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Yes, there are travel restrictions in place for travel within the United States. However, the restrictions vary from state to state, and essential workers are usually exempt. Currently, 93% of the world’s population is living in countries with travel restrictions because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to Pew Research Center. Many countries have closed their borders completely. U.S. borders are closed to people who are foreign nationals arriving from China and many European countries like Ireland, Sweden, and the U....

Judges typically don’t like to see anyone they have sentenced to prison return to their courtroom - it usually involves issuing another sentence. But for Robert VanSumeren, a return visit before the judge who sent him to prison over 20 years ago was cause for celebration. After serving his time, VanSumeren went to college, then law school, then passed the bar. The return to Michigan state court judge Michael Smith’s courtroom was to get sworn in to the bar....

In an action alleging that defendant hospital failed to provide interpreting services to a patient and his wife (both deaf), so that their two children (of normal hearing) had to act as interpreters for their parents, summary judgment for defendant is vacated where: 1) plaintiffs raised a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the hospital acted with deliberate indifference; 2) the children had associational standing under the Rehabilitation Act; and 3) the children’s claims under the New York City Human Rights Law were required to be remanded for reconsideration in light of New York City’s Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005....

Nucor is a large steel manufacturing company that operates a number of production plants throughout the United States. Nucor has a morale problem at one of its plants. Six current and former African-American employees of Nucor’s Blytheville, Arkansas, plant brought a racial discrimination complaint - alleging both disparate treatment and disparate impact theories - against the company. The plaintiffs alleged that Nucor denied them promotions and training opportunities and tolerated a racially hostile work environment....

After Kentucky’s somewhat harried search for a firm to defend the state from the potential “chaos” of recognizing out-of-state gay marriages, a firm has been chosen. The relatively small firm of VanAntwerp, Monge, Jones, Edwards & McCann, LLP has been recruited to defend the state in the Sixth Circuit for at least until June 6, according to Louisville’s WFPL. Their contract with the Bluegrass State has a payment cap set at $100,000....

Protect Marriage, the organization that sponsored California Proposition 8, thinks that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is ‘misguided," according to the Los Angeles Times. Not that that comes as a surprise. In February, a Ninth Circuit panel struck down Prop 8, finding that “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples....

Justice Sonya Sotomayor has issued another dissent in a case involving another death row inmate opting for the electric chair over a lethal injection as his preference for execution. And while the ink was barely dry on the page, David Miller was executed. The impassioned Justice explains in a brief page-and-a-half dissent, that the very idea that Miller’s choice was voluntary is a “fiction.” She further explains that the inmate should not have been required to show other “available alternative means of his own execution....

For anyone who has read the book White Oleander (or seen the movie), this Third Circuit Court of Appeals case certainly sounds like a page from that novel. Or alternatively, like a scene from a bad Bond movie. Bond (that’s Carol Bond) was convicted under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998. Bond worked at Rohm and Haas as a scientist and used her expertise to commit the crime. Bond learned that her best friend was sleeping with her husband and pregnant with her husband’s baby....

What makes the Supreme Court supreme? Why is it the final arbiter on the validity of laws and the meaning of the Constitution? The answer, of course, is Marbury v. Madison. But it wasn’t always so. In the earliest days of the Court, the institution was hardly as august as it is today – and getting to that point involved some strange dealings and significant power struggles. So, in today’s recap of “More Perfect,” NPR’s new podcast on Supreme Court history, we’re looking at Marbury v....

Luis Valenzuela made a mistake when he took a bicycle from Manny Ramirez. His next mistake was telling Ramirez where to meet him to fight for it. Instead, Ramirez told police where Valenzuela was. They arrested him, and he was convicted of grand theft and street terrorism in People v. Valenzuela. Valenzuela got lucky, however, when California voters changed the law that reduced his theft crime to a misdemeanor. He got lucky again when the state Supreme Court threw out his terrorism conviction....

