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Perhaps in celebration of the recent “Boardwalk Empire” season premiere, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to a Missouri law borne from the Prohibition era that requires state residency for alcohol wholesalers. OK, so the ruling has nothing to do with “Boardwalk Empire” – but it does have everything to do with alcohol. Southern Wine & Spirits, the largest wine and spirits distributor in the United States, unsuccessfully argued that the Missouri’s liquor residency requirement for wholesalers does not advance any legitimate state interest....

Young Joshua England was in an Oklahoma prison when he complained about a stomach ache. He visited the infirmary five times that week, but medical staff didn’t find anything really wrong with him. Untreated for his condition, he died in horrific abdominal pain. Now his mother is suing prison officials for ignoring England’s desperate pain and the signs of his impending death. Shortness of breath, blood in his vomit, and rectal bleeding meant his appendix was about to burst....

The drama surrounding New York’s stop-and-frisk case is not slowing. Just within the last week we’ve seen a flurry of motions from all sides (and now on Judge Shira Scheindlin’s behalf too), raising issues that bring the political nature of the case to the forefront. The big question on New Yorkers’ minds is: how will this end? But the answer to that question really has to do with when, because as with many things, timing is everything....

A federal appeals court summarily dispatched a lawsuit for psychological distress caused by electromagnetic voltage. In a three-page opinion – including one page for the caption – the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a dismissal against a Travelodge employee in Hirmiz v. New Harrison Hotel Corp. George D. Hirmiz had sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming he suffered from exposure to electromagnetic voltage at the hotel....

“America’s toughest sheriff” is going to need America’s toughest litigators: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the owners of the Phoenix New Times can sue the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office for their 2007 arrests, reports the Huffington Post. The two men, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, are suing Sheriff Joe Arpaio for $15 million, alleging false arrest, due process violations, and selective prosecution. As you might guess, there’s no love lost between Sheriff Arpaio and the PNT, the weekly newspaper at the center of the case....

Habeas petition for fourt counts of homicides by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle Promotor v. Pollard, 09-2292, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief from his conviction for four counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and two counts of causing injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, and a grant of a Certificate of Appealability on the issue of whether the state courts violated defendant’s due process rights by sentencing him based on inaccurate information....

In war games, counter-intelligence is expected. That’s spying, for you civilians. Spying is not expected in litigation games, yet that’s what happened in a war crimes case. According to defense attorneys, a prosecutor sent them an email with tracking software to follow their email trail. The prosecutor’s office has acknowledged using the tracking software. The government apparently wanted to know who was leaking information about the case to the press....

If you want job stability, stay out of politics. Politicos aren’t the only ones who risk losing their gigs during election seasons or political coups; their staff can also be constitutionally-canned, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Kimberly Benedix lost her job as Executive Coordinator to the Village Manager when the Village of Hanover Park legislated her boss and friend – Marc Hummel – out of his position as Village Manager....

Tuesday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision upholding Ohio’s restrictions on the abortion pill widely known as RU-486. In 2004, Ohio passed a law criminalizing the distribution of mifepristone, also known as RU-486, unless the distribution followed certain protocols and gestational time limits identified by the FDA when mifepristone was first approved in 2000. The law criminalizes the use of mifepristone after the seventh week of a pregnancy, reports Cincinatti....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action claiming that Defendant social services department deprived Plaintiffs of custody of their children based on Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs, summary judgment for Defendants is affirmed where Plaintiffs failed to show that any false information from Defendants influenced the state court in issuing the various orders that interfered with Plaintiffs’ family integrity. Read Starkey v. Boulder Cty. Soc. Servs., No. 08-1013 Appellate Information Filed June 29, 2009...

You know that feeling you get when airport screeners pat you down or invade your luggage? Well, maybe not you in particular, but those other guys who get treated like suspected bombers when they’re just having a bad day. It’s not funny when people get singled out by security for no good reason. Unfortunately, it’s going to get worse because a federal appeals court said airport screeners are immune from liability for assaults, false arrests and other intentional abuses....

District court’s sentence of a defendant convicted of manufacturing and distributing illegal drugs is affirmed where: 1) district court properly limited its section 3553(e) departure analysis to a consideration of defendant’s substantial assistance and declined to consider the section 3553(a) factors, as section 3553(e) departure below a statutory minimum sentence must be based exclusively on assistance-related considerations; 2) district court did not err in refusing to grant a greater departure based on 3553(a) factors as it lacked the authority to do so; 3) district court did not abuse its discretion or err in selecting a starting point for the departure of 60%; and 4) the sentence was not unreasonable....

A conservative Chief Justice who repeatedly stands in the way of a progressive, Democratic president, while leading a divided, unpopular Supreme Court. No, it’s not Chief Justice Roberts, though the parallels are clear. It’s Charles Evans Hughes, Roberts’s counterpart from 1930 to 1941, who repeatedly held back President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives. In a relatively rare presentation last Friday, the current Chief Justice discussed his predecessor, Court leadership, and the legacy of Hughes....

Every now and then, news stories emerge about people who fake their own kidnappings. They never have happy endings. The latest person to attempt an abduction caper and fail is 40-year-old Sherri Papini of Redding, California, who faces a year and a half in prison. Papini received that sentence on Sept. 19 for staging an elaborate hoax in 2016 to receive disability payments. Papini pleaded guilty in April to one count of making false statements to FBI agents about her disappearance and one count of mail fraud....

When the water shut off at her residence, Jacqueline Winston didn’t call a plumber. She called a lawyer. She was upset because the city shut off the water over the landlord’s unpaid bill. What really irked Winston was that she offered to pay the bill and the city still wouldn’t turn on the water. In Winston v. City of Syracuse, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals said she had a point because that’s not how water service is supposed to work....

When dealing with sentencing enhancements, reality can outweigh perception. Last week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a district court properly applied a sentence enhancement to a defendant who enticed an 11-year-old to engage in sexual activity, even though he thought she was 13. Adam Hammond pleaded guilty to one count of enticement of a minor for the purpose of engaging in prohibited sexual activity, and one count of enticement of a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct....

In the world of litigation, it is exceptionally rare to see the plaintiff behind a lawsuit withdraw their legal claims and make a statement explaining that they were wrong. While stranger things have happened in litigation, this is exactly what just happened in the Stranger Things plagiarism lawsuit that was filed last year and was just days away from trial. The plaintiff in that lawsuit issued a statement that carefully explained that he was completely wrong and that the Duffer brothers came up with the idea independently....

Judge Richard Posner is perhaps the most interesting judge in the world (quick, someone call Dos Equis). The popular and widely celebrated (by legal correspondents, reporters, journalists, and writers) jurist recently announced his retirement. After serving on the bench for decades, Judge Posner explained that he felt like he was wasting precious time. The once fiscal conservative and Reagan appointee has embraced his new role as a liberal voice for progressive change in society, and doesn’t want to waste time on the bench when he can put his own boots on the ground....

We’re still waiting … Late last month, after the Solicitor General responded to three anti-Obamacare petitions for certiorari, we were pretty sure that the Court was going to take up the issue of the contraception mandate. After all, the Tenth, Sixth, Third, and Fourth Circuits have all issued conflicting rulings on whether a corporation has religious rights, and whether those rights are trampled upon by the Affordable Care Act’s so-called contraception mandate....

It’s an exciting time to be a SCOTUS fan. There are Scalia dolls being sold, Sotomayor danced salsa for the Nine, and Ginsburg is learning about gansta rap. Even Clarence Thomas is making some headlines! But let’s not forget, life – and the Court – isn’t always pleasing. As Nietzsche said: “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” We at FindLaw couldn’t agree more....