans, “a middle-aged man undone by cocaine and unwilling as a result to allow officers to detain him.” Hagans died three days after the incident. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that, because the officer did not violate clearly established law by using the Taser in this setting, qualified immunity protects him from the lawsuit....

District court order granting defendants’ motions to dismiss plaintiff’s request for a declaratory judgment is affirmed where sections of the New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Laws banning direct sales to consumers by out-of-state liquor retailers and instituting a three-tier system for the regulation of alcoholic beverages evenhandedly regulate the importation and distribution of liquor within the state and do not discriminate against out-of-state producers in violation of the Commerce Clause, and thus are a valid exercise of the state’s rights under the Twenty-first Amendment....

As always, there’s lots to catch up on in the Second Circuit. So, let’s cut the small talk and get to it. Ecuadorian Judgment Against Chevron Fraudulent Earlier this month, a district judge for the Southern District of New York penned a 497-page ruling finding that Steven Donziger violated a laundry list of laws to obtain an Ecuadorian court’s judgment against Chevron, said the company in a press release. Donziger has voiced his intentions to appeal, and called the district court’s ruling “an appalling decision resulting from a deeply flawed proceeding that overturns a unanimous ruling by Ecuador’s Supreme Court,” reports The Wall Street Journal....

Jeremy and Kristi Morris of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho won a jury verdict for $75,000 after successfully suing their West Hayden States First Addition Homeowners Association (HOA) for waging a “War On Christmas.” The couple successfully claimed that the HOA’s restriction against the couple’s annual front lawn five-day-long Christmas pageant extravaganza had little to do with nuisance laws, but instead was a violation of the Morris family’s constitutional right to exercise their religious beliefs....

More Americans are changing their opinions on cannabis, and this cultural change is being reflected in national politics. Over recent years, state governments across the nation have altered their cannabis laws to allow for more medical and recreational cannabis use, but some states have been resistant to change. Cannabis is traditionally more accepted in more politically liberal areas. As a result, states with Republican-controlled legislatures are often the last to legalize cannabis use, whether it be for medical or recreational purposes....