Conviction and sentence for wire fraud, making false statements, and failure to appear is affirmed where: 1) the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s convictions for wire fraud and failure to appear; 2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s motion for new counsel, and made an adequate inquiry into defendant’s dissatisfaction with his attorney; 3) the use of the 2007 Guidelines Manual did not create an ex post facto violation; and 4) the court’s denial of defendant’s request for a downward departure was unreviewable....

In a case involving a failed prosecution for health care fraud, an order partially granting defendant’s motion under the Hyde Act and awarding fees to cover the costs of defending against certain counts associated with one of the theories advanced by the government on the ground that the theory was frivolous, is reversed and the fee application is denied where the failure by the government to thoroughly investigate the case was not the kind of misconduct requiring a fee award....

Conviction for drug crimes and firearms possession is affirmed where: 1) the district properly dismissed one of the charges in the indictment without prejudice following a technical violation of the Speedy Trial Act, and the post-indictment delay did not violate the Speedy Trial Act; 2) an affidavit supplied probable cause for issuance of a warrant to search defendant’s residence and person, and the court did not err in denying defendant’s request for a Franks hearing; 3) the court did not err in denying defendant’s request to present a justification defense to felon in possession of a firearms charge, in allowing the government to impeach defendant with prior convictions as defendant was the first to introduce the matters into evidence, and in deciding not to order disclosure of the contents of the officer’s investigative file; 4) the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s conviction on drug charge; and 5) the court did not err in sentencing defendant as a career offender, and gave proper consideration to the 18 U....

The Tenth Circuit has upheld the conviction of a man based off a search-warrant affidavit that did not even mention defendant’s name. Edwin Sanchez was convicted on one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana with a sentence of 78 months’ imprisonment. Officers of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had originally obtained a warrant to search what they thought was the home of Adriana Amaya, the defendant’s daughter. The DEA initially linked her to a drug-trafficking organization, based off intercepted conversations where Amaya had, in code, mentioned a delivery to a drug supplier in Mexico....

Car repairs can be a scary prospect. First, there’s the cost, the time it will take, and then the worry about the repairs being done right. Most mechanics do good and honest work and care for our cars like they were their own. But other mechanics on the other hand… So what happens if you get one of the bad guys? You can sue the mechanic shop in civil court or small claims court (typically without using an attorney)....

If there has ever been a convoluted rule to come from the EPA/Army Corps of Engineers, it’s the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule. Just recently, the Sixth Circuit decided that it had jurisdiction to review the mountain of challenges against the controversial law, and not the Federal district courts. The rule had been the result of a couple of SCOTUS decisions that the EPA/ACE had flexed too much authoritative muscle in regulating outlying waters....

It’s a tough world out there for a singing telegram performer. For a start, did you realize that singing telegrams still existed? And then there’s the fact that it’s nearly impossible for telegram performers to control the distribution of their performances in the Internet age. Everyone has a camera phone. Last week, the Seventh Circuit added to the singing telegrammer’s already-heavy burden, ruling in an unpublished opinion that a singer simply couldn’t survive summary judgment on her copyright infringement and right of publicity claims after a client recorded her performance....

For 15 years, Tennessee’s Medicaid program has operated under a federal consent decree. In recent years, however, the Volunteer State moved to vacate the decree on grounds that the State is now compliant with both the decree and the Medicaid statute. Despite pressure from class action plaintiffs to leave the decree in tact, both a district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals believe that Tennessee is ready to reclaim the reins of its Medicaid program....

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division reported a record $322 million in overtime wages recovered in fiscal year 2019. That number continues the steady increase in overtime wage recovery by the DOL. In 2018, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recovered $304 million. The majority came from failure to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. The DOL publishes records online of total recovery for wage and hour investigations going back to 1997....

People sext. They take pics of their naughty bits and send them to each other. Boudoir photography has been a thing since cameras were invented. Basically, we’re all a bunch of naughty, sex-crazed heathens. We’re all apparently violating federal law as well. Section 2257 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, enacted to combat child pornography, requires anyone who produces sexually explicit materials to keep records of the name and birthdate of every performer in a given work, include a statement about where the records are stored, and make the records available to the attorney general for inspection on demand....