Nebraska death row inmate John Lotter, one of the infamous inspirations to the 1999 Oscar-winning movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” is seeking review of his case from the nation’s highest court. Lotter was sentenced to death for his role in murdering Teena Brandon, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine in Humboldt in 1993. Brandon was a 21-year-old woman who lived briefly as a man, while the two other victims were witnesses to the killing....
Bryan St. Patrick Gallimore was arrested and convicted of second degree burglary with a sentence of no more than ten years. Gallimore was consequently facing criminal deportation as an alien convicted of an aggravated felony. Gallimore sought to stay in the U.S. by seeking deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). However, he was denied because of the criminal alien bar under 8 U....
Arizona’s identity theft laws are not facially preempted by federal immigration law, the Ninth Circuit ruled on Monday. The state’s identity theft laws prohibit the use of a false identity to obtain employment. The laws had been used by the controversial sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, to raid and arrest hundreds immigrants at their workplace. A district court had ruled that the identity theft laws were likely to be unconstitutional last year, but the Ninth circuit disagreed, noting that Arizona’s laws would not conflict with federal immigration law when applied to American citizens....
Lagstein v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, No. 07-16094, involved plaintiff’s appeal from the district court’s order vacating an arbitral award on the ground of its excessive size and vacating a punitive damages award on the additional ground that the arbitration panel lacked jurisdiction to enter it after the panel had entered its compensatory award. The court of appeals reversed, on the grounds that: 1) the district court erred in concluding that the size of the arbitration awards demonstrated manifest disregard of the law; 2) the fact that the majority of the arbitrators may have made a mistake in citing a benefit that plaintiff had not purchased did not establish irrationality of its ultimate conclusion that defendant breached its contract; 3) nothing in plaintiff’s policy expressly withdrew determination of procedural issues from the panel; and 4) defendant failed to demonstrate either evident partiality or evident corruption in the arbitrators....
Most people have a general idea of what a patent troll is: Instead of creating new products or ideas, patent trolls often buy up others’ patents and use litigation (threatened and real) to weaponize the patents and intimidate companies into licensing fees or settlements. While that sounds fairly specific, there’s no definition exact enough to give rise to a claim of defamation. “We conclude that the challenged statement, that [the plaintiff] is a well-known patent troll, is one of opinion rather than fact,” ruled the New Hampshire Supreme Court, tossing out a lawsuit from the self-proclaimed inventor of the ATM....
Providence Yakima Med. Ctr. v. Sebelius, No. 09-35266, involved an action brought by five not-for-profit hospitals, each recipients of Medicare direct graduate medical education payments for approved family medicine residency programs. The court of appeals vacated the district court’s order finding the Secretary’s methodology for calculating the hospitals’ base-year per resident amounts under 42 C.F.R. section 413.86(e)(4)(I) (1989) arbitrary and capricious, holding that, because the method was “ad hoc” and did not meet the requirements of 42 U....
The dreaded b-word. No small business owner wants to think of their company going under, but in some cases it’s inevitable. But not all bankruptcies equal total failure. Chapter 11 bankruptcy can allow your business to reorganize, remain open, and repay your debt. Here’s a look. 1. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Reorganization Process: an Overview Chapter 11 allows businesses to reorganize, stay operational, and create a plan to repay debts to creditors....
Ah, a bar association which doesn’t take divisive stances that are likely to irk its members. Connecticut lawmakers passed some pretty strict gun laws after the Newton tragedy. In Shew v. Malloy, a federal district court upheld the constitutionality of these new gun laws, and an appeal is working its way through the Second Circuit. Connecticut’s bar association initially voted to join the defense of the laws, but after a wee bit of backlash and a referendum, that’s not happening any longer....
The Sixth Circuit decided two criminal cases involving ineffective assistance of counsel claim and a challenge to a denial of application of the safety valve sentencing provision. In Thompson v. Warden, Belmont Corr. Inst., No. 08-3743, the court faced a challenge to the district court’s conditional grant of defendant’s habeas petition for his conviction of stealing a motor vehicle, possession of crack cocaine, carrying a concealed weapon and receiving stolen property, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel....
This should have been a fascinating case. It has support of terrorism, juror bias, FBI informants, and the government’s strategy of using preemptive prosecution to catch terrorists before they terrorize. Do we punish people for possibly, maybe, thinking somewhat about someday terrorizing? Or, as with most crimes, do we wait for a conspiracy, attempt, or actual completion? It’s constitutional rights versus national security, something we can all be intrigued by....
