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"High court could hear al-Marri case; U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on similar 'enemy combatant' cases": The Journal Star of Peoria, Illinois has posted online this evening an article that begins, "One of the most controversial legal matters in the ongoing war on terror got its start in Peoria, some seven years after a simple traffic stop. That traffic stop garnered the attention of federal authorities and three months, later, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was arrested at his West Peoria apartment in December 2001, and held as a material witness in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."
"Latest Development in Jones Day Trademark Abuse Case": This post appeared Wednesday at Public Citizen's "Consumer Law & Policy Blog."
In my post about this development from last Friday, I wrote that "the ruling is not yet available online." It's available online now, however, at this link.
"An Empirical Invesigation into Appellate Structure and the Perceived Quality of Appellate Review": Law Professors Jonathan Remy Nash and Rafael I. Pardo have this article in the November 2008 issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review (via "Sentencing Law and Policy").
Only in the Ninth Circuit? The Metropolitan News-Enterprise today contains an article headlined "Ninth Circuit Reverses Sleeping Felon's Firearm Possession Conviction" that begins, "A divided panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday reversed a man's felon-in-possession-of-firearms conviction because he was asleep when police officers found him on a couch in an abandoned apartment with one gun on his lap and another leaning against his leg."
News from earlier this month reminded us that passed-out people are at risk of being turned into a surface for often crude graffiti. And now we learn, courtesy of yesterday's ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, that sleeping felons may be used as a storage site for firearms.
Fortunately, at least two Ninth Circuit judges on the three-judge panel that produced yesterday's ruling were unwilling to see sleeping felons be found guilty of additional federal criminal charges for having been exploited in that manner.
"A backside brouhaha": Today at The Boston Globe's "Brainiac" blog, Christopher Shea has a post that begins, "What, exactly, are the buttocks? The FCC and ABC, Inc., are duking it out over that profound question, which has now reached the federal appeals court for the Second Circuit. The debate has drawn in some of the country's top legal advocates. Seth Waxman, for example, who leads the appellate practice at the elite firm WilmerHale, has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee during Barack Obama's presidential term. But first he will make the bold argument, on behalf of ABC, that the buttocks are not a 'sexual or excretory organ.' Never have been, never will be -- whatever the anatomically illiterate FCC says."
Hmm, that sounds like an appellate brief that I should be posting online here at "How Appealing."
Update: You can access ABC's opening brief on appeal at this link. You can access the FCC's appellate brief in response at this link.
"Mukasey feeling better, checks out of hospital": The Associated Press provides this updated report.
The Washington Post has a news update headlined "Mukasey Released From Hospital."
And The New York Times has a news update headlined "Mukasey Leaves the Hospital."
Given this good news, a possible alternate title for the post immediately below could be "But did she stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?" (access related video at this link).
More information concerning last night's Federalist Society dinner: A longtime reader of this blog emails:
The doctor who happened to be in the audience, and rushed to the podium to treat Mukasey, and went with him in the ambulance to the hospital, is Dr. Lisa Cooper, M.D., an emergency room specialist who is the wife of Matt Cooper. Dr. Cooper practices emergency medicine for a hospital in Houston. Matt Cooper is an associate with Gibbs & Bruns in Houston.According to Matt's law firm bio, he not only is a Harvard Law graduate, but he also served as a captain in the Air Force before law school and clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit after law school. Thanks much to the source of this information for sending it along!
"Gov't: AG doing better after collapse." The Associated Press provides this updated report.
"Lawyers who win public-interest lawsuits are entitled to payment, California Supreme Court rules; Suits that result in important rights being enforced typically target government agencies": Carol J. Williams has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.
You can access yesterday's ruling of the Supreme Court of California at this link.
"Court: Sex-offender law unfairly restrictive." Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko has an article that begins, "A voter-approved law prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park amounts to additional punishment for the offenders' original crimes, a state appeals court has ruled in a case that could affect thousands of parolees."
You can access at this link Wednesday's ruling of California's Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District, Division Three.
