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In a high-profile trial in Manhattan, neither Reza Zarrab nor his lawyers appeared for jury selection. Prosecutors allege Zarrab conspired to handle hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran to avoid economic sanctions. After meeting with the lawyers who did make it to court, the judge postponed the case for a week. For co-defendant Mehmet Hakan Atilla, it may not have been good thing. ‘Delay is Delay’ Reuters reported that Zarrab didn’t appear because he may have reached “an agreement to cooperate with U....

The spirit of dissent swept continued to sweep D.C. on Sunday as 19 protesters, including Princeton professor Cornel West, were arrested for demonstrating on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. West had attended the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall before joining the Stop the Machine protest in Freedom Plaza. After speaking before the crowd, West led a march to the Court to protest “the Supreme Court giving too much power to the corporations … and not holding corporations accountable for their behavior,” reports Politico....

The Supreme Court will only hear six more cases in 2011. We can’t tell you if 2012 will be a happy new year or not, but we can let you know which cases the Supreme Court will hear when they return to the Bench for the January sitting. There’s a heavy focus on administrative law in January, with litigants challenging decisions from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, Immigration Review Board, and the U....

According to a panel of judges at Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the way that individuals are moved on to the terrorist watch list does not require reasonable suspicion and does not equate to an investigation. In short, the court upheld the right of investigators to share information that came from tips and leads, which require “mere suspicion” rather than “reasonable suspicion” in order to be acted upon. The case came to light after men who were just going about their normal days, doing completely normal things, were reported as suspicious and landed on the watch list....

Felon In Possession Conviction Affirmed In US v. Craig, No. 09-3398, the court affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm where 1) an officer’s testimony was sufficient to support the district court’s finding that the physical evidence the officers observed while illegally in the residence did not prompt the officers to obtain the warrant; 2) the rule in Payton was designed to protect the physical integrity of the home, not to grant criminal suspects protection for statements made outside their premises where the police had probable cause to arrest the suspect for committing a crime; and 3) defendant’s sexual battery offense met the definition of “crime of violence” under U....

Conviction and sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition is affirmed where: 1) the district court had jurisdiction over the offense as defendant’s possession of a firearm manufactured out of country and ammunition manufactured out of state was sufficient to satisfy 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(g)(1)’s required nexus to interstate commerce; and 2) defendant’s sentence was not unreasonable. Read US v. Schmidt, No. 08-3093 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa....

Labor Day is near, which means that you can start to make plans for an extended weekend and enjoy a day off from work. It is also a time to celebrate the contributions workers have made to building the nation. The federal holiday, which is the first Monday of September, is marked by closed courts, schools, and workplaces. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is “dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers....

I recently received an email from our FindLaw digital marketing expert, who helps us figure out what kind of information our readers are looking for. He discovered something that a few of us had always suspected, but we never had any numbers to back up: Every month, hundreds of people Google the phrase “hate being a lawyer.” Do You Hate Being a Lawyer? The legal industry is a tough one, there’s no doubt about that....

Sometimes it feels good to let your personality shine through for everyone else on the road to see. And at other times, a stick in the mud working for the government wants to tell you what you can and can’t do. Just suck it up and accept your 710 MZT license plate like every other miserable commuter out there. But a federal judge in California wants everyone to lighten up a bit, as he struck down California Department of Motor Vehicle’s regulations of banning personalized license plates that are “offensive to good taste and decency” on First Amendment grounds....

As President Trump’s newest SCOTUS nomination is expected to be announced today, it seems like a good time to look back at some of the most contentious, and worst, Supreme Court justice nominations and hearings throughout history. As IU Law professor and legal scholar Charles Gardner Geyh, discussing how nominations have been terminally delayed several times before President Trump ever even considered a run at the Presidency, explained: Here are five of the toughest nomination fights that might make you wish you could un-ring the bell (again, for some of you readers out there) in some cases, that is....

We read so many denials of petitions for writ of habeas corpus, that when we come across one that reverses a denial of a petition, our ears perk up. But when a circuit panel votes to rehear the case en banc, then we are all ears. Here’s a breakdown on the latest rehearing en banc granted by the Sixth Circuit. Procedural Background Thomas Hill was tried before a jury, and convicted, for armed robbery and car jacking in 2007, and was sentenced to twenty to forty years concurrently....

The “Heckler’s Veto” isn’t just a vestige from your constitutional law class. It’s alive and well – so much so that the Sixth Circuit brought it back into the spotlight in a case about unruly mobs, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. Dearborn, Michigan boasts a significant Arab-American population. Naturally, it has held a three-day Arab International Festival every year from 1995 to 2012. A Christian group, Bible Believers, came to preach there in 2011....

Judgment against a nonprofit organization’s suit against its insurer for denying coverage in litigation with a tobacco firm affirmed Am. Legacy Found., RP v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, PA, 09-3336, involved a nonprofit organization’s suit against its insurer for expenses incurred in defending against a tobacco company in an underlying suit related to the series of ads branded “the truth (TM)”, for which the insurance company denied coverage....

Arizona can’t deny driver’s licenses to so-called “dreamers,” young, undocumented immigrants with work permits and protection from deportation, but not legal status. Those dreamers (whose name comes from the failed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) are noncitizens who were brought to the United States by their parents. Under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, such dreamers are entitled to stay and work in the country, and given documentation to help them do so....

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the appeal from a lower court’s ruling – that an Arkansas school choice law violates the Equal Protection Clause – is moot due to the General Assembly’s enactment of a new school choice law. The court held the case was rendered moot due to the enactment of the Public School Choice Act of 2013, which repealed the former school choice law in its entirety....

Being behind on bar prep can feel incredibly overwhelming, but no matter how far behind you are, you still have a chance. Even the most woefully unprepared law grads have managed to sit for and pass even the California bar. The schedules set by most bar review courses are nearly impossible to fully keep up with, even though keeping with the course’s pace ensures that you’ll get through the material that was specifically designed to help exam-takers pass the bar....

The foreclosure crisis hit Cleveland particularly hard. Between 2000 and 2008, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, (where Cleveland is located), recorded approximately 80,000 foreclosures. In 2007, County Treasurer Jim Rokakis described the city as “the epicenter of the mortgage meltdown in America.” Cleveland responded in the classic American fashion: With lawsuits. This week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal court could have granted Chase Bank’s request to block the city’s claims....

When it comes to attorney discipline, lawyers do not want to get caught straddling the fence. Bad things can happen there. We’re not talking about the line between ethical and unethical conduct. Good attorneys know to stay far away from that line. The fence is between jurisdictions, like Maryland and Washington D.C. Lots of lawyers practice in both jurisdictions, and it can make a big difference where you fall in attorney discipline....

If tradition counts for anything, you might want to stay home behind locked doors on the night of Thursday, Aug. 15. But that’s a big if. Thursday, Aug. 15, is the date of the next full moon in the U.S. and Europe — and you’ve no doubt heard that full moons are responsible for an escalation of looney behavior, including an increase in crime. After all, there’s no shortage of evidence that police and emergency-medical personnel consider full moons to be their busiest times....

Sedition is extraordinarily difficult to prove. It’s been nearly three decades since federal prosecutors have gotten a conviction on the charge. So, now that the Department of Justice has charged individuals in two far-right organizations with seditious conspiracy in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, it sends a serious message. To prove sedition, prosecutors need to show that the defendants intended to overthrow the government by force....