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The U.S. Supreme Court reversed course on how state governments should interact with tribal authorities in criminal matters this week in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, undercutting its own precedent and long-standing assumptions about Native law. The opinion is a departure from the court’s 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, although the majority did not wholly overturn McGirt here. In McGirt, the court held that crimes committed on tribal lands must be prosecuted by either tribal or federal authorities rather than the state....

Attorney James Adams wanted to become a judge, so he sued. He sued because the Delaware constitution required either Democrat or Republican judges, and he belonged to neither party. Lawmakers thought the law would be a good way to keep political balance on the bench. Wrong, said the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Adams v. Governor of Delaware. People have freedom of association – and not just Democrats and Republicans....

In an appeal from a denial of defendant’s motion to correct his sentence as untimely, the order is affirmed where: 1) the district court properly determined that defendant’s judgment of conviction became final upon the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari; and 2) extraordinary circumstances justifying equitable tolling did not include defendant’s lawyer’s miscalculation of a limitation period. Read US v. Aguirre-Ganceda, No. 08-35696 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted December 7, 2009...

Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church – the Kansas congregation known for picketing funerals with anti-gay signs – died late Wednesday at the age of 84, CNN reports. His death and reported excommunication from the church dovetails with a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan, Jr., bringing closure to a nearly eight-year long legal fight over the group’s funeral protests. The Westboro church gained notoriety for protesting funerals – especially for troops killed in combat – to express their belief that God is punishing the U....

In a class action claiming that an insurance company marketed annuities through deceptive practices in violation of Hawaii’s Deceptive Practices Act, the denial of class certification is reversed, where there were no individualized issues of subjective reliance under Hawaii law that would defeat commonality. Read Yokoyama v. Midland Nat’l. Life Ins. Co., No. 07-16825 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted November 20, 2008 Filed August 28, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Schroeder...

In a major Affordable Care Act case, an updated court rule came back to bite Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Citing federal court rules on amicus curiae, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law firm’s amicus brief in the case. The rules are intended to prevent conflicts of interest and other problems. That’s not going to happen now that the Fifth Circuit ruled. Judge James C. Ho knows why....

Every U.S. citizen over the age of 18, except for some convicted felons, has the right to vote. Complaints about voter registration groups driving other people to the polls or helping large groups of people complete the voter registration process ring hollow. Unfortunately, some still wish to make participation in the democratic process as difficult as possible. That is the case right now in Tennessee, where activists are attempting to strike down a new law cracking down on groups that help to register voters....

The blue-slip rule – a traditional endorsement by home-state Senators for judicial nominees – has guided Senate confirmations for nearly a century. But not anymore. The Senate confirmed Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals without a blue slip from one of the state’s Senators. Stras is the first nominee to be confirmed without the traditional rite of passage in 80 years. It would have been controversial except things have changed recently....

If you think that DWH — Driving While High — is harmless, you might want to think again. Two recent studies have concluded that car crashes tend to increase after states legalize marijuana. The Highway Loss Data Institute found that collision-insurance claims increased by nearly 6% in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — the first three states to legalize marijuana — compared with neighboring states that hadn’t legalized pot. Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also limited their study to those three states, looking at police-reported accidents, and found a 5....

In an action for excessive force and assault and battery, district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) the court did not err in concluding defendant police chief’s conduct during plaintiff’s arrest was objectively reasonable as a matter of law and did not constitute excessive force; 2) the court did not err in its various evidentiary rulings; 3) the court did not err denying plaintiff’s wife’s substantive due process claims as her allegations did not meet the “shocks the conscience” threshold; and 4) the court did not err in denying plaintiff’s municipal liability claim as there was no constitutional violation by individual officers....

I will be the first to admit that procedure is just not my thing. I like studying issues pertaining to Constitutional law and civil rights. Procedure? Meh. For example, when learning about res judicata in law school, I had to invoke “The Lion King” and sang res judicata to the tune of “Hakuna Matata” just to keep myself from falling asleep. So, if at any point while reading this you feel the same urge, please feel free to join me in singing (or humming)....

Action Claiming Age-Based Termination In Clark v. Mathews Int’l. Corp., No. 10-1037, an action claiming that plaintiff was terminated and suffered other adverse employment actions due to his age, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendants in part where 1) a 4% drop in the employment rate of over-age-forty employees was not sufficient for purposes of establishing that age was a factor in a termination decision; and 2) plaintiff failed to create a triable issue of fact regarding whether he was intentionally selected for termination during the RIF at issue because of his age....

Dog people can be a little crazy about their dogs (Exhibit A: My dog’s Instagram). However, when a group of dog owners discovered that a popular treat they’d been giving their furry little friends was the cause of serious medical problems for their pups, the gloves came off and a class action lawsuit got filed. Unfortunately for the dog owners, the district court in Illinois recently rejected their motion for class certification, but it didn’t completely close the door....

One wouldn’t think that two polar opposites could be such great friends. Justice Antonin Scalia is a boisterous, ultra-conservative jurist, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a liberal lion, with a far less exaggerated writing style. Nonetheless, it is now well-known Supreme Court trivia that the two are close friends, and have even ridden an elephant together. In the last week, both have been subjects of lengthy, in-depth profiles. What else can we learn about the famous friends?...

In a general contractor’s suit against its insurers claiming that they had a duty to defend it in third-party litigation arising out of a construction dispute, judgment in favor of defendants is reversed as the exclusion provision at issue applies only to the cost of repairing or replacing distinct component parts on which the insured performed defective work. Read Fortney & Weygandt, Inc. v. Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co., No. 05-4031...

In plaintiff’s retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against a town and one of its supervisors, partial grant of defendant’s motion for summary judgment regarding the First Amendment retaliation claim is reversed and remanded where plaintiff’s factual allegations were sufficient to raise more than a mere possibility of unlawful First Amendment retaliation on the part of the defendants, and thus, the district court erred in granting the motion to dismiss on the pleadings as to that part of the complaint....

In defendant-intervenors’ application for a stay of an order of the district court in the California Proposition 8 trial permitting the trial to be broadcast live via streaming audio and video to a number of federal courthouses around the country, the stay is granted where the district court failed to give appropriate public notice and an opportunity for comment before modifying a local rule to permit the broadcast, as required by 28 U....

Meet John Sturgeon, a hunter, a septuagenarian, an Alaskan, and, as of Tuesday, a victorious Supreme Court litigant. Sturgeon wound up before the Supreme Court after his hovercraft broke down as he was traveling through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve to hunt moose. Park officers told the moose hunter he couldn’t use his hovercraft, or any other motorized equipment, on the rivers. Sturgeon objected. The river, he argued, was Alaska’s, not the federal governments’....

You’ve noticed the buzz — CBD products are everywhere and advocates claim they help treat everything from anxiety to Alzheimer’s. But is CBD legal in every state? The answer is a lot more complicated than you would think. Even if you are seeing CBD advertisements in the windows of local gas stations and smoke shops, sales could still be against the law in your state. And, while we have the luxury in America of assuming that goods sold on the marketplace are safe and accurately labeled, this isn’t yet true for the booming CBD market....

Columbia College Chicago informed Suriya Smiley, a part-time instructor, that it would not ask her to teach further classes after a student complained that Smiley had singled him out in class because he is Jewish. Smiley, who is of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, claims that the decision was based on her race or national origin. The district court disagreed, and granted summary judgment in favor of Columbia. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision this week....