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A sentencing enhancement for committing a sexual act can be applied to child sex trafficking charges, the Ninth Circuit held on Tuesday. So can enhancements for undue influence, even if the victims entered into the arrangement voluntarily. The case involved Tamrell and Tynisha Hornbuckle, sisters who ran a prostitution ring with both underage and adult women. They were eventually caught as part of an FBI sting and pled guilty to two counts of child sex trafficking....

The majority’s opinion, in a 5-4 split, was clear: the Voting Rights Act, born of 1960s (and prior) discrimination, had achieved its purpose. The gap in voter registration numbers, once the definitive proof of discrimination in certain southern states, have all but disappeared. And though discrimination occurs on occasion, that doesn’t justify violating state sovereignty in light of the lack of a voter registration gap, does it? The VRA was passed in the 1960s to curb widespread attempts, such as literacy tests, to decrease the number of registered black voters....

The phrase “bump stock” went from the limited lexicon of firearm aficionados into the popular culture following the massacre of over 50 concertgoers in Las Vegas in 2017. The devices use a semi-automatic rifle’s recoil to fire more rapidly, and Stephen Paddock used them to fire more than 1,100 rounds from a 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 people and leaving 851 injured. Since then, the U....

In an appeal from a tax court’s judgment denying nonrecognition treatment for the parties’ like-kind real estate transactions, the order is affirmed where the exchanges did not qualify for nonrecognition treatment under 26 U.S.C. section 1031, because they took their peculiar structure for no apparent purpose except to avoid Section 1031. Read Teruya Bros. v. Comm’r. of Int’l. Rev., No. 05-73779 Appellate Information Argued February 11, 2009 Filed September 8, 2009...

The entire class needs to be properly protected for valid class certification. For starters, class representatives need to have the interests of the whole class in mind. Proper notice to potential class members is also crucial to a valid class action case. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a settlement between Sprint and a class of its customers last week, claiming that the $17.5 million settlement didn’t adequately protect absent class members....

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition of certiorari to hear a Texan prisoner’s habeas case. The case comes to the U.S. Supreme Court from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case before the Supreme Court involves a Texan murder convict, Rafael Arriaza Gonzalez. While the facts of his murder case are irrelevant to the U.S. Supreme Court, the procedural posture is. Gonzalez did not file his habeas petition within the one year statute of limitations in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, writes Courthouse News....

In a drug distribution prosecution, the denial of Defendant’s motion to reduce his sentence is affirmed, where Defendant’s sentence was based on the statutory mandatory minimum, not on a Sentencing Guidelines range that was affected by Amendment 706 to the Guidelines. Read US v. Jackson, No. 08-30231 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted April 7, 2009 Filed August 14, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Tashima Counsel For Appellant: Michael Donahoe, Federal Defenders of Montana, Helena, MT...

At the time of his abrupt retirement last August, former Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Boyce Martin stated, “I want to go out at the top of my game rather than having to be carried up and down from the bench.” Allow us to amend that, with recent allegations in mind: “I want to go out at the top of my game rather than having to be carried up and down from the bench [in handcuffs]....

Open the pod bay doors, HAL. With artificial intelligence and some imagination, you can now create digital images that rival those of great artists. In July 2022, OpenAI, an AI research laboratory, released the beta version of its revolutionary image-generating AI model, DALL-E 2. With DALL-E 2 and its predecessor, DALL-E, artists and professionals can create all sorts of images in limitless styles, from Renaissance-like paintings to photographs. The creative uses are boundless....

October oral arguments are over. We’ve heard cases on the death penalty, class actions, conspiracy and even electricity reimbursements. Now the rest of October is turned over to the Justices, and their armies of clerk-scriveners, who can actually start deciding things. In the mean time, we look ahead. Here are our top three cases to watch in November, hitting everything from privacy litigation to asset forfeiture to employment discrimination. Spokeo v....

