Posts

Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals gave a group of military chaplains another chance to pursue their 13-year-old discrimination case against the U.S. Navy, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Navy maintains a Chaplain Corps of commissioned Naval officers who have the “responsibility … to provide for the free exercise of religion” for all members of the Navy and their families. Chaplains perform a “unique” role, serving both “as clergy or … professional representatives of a particular religious denomination and as … commissioned naval officers....

Thinking about combating those high wedding costs? Steal some food! Unfortunately, their arrest meant that they were unable to attend their own wedding reception. Though, it does mean that they might be spending some quality time together defending against the criminal charges. Phillips and Lurch were married on August 18th. Their wedding reception was set for 5:30 p.m. last Saturday in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania, according to the Centre Daily Times....

If you’re not exactly sure what would possess a man to bark at a police dog, Ryan Stephens has an answer for you: The dog started it. Unfortunately for Mr. Stephens, that answer wasn’t good enough. He was cited for a misdemeanor after barking at Timber the police dog. Officer Bradley Walker was investigating a car crash near a Mason, Ohio pub early in the morning when Timber the police dog began barking in the back of the cruiser....

Defendant’s murder conviction is affirmed where the use of defendant’s history of domestic violence at trial did not violate the constitutional prohibition against the ex post facto application of laws; but defendant’s sentence is vacated where the trial court erred in imposing a seven year mid-term. Read People v. Flores, No. B204561 Appellate Information Filed August 19, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Rubin Counsel For Appellant: Jeralyn Keller, Pasadena, CA...

Conviction of co-defendant for murder is reversed as the trial court’s jury instruction was prejudicial error as an aider and abettor may be found guilty of lesser homicide-related offenses than those the actual perpetrator committed. Read People v. Nero, No. B206799 [HTML] Read People v. Nero, No. B206799 [PDF] Appellate Information Filed January 26, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Aldrich Counsel For Appellant: Brett Harding Duxbury, Matthew Alger For Appellee: Edmund G....

Court of Appeals judgment is reversed where the absence of a constitutional or statutory right to jury trial under the juvenile law does not, under Apprendi, preclude the use of a prior juvenile adjudication of criminal misconduct to enhance the maximum sentence for a subsequent adult felony offense by the same person under California’s Three Strikes law. Read People v. Nguyen, No. S154847 in PDF Read People v. Nguyen, No. S154847 in HTML...

In a prosecution of defendant for grand theft and securities crimes, trial court’s admission of agreements executed by individuals named in dismissed counts is affirmed where: 1) the documents were authenticated by their content and by circumstantial evidence and their use did not violate the hearsay rule; 2) with respect to Evidence Code section 352, defendant did not raise an objection to the documents based on that provision; 3) even if the documents were improperly admitted, the evidence supporting the charges was so overwhelming that the use of the documents added little to the prosecution’s case and any error was harmless; 4) with respect to alleged prosecutorial misconduct, it resulted from a misstatement and had no impact on the verdict; and 5) trial court did not err in its Pritchess review....

Vinod Kholsa, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, and a Silicon Valley billionaire, just lost in court again. Kholsa isn’t losing in court on anything tech related, but rather, he is losing his private beach. The California Court of Appeal denied Kholsa’s appeal and ordered the beach-restricting-billionaire to reopen public access. The beach in question is called Martins Beach, which is located just south of Half Moon Bay, which is about 30 minutes south of San Francisco along the Pacific coast....

To hear Bill Gurley tell the story about inside the boardroom, it sounds like venture capitalists are afraid. They tip-toe around the conference table, trying to avoid the elephant in the room. They don’t want to ask the founders to, gulp, “perform financially.” “Our business has gotten super competitive,” Gurley said at a technology conference. “What the venture capitalist is afraid of is losing the next big one.” Fiduciary Responsibility Speaking to bankers at the Goldman Sachs Internet and Technology Conference, Gurley said Silicon Valley board rooms sound like applause....

Pittsburgh Steelers running backs coach Kirby Wilson’s fire-related injuries will keep him away from Sunday’s wild-card game against the Denver Broncos. Wilson was burned after a fire broke out at his home at around 3 a.m. in the Seven Fields suburb of Pittsburgh. Firefighters say the fire started in the kitchen. Wilson suffered “moderate to severe” burns, reports the AP. The injuries are not life threatening, though the 50-year-old coach was hospitalized....

