Posts

Defendant’s firearm possession conviction is affirmed where defendant’s voluntary statement that he was publicly drinking in violation of local law tipped the balance from providing a mere hunch to articulable suspicion of possible ongoing criminal wrongdoing, giving an officer reasonable suspicion to search him. Read US v. Jones, No. 07-3025 Appellate Information Argued September 14, 2009 Decided October 23, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Rogers Counsel For Appellant: Dennis M. Hart, Washington, DC...

Subornation of perjury is a fancy legal name for inducing someone else to lie under oath, and then that person, when called as a witness, goes through with the lie. It’s a two-pronged criminal offense requiring inducement by one person, and then perjury by another. There are some defenses to the charge, but if it sticks, federal subornation of perjury is punishable by fines up to $2,000 as well as up to five years in prison; state charges generally carry a year or less in prison....

We’ve all had that dream – you know, the one where you think you’re getting your last 40 bucks from the ATM, only the balance on your receipt has few more digits and commas than you expected. And that little yellow card from Monopoly flashes before your eyes: BANK ERROR IN YOUR FAVOR. Now imagine the nightmare version of that, where all those digits are in red, and you owe the bank trillions....

A “banana gun” was cause of a Colorado felony arrest for allegedly pointing the intimidating fruit at officers. Nathen Rolf Channing, 27, was arrested for felony menacing near Grand Junction, Colorado, for allegedly drawing and pointing a banana at officers “in the same manner someone would draw a standard handgun from a concealed holster,” reports Denver’s KUSA. Channing claims that he was simply joking, but the cops didn’t seem amused....

In No Country for Old Men, a man-on-the-run holds up a beer bottle to wave himself by a sleepy guard at the Mexico border. In Eric Conn’s story about being a lawyer-on-the-lam, he used a puppy. Conn fled the U.S. after being convicted of a half-billion dollar fraud, and he thought a dog could help him get past border security. “The little guy was not exactly Rin Tin Tin, but I thought almost everyone loves puppies,” he told a hometown paper....

Amusement Park’s Erection is Rudely Interrupted by City-Ordered Demolition Naked models. Sex technique workshops. Giant plastic replicas of genitals. A typical Saturday night at Charlie Sheen’s house circa 1997? No, we’re talking about a sex-themed amusement park in China that was ordered torn down before construction could be completed. Think of Love Land as China’s answer to Disneyland, if the question was “How can we make a lewd and wildly unpopular version of Disneyland?...

A bathroom brawl between San Francisco 49ers fans at the team’s new stadium this past Sunday sent two fans to the hospital and two others to the county jail. The melee involving four men wearing 49ers apparel was captured on camera by a bystander whose relative later uploaded the video to YouTube, reports the San Jose Mercury News. What was the spark that ignited the Levi’s Stadium brawl? According to the man who uploaded the video, the fight began when one man cut in front of another in line for a bathroom stall....

In plaintiff’s action against defendant-insurer seeking a defense on behalf of its insureds in the underlying accident between a trucker and a pedestrian at a construction site, summary judgment and a stipulated judgment that concluded, as a matter of law, that the trucker’s insurers did not owe a duty to defend the developer/general contractor/grading contractor under any vicarious liability theory is reversed where: 1) an omnibus clause may make a person or entity that is potentially liable under the peculiar risk doctrine an “uninsured,” and thereby entitled to a defense pursuant to the insurance policy; and 2) under the peculiar risk doctrine, one may be held vicariously liable if he hires an independent contractor to do work that is likely to create a peculiar risk of harm to others unless special precautions are taken....

After being married to Glory Johnson for only 28 days, Brittney Griner recently filed court documents to end their marriage. Brittney Griner, a WNBA player, filed for an annulment of her short marriage to fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson on the basis of fraud and duress. Griner claims that Johnson’s threats rushed and pressured Griner into the marriage. The annulment comes as a surprise because Johnson just announced that she is pregnant with the couple’s first child....

How many ridiculous, outdated, or otherwise unless laws remain on the books in any given state? Here in the golden-est of states, they may still be legion. But if California State Sen. Kevin de León is successful, the last vestiges of the one of the most troubling, Proposition 187, won’t be one of them. Background For those now practicing who are too young to remember, or for any who just prefer to forget, Prop 187 was passed with the support of then-Gov....