Louisiana is spending a lot of time defending its abortion laws these days. One challenge, seeking to take down a broad swath of regulations, led to the state making a unique request for help from the courts. After a series of back-and-forths in district court, the state petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, asking for a writ of mandamus. Among other things, Louisiana requested that the writ be used to dismiss two counts in the plaintiff’s complaint - which the district court declined to do....

Judge Carolyn McHugh was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on May 16, 2013. It took nearly 10 months to confirm her, despite her candidacy being non-controversial and supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. Why did it take so long? Politics, of course. The Political Landscape of Confirming Judges Judge Carolyn McHugh was confirmed unanimously on Wednesday (March 12) – just two days after 34 Republicans voted to block her nomination, reports MSNBC....

Children are expensive. Childcare and tuition costs are increasing far faster than the rate of inflation. As a result, many couples are waiting longer to have a child, which, in turn, means that more couples are turning to fertility treatments, including artificial insemination, to conceive when they can afford a child. Why should this matter to lawyers? Sometimes family planning does not occur on the couples’ intended schedules. Sometimes one partner dies before the couple can start a family....

“Hey, Siri. Order my usual pizza.” So convenient, yes? Instead of having to tap in or phone in your order, you let Siri do the work. Millions of Americans are using Siri or Alexa or other voice assistants to not only order their food, but also buy household items and book their travel. But are they really secure? Could a hacker find a way to gain control of your voice assistant and make purchases on your credit cards?...

The case of Davino Watson vs. the U.S.A. is one that most citizens would probably have preferred losing. The case is one of true bureaucratic incompetence, insurmountable legal hurdles, and precedential tragedy. Mr. Watson, while incarcerated on a drug charge, was investigated by ICE. The ICE case was mishandled so badly that Mr. Watson, a U.S. citizen, was held for three years after he finished serving his time on the drug charge....

Durr v. Cordray, No. 10-3463 concerned a death row inmate’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit challenging Ohio’s denial of access to certain physical evidence for purposes of DNA testing. Although district court’s determination that the action is second or successive habeas petition was in err, defendant’s motion for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction staying his execution is denied as even if he were to prevail on his section 1983 claims, he would not be entitled to a stay of his execution....

23 year-old Dayna Kempson Schacht died last July when she lost control of her SUV and hit a row of trees lining a Griffin, Georgia highway. Dayna, a mother of two, was said to have died on impact. Undoubtly dealing with the tragedy for the rest of the their lives, Dayna’s parents are now reliving their daughter’s death with a video captured at the scene of the accident – and they are not happy about it....

A federal appeals court rejected a man’s demand to represent himself, ruling that a criminal defendant has no right to proceed pro se post-conviction or on appeal. The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Sixth Amendment includes the right to proceed without counsel at trial, but does not include any right to appeal. Moreover, the court said in United States v. Tollefson, the limitation includes post-conviction proceedings. Bruce Charles Tollefson argued that his court-appointed attorney provided ineffective assistance....

Lewis v. Chicago, No. 08-974, concerned a Title VII action challenging Chicago’s practice of selecting only applicants to firefighter positions who scored 89 or above on a written examination because of its disparate impact on African-Americans. The Court reversed the Seventh Circuit’s reversal of judgment for plaintiff, holding that a plaintiff who does not file a timely charge challenging the adoption of a practice may assert a disparate impact claim in a timely charge challenging the employer’s later application of that practice as long as he alleges each of the elements of a disparate impact claim....

In an action claiming that defendant violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by accessing plaintiff’s computer without authorization, both while defendant was employed by plaintiff and after he left the company, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) defendant was authorized to use plaintiff’s computers while he was employed by plaintiff, and thus he did not access a computer “without authorization” in violation of the applicable statutes when he emailed documents to himself and to his wife prior to leaving employment; and 2) plaintiff failed to establish the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendant accessed plaintiff’s website without authorization after he left the company....