"Court overturns 1991 murder conviction of Arizona teen who confessed; 8-year-old's interrogation is similar; Johnathan Doody -- said to have slain nine at a Buddhist temple -- was questioned at length with no adult support; This month, so was a third-grader accused of killing his father and a boarder": Carol J. Williams has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.
And The Arizona Republic reports today that "New trial ordered in 1991 Buddhist temple killings; Court: Admission to 9 murders forced."
My earlier coverage of yesterday's Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.
"Lori Drew didn't create MySpace page used to harass Megan Miers, witness says": This article appears today in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Today in The Los Angeles Times, Scott Glover reports that "Mother saw MySpace plan as clever, witness says; A family friend says she helped Lori Drew create a bogus MySpace profile to 'expose' a teenager who later committed suicide."
And The New York Times reports that "Woman Who Posed as Boy Testifies in Case That Ended in Suicide of 13-Year-Old."
"3 Indicted In Alleged Coverup of D.C. Killing": The Washington Post today contains an article that begins, "Three men at the center of an enduring murder mystery in an elegant Dupont Circle townhouse have been indicted on obstruction of justice charges as police continue to investigate the slaying of Robert Wone, a rising star in Washington's legal community who was fatally stabbed two years ago while staying overnight at the home."
And yesterday evening, "The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times" had a post titled "Bail For Arent Fox Partner Set at $100,000."
"Conservative Federalist Society Can Expect Its Status to Shrink": Robert Barnes has this article today in The Washington Post.
"Mukasey Collapses During Address in Washington; Hospitalized Overnight": The Washington Post provides this news update.
The Associated Press reports that "Mukasey takes get-well call from Bush."
The Los Angeles Times reports today that "Mukasey collapses during speech; The attorney general is hospitalized, his condition unclear."
The Washington Times reports today that "Mukasey collapses during D.C. speech; 'Alert' and talking at hospital."
USA Today reports that "Mukasey falls unconscious during speech."
In The Wall Street Journal, Evan Perez reports that "Attorney General Mukasey Collapses During Speech."
Also today in The Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has an op-ed entitled "Al Qaeda Detainees and Congress's Duty: Habeas corpus hearings could set terrorists free inside the U.S."
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Menachem E. Lifshitz, a former partner at Bernstein, Liebhard & Lifshitz, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of falsifying his 2005 income tax return and paid $4.8 million in back taxes and interest Thursday. In exchange for the guilty plea and payment, Lifshitz will not receive any jail time but has agreed to resign from the bar.
A federal judge has ruled that a Mississippi court, not a federal one, should hear a dispute over a state settlement with MCI in which $14 million in legal fees is at stake and political charges and countercharges have been flying for years. Before last year's statewide elections, the dispute was shaping up as a political and legal battle over a practice in which Mississippi attorneys general hire private lawyers -- often their supporters -- to sue companies on behalf of the state.
Six amici lined up Friday to argue that the 2nd Circuit should reset the calculus on vicarious employer liability for the criminal acts of employees. Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer is responsible for the actions of an employee. But an unusual coalition of organizations, including the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, claim it's time to redress an inequity in the criminal law. The 2nd Circuit panel seemed to offer little encouragement.
Alaska Wilderness case en banc -- and reverses -- it would send another strong message about a changing balance of environmental power on the circuit.
A federal magistrate judge in New York has ruled that a former prosecutor representing herself in a wrongful termination case does not deserve the usual latitude afforded pro se plaintiffs. The judge wrote that M. Cameron Kenny was bound by the decisions of her former counsel when she took over her own case. "Here, the 'incoming counsel' is the plaintiff, who is herself a lawyer. As such, she cannot expect 'the special allowances [courts] sometimes make for pro se litigants,'" he wrote.
A jury on Friday found four people who attempted to arrest former White House adviser Karl Rove during a fundraising appearance on July 25 in Iowa guilty of trespassing. In the citizen's arrest complaint, the defendants accused Rove of felony murder, election fraud and conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States leading to the war in Iraq, as well as treason, sedition and subversive activities.
