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Donald Trump got out of thousands of lawsuits as a businessman, and as president he has escaped another one. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed as moot a second travel ban case, which had challenged the President’s first revision of his executive order against mostly Muslim nations. That ban has expired and been replaced by another version. The decision capped an earlier battle with a federal judge, but the same judge has issued an injunction against the President’s third ban....

Scam artists love troubled times. As the coronavirus pandemic has spread, so have the activities of con artists. The first wave of these scams, back in February and March, tended to be snake-oil salesmen hawking products they claimed were effective in treating COVID-19. At the time, the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration singled out seven of them, saying the makers of these products had no evidence to back up their claims....

Defendant’s conviction for illegal reentry into the U.S. is affirmed where, because defendant had not legally left the U.S. on the date of his detention, and he was not entering the U.S. from a foreign country, the official restraint doctrine was inapplicable. Read US v. Ambriz-Ambriz, No. 08-30431 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 13, 2009 Filed November 10, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Callahan Counsel For Appellant: John Rhodes, Johnna Rizza and Stephanie Deboer, Federal Defenders of Montana, Missoula,MT...

It started in 2014 when Sonoku Tagami celebrated “GoTopless Day” by walking half-naked around Chicago. She wore nothing over breasts but body paint, and received a $100 fine for violating a public nudity law. The case could have ended there, but the woman sued, saying she has a right to bare her breasts in public. Now the case is back in the news, and one appeals court judge agrees with her....

A lawsuit accusing Harvard University of ignoring sexual harassment allegations against a popular professor has created an unusually large split among its faculty. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Feb. 8 by three female graduate students in the school’s Anthropology Department, contends that anthropology professor John Comaroff has been sexually harassing students for years. The plaintiffs filed complaints to Harvard’s Title IX office in 2017 and 2019, but they claim that the school didn’t investigate until 2020, when the Harvard Crimson and the Chronicle of Higher Education exposed Comaroff’s misconduct....

A federal appeals court revived a challenge to an Illinois liquor law, but forewarned the plaintiffs their case may not be easy. In LeBamoff Enterprises v. Rauner, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court that had dismissed the plaintiffs’ case with prejudice. The appeals court said the trial judge acted too quickly, noting there are material issues about the reasons for the state statute. The 21st Amendment permits states to regulate liquor sales, the appeals panel said, but they cannot engage in “unlawful economic protectionism....

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that a Bank of America (BofA) dispute over unresolved liabilities stemming from its 2008 Countrywide acquisition should be decided in a New York state court, not the federal court system. The ruling reverses an October 2011 decision from District Judge William Pauley, which yanked the case from the state courts, reports Reuters. Second Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs, writing for a three-judge panel, found that the case fell within the securities exception to both original and appellate federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA)....

‘My way or the highway,’ says the Riverfront Times. That’s how the newspaper describes the situation over traffic fines in the city of Maplewood, a small suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. The city makes drivers pay a bond or go to jail when they’re ticketed. “Pay-to-play” bail is business as usual in many municipal courts, but the cities could have a problem. In Webb v. City of Maplewood, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals says the city may be liable for giving drivers nothing more than a “Hobson’s choice....

If you have credit cards, there’s a good chance that sooner or later you could be a victim of credit card fraud. According to the Federal Trade Commission, credit card fraud has been the most common form of identity theft since 2017 and it is getting worse. The FTC says that the number of reported thefts increased by 15% from the fourth quarter of last year to the first quarter of 2022....

Nadeem v. Holder, No. 08-3829, involved a petition for review of the denial of petitioner’s asylum application. The court of appeals denied the petition on the grounds that 1) the immigration judge’s adverse credibility finding, supported by specific and cogent reasons for disbelief, detailed the discredited information, undermined allegations of past persecution, and provided a proper basis for denying petitioner’s claim for withholding of removal; and 2) petitioner failed to provide sufficient evidence that he would be subject to torture in Pakistan....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action based on defendants’ investigation and prosecution of plaintiffs-teenagers for a crime of which they were innocent (the murder of one of the teens’ sister), partial summary judgment for defendants on a majority of plaintiffs’ claims is reversed in part primarily where: 1) a Fifth Amendment cause of action against the relevant defendants arose when two plaintiffs’ coerced statements were introduced against them during pre-trial proceedings, namely a California law “Dennis H....