Apparently someone in Lincoln, Nebraska thinks that you can exchange rabbits. The man allegedly stole a bunny from a pet store and left a jackrabbit in its place. Police have arrested Michael Stiles, 39, who is accused of stealing the rabbit. However it seems that Stiles has pulled off a bit of a David Copperfield act: the rabbit has disappeared, the Journal Star reports. Apparently tracking down Michael Stiles wasn’t all that difficult....

When a call comes in requesting an employment reference, employers often say too little out of fear of lawsuits. To make matters worse, gone are the days of writing your worst employee a glowing reference, a la Bartleby, the Scrivener, so you don’t have to feel guilty about kicking them to the curb for poor performance. Believe it or not, providing a good reference for a bad employee can get you sued....

In plaintiff’s patent infringement suit against defendant involving patents directed to medical instruments that employ ultrasonic energy to cut and coagulate vessels in surgery, district court’s dismissal of the suit is affirmed as the plaintiff failed to prove ownership of the asserted patents and thus lacked standing to sue. Read Tyco Healthcare Group LP v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., No. 08-1269 Appellate Information Appeal from: United States District Court for the District of Connecticut...

If you have your sights set on being the next great lawyer shark, what law school should you go to? Sure everyone’s heard of Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia, but are they great at everything? Sometimes, it turns out they’re not, though they’re definitely good for getting a BigLaw job. Perhaps you want to be a shark in a particular field, like trial work or public interest law. As it turns out, when you want to specialize, or if you’re looking to sharpen a particular skill, the T14 may not always be the best....

The Evergreen State just got a little greener, at least for lawyers. The Washington State Bar Association gave attorneys the, ahem, green light to use weed and operate marijuana-related businesses, just three years after Washington voters legalized recreational use. This makes Washington the first state to not only allow attorney recreational use of weed but to also allow lawyers to go ahead and open their own pot shops, farms, or other businesses....

For attorneys facing financial duress, the temptation to touch client funds held in trust is tamped down easily thanks to ethics rules. However, when ethics aren’t enough and more serious transgressions have occurred, attorneys can face serious criminal charges. Just ask the Ohio attorney who was recently sentenced to serve a year in jail for more than just mishandling client funds. In addition to the actual prison term, he was also suspended from practice for one to two years by the Ohio bar, despite one dissenting judge on the Ohio Supreme Court believing the suspension should have, minimally, been indefinite, as the misconduct actually warranted disbarment....

Move over adequately clothed superheroes, Thong Cape Scooter Man is here, and the powerful sight of his underwear-based get-up is totally legal! Wisconsin’s own partially paunchy powerhouse narrowly escaped defeat by his arch-nemesis, the Madison Police Department, after reports from a local elementary school that Thong Cape Scooter Man was spotted by students in his iconic thong of justice, The Associated Press reports. Thong Cape Scooter Man (TCSM to his fans) may have turned some heads with his cocky demeanor and garish wardrobe, but he’s flying right below breaking the law....

Are we going big brother on guns? Should we? Does the Second Amendment right to bear arms guarantee a right to bear arms that are not tech-locked against a particular user? Questions like these are at the very heart of the case of Pena v. Lindley, a gun safety lawsuit that’s been many years in the making but now is finally closing in on the issue of how America regards guns....

The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Suggestions. They’re non-binding. In the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, they’re not even presumptively reasonable. Judges are permitted to deviate from the Guidelines when sentencing criminal defendants, and an appellate court will typically uphold a lesser sentence as long as the judge explains her reasoning for deviating from the Guidelines. Gregory Terrell pleaded guilty to unlawful possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base....

A Utah man was arrested for pointing a loaded rifle at his own daughter after a game of “Battleship” apparently didn’t go his way. Utah County Sheriff’s deputies arrested 68-year-old John Valenzuela after receiving a 911 call from the man’s 17-year-old daughter, Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV reports. Though the daughter managed to dial 911, she was reportedly not able to speak with dispatchers. How were authorities able to find her?...