October 20, 2010
October 20, 2010 Computer Expert Pleads Guilty to Hacker Stock Scheme (Bloomberg)
Social Media are Affecting the Way We Hear About Death: Police Grapple With Issue
On social media bad news spreads quickly.
When off-duty Baltimore Police Detective Brian Stevenson was killed Saturday night after being struck in the head by a piece of concrete, word spread quickly through police circles and spilled onto Facebook, where the officer’s young daughter learned of his death before relatives could break it to her in person.
See complete article by Justin Fenton in the October 20, Baltimore Sun.
Leading Executives in the Legal Research Industry Join Bloomberg Law
Leading Executives in the Legal Research Industry Join Bloomberg Law
Lou Andreozzi and Larry D. Thompson to Lead Expansion of Bloomberg’s Web-Based Legal Platform
New York, October 18, 2010 – Bloomberg today announced that Lou Andreozzi has joined the Company as chairman of Bloomberg Law and Larry D. Thompson, PhD, has joined as chief operating officer. Andreozzi and Thompson will play key leadership roles in the growth of Bloomberg Law, the innovative real-time legal research system from the world leader in data and information services.
Are Federal Judges Cutting Corners to Hire Clerks Early?
The system for placing them with federal judges is breaking down.
Karen Sloan National Law Journal
October 18, 2010
New York: Report of Preliminary Impact of 2009 Rockefeller Drug Law Reform
October 2009 – September 2010.
Issued October 2010
New York State fully implemented changes to its drug laws on October 7, 2009. This report provides a preliminary update of the impact during the first year. More comprehensive reports will be issued in the coming months. The preliminary review shows that because of the drug law changes:
Findlaw Case Summaries: Criminal Law and Procedure 42
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw
October 11-15 2010.
United States First Circuit, 10/11/2010
US v. Brown
Defendant’s conviction for possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute is affirmed where: 1) although the district court’s factual findings and the inferences made from those findings, which formed the basis of its conclusion that reasonable suspicion existed to stop a car, are not compelled by the record or by the facts, both are nonetheless reasonable and therefore pass constitutional muster; 2) the affirmance of the district court’s finding that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop the car forecloses the need to address defendant’s challenge to the district court’s alternate conclusion that the car was not seized when the officers first approached; and 3) there was no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress evidence without an evidentiary hearing.
United States First Circuit, 10/14/2010
US v. Kinsella
Conviction of defendant for conspiring to possess and distribute oxycodone, possessing oxycodone with intent to distribute, and willfully failing to appear in court as required, as well as a 97-month sentence, are affirmed where: 1) defendant’s claim of multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct is rejected; and 2) the district judge did not clearly err in his drug-quantity calculations.
United States First Circuit, 10/15/2010
Statchen v. Palmer
In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against police officers, claiming that they used excessive force in arresting him for public intoxication and in transporting him from a station house to jail, district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on the basis of qualified immunity is affirmed as the district court had no basis for sending the case to a jury because plaintiff’s own deposition provided no evidence to indicate that the force exerted was unnecessary, or that a reasonable police officer would have thought otherwise. .
Continue reading
Findlaw Case Summaries: Constitutional Law 40
To view the full-text of cases you must sign in to FindLaw.com. All summaries are produced by Findlaw
October 11-15 2010.
United States First Circuit, 10/14/2010
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston v. Seger-Thomschitz
In an art museum’s action for a declaratory judgment to confirm its rightful ownership of a painting, which a sole surviving heir of the painting’s artist claimed that the artist was forced to sell under duress after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, district court’s grant of summary judgment for the museum on statute of limitations grounds is affirmed where: 1) because defendant did not make a demand on the museum more than three years after her causes of action accrued, summary judgment was properly granted on the museum’s limitations defense; 2) defendant has not shown that application of the Massachusetts statute of limitations to the Massachusetts causes of action in this case would cause a significant conflict with, or threat to, the federal interests and policies embodied in section 510(c)(3); and 3) the Massachusetts statute of limitations does not conflict with the federal government’s foreign policy. ..
United States First Circuit, 10/15/2010
Statchen v. Palmer
In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against police officers, claiming that they used excessive force in arresting him for public intoxication and in transporting him from a station house to jail, district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on the basis of qualified immunity is affirmed as the district court had no basis for sending the case to a jury because plaintiff’s own deposition provided no evidence to indicate that the force exerted was unnecessary, or that a reasonable police officer would have thought otherwise.
United States Second Circuit, 10/12/2010
Amore v. Novarro
In a civil rights action alleging a false arrest, a denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is reversed where the district court erred in deciding that it would have been clear to a reasonable officer in defendant’s position that making the arrest was unlawful.
Continue reading
From the Offices of Lesley Ellen Harris
A New Bog:
Those of you who follow this blog will know that I occasionaly post Lesley Harris’s excellent Newsletter The Copyright & News Media Law Newsletter, (latest issue posted below with permission) where she covers a wide range of topics from copyright and licensing to jobs for librarians. Although the Newsletter is by itself an ambitious undertaking, Leslie has now outdone herself by also launching a new blog, Copyrightlaws.com which, as you might expect, is about “copyright, licensing and digital property”. I have been following the blog since she launched it a few months ago: it is a nice complement to her newsletter. I especially like the Questions and Answers feature. You can see the blog at http://copyrightlaws.com.
David Badertscher
U.S. Supreme Court – Recusal
From the Brennan Center for Justice, Fair Courts E-Lert October 15, 2010:
Justice Elena Kagan’s decision to recuse herself in 25 of the cases the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear continues to inspire discussion about judicial disqualification. A New York Times editorial praises Justice Kagan’s decision, but questions the credibility of a judicial system that relies on voluntary recusal. The editorial recounts two recent examples – Justice Antonin Scalia’s decision not to disqualify himself from a case involving then-Vice President Cheney, with whom the Justice socialized, and Caperton v. Massey, the 2009 landmark recusal case – in which unclear recusal guidelines cast doubt on judicial impartiality. Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is currently pushing legislation to allow retired Supreme Court justices to return to the bench if a current justice must recuse, but the Times editorial contends a more vigorous disqualification process is necessary. Meanwhile, another Times editorial argues that Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife should be required to disclose donors to the conservative nonprofit organization she leads so that Justice Thomas can “comply with a fundamental ethical and legal requirement to “disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” A separate Times article reports that Mrs. Thomas – who recently appeared at a large Tea Party convention – is playing “the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court.”
Justice Thomas and His Wife, New York Times, October 12, 2010; Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues, New York Times, Jackie Calmes, October 8, 2010; Recusals and the Court, New York Times, October 7, 2010.
U.S. Justice Department is Continuing its Anti Corruption Campaign
In the October 15, 2010 Wall Street Journal, Dionne Searcey reports that “after numerous record-shattering fines and executive prosecutions in recent years, the government’s crackdown on violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act shows no signs of slowing.
So far this year, the U.S. Justice Department has carried out a dozen prosecutions, after 19 prosecutions in 2009. That doesn’t include civil cases brought under the law by the Securities and Exchange Commission.” To see Ms. Searcey’s complete article, go to:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704634104575552583836621938.html?mod=dist_smartb