Chris Hogan was once employed by UTOPIA, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency. He claims he was fired after he revealed conflicts of interest in contract awards. After Hogan was fired, he threatened to sue the agency unless he was paid $219,000 in damages and the agency’s executive director was also fired. Coincidentally, an unflattering article appeared in a local newspaper discussing Hogan’s termination and calling his demand for damages “extortion” and “blackmail....
Zachary Terwilliger started at the Department of Justice mopping floors – but not really as a janitor. It was 1999, and he was a high school intern at the office in Alexandria, Virginia. He used to mop floors and stack boxes at the office where 140 federal prosecutors worked. Now he may do the heavy lifting in the prosecution of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder highlighted in the Russian interference investigation....
Steven Donziger, now in the battle for his reputation, is appealing a district court’s ruling against him. The RICO Case Before the plaintiffs could collect their judgment, Chevron turned the tables, and filed a civil suit against Steven Donziger under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970. Last October, trial between the two parties began and Chevron set out to convince a district judge for the Southern District of New York that the $18 billion judgment was awarded as a result of bribery....
The Dragon Box lawsuit has, after a year, been settled. But unlike most settlements, Dragon Box agreed to have a stipulated judgment taken against them to the tune of $14.5 million, and various injunctive relief that all but shuts down the company as consumers know it today. However, given how flagrant Dragon Box’s conduct was, effectively turning their customers into web-pirates stealing streaming services, the massive settlement and unfavorable terms still seem preferable to what could have been awarded had the litigation proceeded....
Information security has been a popular topic over the last decade as more of our personal information has moved to the virtual world. While we have let the world into our photo albums, conversations, and daily routines through social networking, we have also become more vigilant about who we allow to access our personal records. We opt out of telemarketing, remove ourselves from subscriber lists, and decline to allow retailers to sell our information to “carefully selected” partners....
In plaintiff’s suit against prison officials and nurses on behalf of decedent who died while detained at a county jail, district court’s judgment is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded where: 1) a doctor’s testimony was properly excluded as it relates to the effect of the county jail’s failure to provide the decedent with her medications, but his testimony regarding the adequate standard of medical care in prisons and the effect that decedent’s vomiting may have had on her heart condition should not have been excluded; 2) district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of one of the nurses is reversed and remanded because a jury could find that her inaction amounted to deliberate indifference to a serious medical need of decedent’s; 3) district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of remaining defendants is affirmed; and 4) because plaintiff has failed to develop any argument relating to the district court’s award of summary judgment to the defendants on a state law claim, any objection to the court’s decision on those claims have been waived....
The days of just having one 9-to-5 job may be coming to an end. Almost everyone has some kind of side hustle on top of a regular job, if not multiple regular jobs. But as USA Today recently pointed out, even having a lemonade stand on the side can run afoul of the law. From permits and licenses to insurance and taxes, having a side job can be way more complicated than just going out and doing your thing....
In a $200 million lawsuit, attorneys from an international law firm have sued their former employer for gender-bias. Jones Day, they allege, discriminated against them based on gender, pregnancy, and maternity. They say the firm has a “misogynistic,” “fraternity culture.” At a firm party, for example, a male attorney pushed a female associate into the pool. Firm leaders allegedly applauded and gave each other high-fives. The conduct sounds juvenile at best, but all too common....
Michael Cassesse was sentenced to 12 months in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for supervised release violation stemming from a racketeering conviction. He argued to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the 12 months in prison for the supervised release violation should have been subtracted from the lifetime term of supervised release. But is there a practical way to deduct the 12 months? Second Circuit Judge Jon Newman wrote in the panel opinion, “This appeal presents primarily the almost metaphysical issue of how, if at all, a lifetime term of supervised release, imposed for a supervised release violation, should be reduced by the number of months of a prison term imposed for that same violation, a subtraction we are willing to assume is required by the literal terms of the provisions governing supervised release....
To clarify any confusion, yes, the title of this blog is the title of my forthcoming Country music album. But it also accurately describes the underlying circumstances that resulted in a 14-year prison sentence for Melvin Feliz, who defrauded two law firms out of millions of dollars while simultaneously starting a cross-country drug trafficking ring. There’s something to be said for going big. Unfortunately for Feliz, however, the only place he’ll be going anytime soon is prison....