A radical -- and to many, long overdue -- overhaul of the United Kingdom's bribery and corruption laws looks set to take place following a new report by the Law Commission of England and Wales. The existing U.K. anti-corruption regime, which is largely drawn from three statutes passed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has been heavily criticized for having little impact in policing bribery and corruption at British companies.
A Texas prosecutor who brought indictments last week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a hearing, accusing the judge of giving the defendants special treatment. District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked the judge to recuse himself from the case, which alleges that Cheney's personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, gives him culpability in alleged prisoner abuse.
Lynn Loacker, a member of the policy committee at Heller Ehrman, which recently announced its dissolution, has joined Davis Wright Tremaine as a partner specializing in corporate finance and transactional work. In the past two months, Davis Wright Tremaine has recruited 30 lateral lawyers, including 20 from Heller Ehrman.
A dozen billboards around Georgia that urge citizens to "Get Married, Stay Married" are sponsored not by a church or family-values group but by the Supreme Court of Georgia through its Commission on Children, Marriage and Family Law. Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears said that the 48-foot-wide, 14-foot-tall billboards are one of the few things a jurist can do to battle high crime rates, high divorce rates and low numbers of fathers raising their kids.
There's no rule that says law firms have to buy year-end or holiday gifts for employees, but they certainly are appreciated. Be careful, though, because there can be unintended tax consequences to your employees and the firm as a result of your generosity. Attorney Kelly Phillips Erb discusses what qualifies as taxable gifts that firms will have to report, and also discusses some gifts and perks that are nontaxable alternatives.
In its analysis of legal industry performance for the first three quarters of the year, the Law Firm Group at Citi Private Bank says it has detected some subtle but meaningful shifts -- a few glimmers of sunshine. But there's more pain ahead, say the experts, who describe some specific coping mechanisms for addressing the situation.
The strange tale surrounding the murder of D.C. lawyer Robert Wone continued to unfold last week, with the indictments of an Arent Fox lawyer, his domestic partner, and a close friend on an obstruction-of-justice charge related to Wone's death. According to a police affidavit, Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward, who were in a sexual relationship together, delayed reporting Wone's death to police, altered the crime scene, and lied to investigators about "the true circumstances" of the murder.
Law.com's Legal Technology editor Sean Doherty carries a copy of his data on a laptop when traveling, which he synchronizes with home office computers upon return. In this task, a synchronization tool is sine qua non. Toward this end, Doherty tries out Siber Systems' GoodSync.
McKesson, the largest drug distributor in the U.S., has agreed to pay $350 million to settle a class action alleging it fraudulently hiked the price of more than 400 medications, including Lipitor, ranked by some indices as the world's top-selling drug as of September. A class of consumers and health and welfare funds sued in 2005, alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for allegedly falsely inflating the average wholesale price of the popular prescription medications.
Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy confirmed on Friday that it had let go between seven and eight associates, along with some legal assistants and paralegals. Layoffs in the financial services market, which provides the 220-lawyer firm with many employment immigration matters, precipitated the move. Heading into next year, Chairman Austin Fragomen Jr. says the firm will likely curtail hiring until the cloudy economic forecast clears.
General counsel are often in the background. But Bernard Cassidy will be front and center as the new GC at Tessera. That's because the San Jose, Calif., company lives and dies by licensing and litigating its patents. Last year, Tessera brought in $159 million, or 81 percent of its total revenue, from royalties and licensing. The semiconductor packaging company is currently suing a whole host of companies for patent infringement both in district court and before the International Trade Commission.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore announced sharp cuts in end-of-year associate bonuses in a memo to the firm's staff late Thursday. In an interview with the Am Law Daily, Cravath's presiding partner said the "principal driver is what's happening to our clients. Every day we're seeing them laying off people. Our conclusion was we needed to be as sensitive as we could be." Cravath's memo follows Skadden's announcement last week that it would pay the same base bonuses as 2007.