Look, far be it from me to judge what other people want to do with their hair. Me? I want whoever’s got the scissors to have 20/20 vision. But others, like Joel Nixon’s loyal clients, don’t mind a little diminished eyesight. They call him “The Blind Barber,” and, until 2012, they found him at Tony’s Barber Shop in Norton, Massachusetts. Nixon was fired two years ago, and filed a discrimination claim against the shop and its owner, Tony Morales....

Intellectual property law can be confusing – there are patents and trademarks and copyrights, all covering different kinds of ideas and inventions, and all with different legal standards for invoking that protection. For example, under current U.S. copyright law, registration of a work with the Copyright Office is not a prerequisite for copyright protection. But the most important part of copyright protections is proving that you came up with an original work first....

Study after study on implicit bias has shown that, when it comes down to it, we’re all racists. Some studies use word association and split-second reactions to show that people are subconsciously racist – that is, they tend to associate positive words with Caucasians, and negative words with African Americans. Others test the confirmation bias – the tendency to notice facts that confirm your inherent biases. The Nextions leadership consulting firm wanted to test this latter bias in a law firm setting, so they sent out a mistake-ridden research memo to law firm partners for review....

You gotta fight! For your right! To par-tay! And by fight, I mean bite off the tip of a cop’s finger. Three years ago, Rafael Pichardo was enjoying a night out at an Atlantic City casino when an off-duty Atlantic City police officer (working security, of course), requested that he retrieve something that he had knocked over. Refusing, Pichardo was then asked to leave. That’s when the rest of the Atlantic City police department was called in, according to New Jersey Newsroom....

A deaf man has sued for his right to have an interpreter at a nudist festival. New York resident and deaf nudist Tom Willard filed suit after the Empire Haven Nudist Park refused his request to have a sign language interpreter at one of their festivals. Empire Haven Nudist Park offers several workshops during their festival. Willard wanted an interpreter present so he could understand what was going on. He even offered to pay for the interpreter himself if Empire Haven discounted his entry into the festival and registration fees, The Post-Standard reports....

Sometimes love just doesn’t work out. Other times you need to give a relationship a second chance to grow. But if it still isn’t playing out right, then you can be like Steven Silverstein and sue your ex-fiancée. The 29-year-old telecommunications executive met his would-be bride, Kendra Platt-Lee, when she was working as a flight attendant. They started dating in 2008 and within a year they were engaged, the New York Post reports....

As environmentally-conscious consumers, we always make sure to bring our reusable bags to the grocery store. Despite our save-the-Earth ways, plastic grocery bags are apparently big business - just ask Dow Chemical Co., winner of a $61.7 million verdict related to its plastic grocery bag inventions. Upheld on appeal by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, the verdict was handed down against Nova Chemicals Corp. in 2010 because the Canadian company’s “Surpass plastic” infringed two of Dow’s patents on polymers that are thinner and stronger than conventional plastic....

Last week, we lost Helen Thomas, a journalist who broke down barriers for women in journalism. To say she was a member of the White House Press corps is an understatement; The New York Times notes, she was regarded as the dean of the White House briefing room, the “unofficial but undisputed head of the press corps.” Covering eleven U.S. presidents’ administrations, Helen Thomas saw many mistakes in the White House....

An adolescent prank has turned into a murder charge for an Oklahoma man who allegedly killed his stepfather with an “atomic wedgie.” Brad Lee Davis, 33, an ex-Marine, is accused of stretching the back of his 58-year-old stepfather’s underwear so far that it covered the man’s face and neck, suffocating him, Reuters reports. Does this wedgie-gone-wrong really justify a murder charge? According to an arrest affidavit for Davis, he and stepfather Denver St....

In an appeal from an order declaring a minor a ward of the court, the order is affirmed where: 1) there was a rational basis for Welfare and Institutions Code section 790’s distinction between juvenile misdemeanants and felons; and 2) a probation condition prohibiting the minor from associating with other persons on probation was not unconstitutionally overbroad. Read In re Spencer S., No. G040560 Appellate Information Filed August 21, 2009...