In 2018, a district court judge in the Northern District of Texas declared the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” unconstitutional. And not only that, they held that as a result, the entire ACA was invalid. Unsurprisingly, the decision was almost immediately appealed. Almost exactly a year later, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered yet another surprise: It affirmed the decision, at least in part. This might sound like deja vu all over again for those who remember the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v....

In a procedurally complicated case, the Second Circuit was faced with two comparatively simple questions: (1) does the First Amendment right of access apply to civil contempt proceedings?; and (2) does the presumptive right of access require disclosure of certain documents in this case? Background Sharon Dorsett filed a civil rights action against the Nassau County Police Department, on behalf of herself, and the estate of her daughter, alleging that the police department negligently contributed to her daughter’s murder....

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had a fundamental right to marry. So far, the impact of that ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, has largely been confined to similar issues. (A quick review: Does Obergefell mean that state same-sex marriage bans are invalid? Yes, of course. Even Puerto Rico’s? Yes. Does it require states to issue same-sex marriage licenses? Yes. Even if you’re Kim Davis? Yes. Even if you’re in Alabama?...

A decade after being shut down by the SEC, the fraudsters behind the biggest green energy scam in history have finally pled guilty to their green energy and real estate investment Ponzi scheme. Amanda Knorr and Troy Wragg founded the investment company known as Mantria back in 2005 after graduating college together. The company had lofty goals of creating green real estate investment opportunities, unfortunately for their investors, those goals were merely a front for fraud....

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that a petitioner had to demonstrate a combination of ineffective counsel and prejudice to win an appeal to withdraw a guilty plea. Gregory Payne pleaded guilty to four felony charges, including rape and detention of a 17-year-old boy. In light of his prior felony convictions, a state judge sentenced Payne to 50 years in prison. In a collateral proceeding, Payne sought to set aside the plea, arguing that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his lawyer gave him incorrect advice about the sentence he could receive....

In an action challenging the Attorney General’s denial of citizenship to plaintiff, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where plaintiff’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. section 1344 for attempting to execute a fraudulent scheme to obtain money from a bank constituted an “aggravated felony” as defined in 8 U.S.C. section 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) and that conviction for an aggravated felony made one ineligible for naturalization under 8 U.S.C. section 1101(f)(8). Read Ljutica v. Holder, No....

Petition for review of a decision denying Guatemalan native’s application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture is denied where: 1) the IJ did not err in finding that the gang which plaintiff claimed was persecuting her had not attributed an anti-gang political opinion to her, and that she failed to show that the threats she received were on account of an imputed political opinion; and 2) plaintiff failed to show she qualified for relief under the Convention Against Torture as she did not show that it was more likely than not that she would be tortured if she were removed to Guatemala and that the government condoned or acquiesced in the gang members’ threats....

If the Emoluments Clauses “give no rights and provide no remedies,” who can enforce them against the President of the United States? Not states, according to the Fourth Circuit, even if they’re home to properties owned by the president. The court dismissed a suit brought by the attorneys general of Washington, D.C., and Maryland that claimed Donald Trump continues to accept money from state and foreign governments via his Washington hotel and business empire, therefore violating the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the U....

The Fifth Circuit is once again weighing in on an Orleans Parish Criminal District Court’s . . . unusual practices. Last year, the Fifth Circuit told OPCDC judges that they could not indiscriminately arrest criminal defendants for failing to pay fines, a practice which led to calls it was running a “debtor’s prison." Now, the Fifth Circuit is telling OPCDC prosecutors that they cannot issue fake subpoenas and expect absolute immunity....