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What’s more important: free speech or the safety and security of the President? Ideally, we’d have both, but the government is arguing, in a case granted review by the Supreme Court earlier this week, that a recent holding by the Ninth Circuit ensures that the President’s security detail will be worried about lawsuits by protestors, rather than protecting the Commander-in-Chief. The protestors sued, alleging viewpoint discrimination, after they were forced to move two blocks away from former President George W....

Trying to come up with something to talk about over the holidays can be daunting. Politics and religion are (or should be) off the table, and some in your family may have no interest in discussing the football game on in the background. So what does that leave you? If you find yourself struggling for topics, throw out a few of the weird food laws we list here and see what sort of conversations they inspire....

While quite a bit has been said about what’s contained in the Mueller report, one of the more interesting areas of reporting involves what was redacted out of the Mueller report. In several places, the redactions seem to raise several questions, such as when the report describes presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s call to concede. The very next sentence is redacted, along with the next few lines, until the report states: “wrote to Dmitriev, “Putin has won....

As anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 vaccine skeptics feel economic walls closing in, some are turning to religion to avoid the jabs. More and more employers are mandating that their employees get a COVID-19 vaccination if they want to keep their jobs. But there seems to be greater awareness among the unvaccinated that claiming a “religious exemption" may provide a legal pathway for them to avoid the jab. That phrase refers to language in Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964....

In legal writing, acronyms can certainly be frustrating. After all, pleadings are dry enough as is, and when you sprinkle in an acronym or two every other paragraph, or every other sentence, any hope of developing a flow can go right out the window (alongside a judge’s tolerance for poorly written pleadings). Yes, you absolutely can use acronyms, but when you do, use your eye for readability. It is critical to avoid frustrating your judge and clerk readers who won’t want to keep flipping or scrolling through pages to remember what you meant by NBA, LOL, and CFR....

Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., now allow same-sex couples to get married. In 14 other states, state or federal judges have overturned state-level bans on same-sex marriage. As this blog post is being written, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing oral arguments on same-sex marriage bans in Hawaii, Nevada, and Idaho. The momentum for this movement came from the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down a federal ban on same-sex marriage as violative of the Constitution....

In 2012, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker dodged efforts to recall him after his administration stripped public employees of their union rights. He didn’t emerge completely unscathed, however – shortly after the election, prosecutors began looking into whether members of his administration violated campaign finance laws. Though two judges have already heard the evidence and ordered prosecutors to back off, the Seventh Circuit is currently hearing those prosecutors’ pleas to continue looking into the governor’s staff’s ties to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a nonprofit conservative group that funneled cash to a number of other conservative PACs that helped Gov....

The tech billionaire that bought Martin’s Beach, located just outside Half Moon Bay, California, has been facing an uphill legal battle ever since he decided to shut out the public. He’s pretty much lost every step of the way. Now, Vinod Khosla is at the top of that hill and asking SCOTUS to review the decision requiring him to maintain public access. Despite the fact that his plea is not expected to be taken up, commentators believe that the case provides SCOTUS a vehicle to further restrict a state’s right to control private property....

As July marches on, coronavirus-related conversation is increasingly turning to how, exactly, school will resume in the fall. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has maintained that the Trump administration wants students to return to the classroom rather than taking online lessons. But as teacher’s unions and some individual states like California urge caution in allowing in-person schooling to resume, one question persists: Can the government force schools to reopen? Private vs....

What Are The Levels of Scrutiny? When the constitutionality of a law is challenged, both state and federal courts will commonly apply one of three levels of judicial scrutiny from the spectrum of scrutiny: Strict scrutiny Intermediate scrutiny Rational basis review The level of scrutiny that’s applied determines how a court will go about analyzing a law and its effects. It also determines which party – the challenger or the government – has the burden of proof....

In US v. Johnson, No. 09-1407, the court of appeals affirmed defendant’s firearm possession conviction, on the ground that the lateness of the hour, the van blocking the alley with its engine running, a woman in the middle seat of the van putting on clothing, and defendant moving quickly from the middle seat to the driver seat and attempting to drive away upon arrival of the squad car, provided justification for an investigatory stop....

In a class action lawsuit that’s sure to get heart rates up, a Florida man has alleged that Fitbit’s technology is a fraud. James Brickman claims that the company duped him and others out of their cash by making false claims that it could track their sleep. Fitbit sells wearable tech devices that track a consumer’s steps, calories burned, distance covered and other data. Those features have made it a widely popular accessory amongst fitness nerds....

The 9/11 Truthers are back in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. This week, the Second Circuit imposed further attorney sanctions on one of the lawyers in the 9/11 Truther case, while relieving another attorney of sanctions after learning that he had served a “peripheral and subordinate role” in the frivolous appeal. The Truthers lawsuit, filed on behalf of U.S. Army Specialist April Gallop, alleged that the Pentagon was bombed by a coalition of the senior U....

The first conference of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Term is set for September 30. How many cases, from the petitions filed over the summer, will the Court be hearing? The numbers game is simple. According to figures provided by USA Today, roughly 8,000 petitions for certiorari are filed with the Supreme Court every year. Last year, the court took 77 cases. That puts the cert. success rate at about 0....

Finding only harmless error, a federal appeals court affirmed a second-degree murder conviction of a man who said police questioned him while he was “sick and exhausted.” The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of Terrance C. Jackson three years to the day after he stabbed a man to death during an argument. Although Jackson asked for a lawyer after his arrest, officers continued to question him in United States of America v....

It’s usually not a good idea to curse at police, but it is still a fundamental right. The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said so in a case from Arkansas. As a cop was citing one driver, another motorist passed by and gave the officer an earful. That led to an arrest for disorderly conduct in Thurairajah v. City of Fort Smith. After an unpleasant tour of the local slammer, the motorist was out and in no mood to let it go....

Facebook is not your friend or confidant. It does not keep your secrets. So, it’s probably a bad idea to broadcast your potential crimes all over the social network. Too many bungling criminals learn this the hard way, whether it’s taunting the police online, posting from stolen electronics, or simply contradicting court testimony. Brandy Lemons was no different. After Lemons was diagnosed with a pain disorder that limited her activities, she began receiving disability payments from the Social Security Administration....

In a securities fraud class action, denial of plaintiffs’ motion for class certification is affirmed where no authority supported plaintiffs’ proposed “integrity of the market” presumption in market manipulation cases, and thus, the district court correctly declined to presume class-wide reliance on the allegedly fraudulent statements. Read Desai v. Deutsche Bank Secs. Ltd., No. 08-55081 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted May 7, 2009 Filed July 29, 2009 Judges Per Curiam...

As politicians fought over President Trump’s border wall, construction companies were waiting for the go-ahead to start building. They will have to wait a while longer after a federal judge blocked the plan. Judge Hayward Gilliam Jr. halted construction projects along the border in New Mexico and Arizona. One company was in line to get $789 million to build 46 miles of border wall, but that is not going to happen for now....

Just over a year ago, arguments began in a groundbreaking trial against three of the nation’s largest drug distributors. The City of Huntington, West Virginia, and Cabell County alleged that McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health created a public nuisance by allowing a flood of prescription opioids to enter their communities. It was the first of more than 3,000 federal opioid lawsuits based on the public nuisance theory to reach the trial stage....