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Yes on 25, Citizens for an On-Time Budget v. Superior Court, C065707, concerned plaintiffs’ petition for a peremptory writ of mandate seeking to compel the superior court to vacate its judgment ordering revision of the ballot title and summary and the ballot label for Proposition 25 prepared by the Attorney General. People v. Ramirez, B218413, concerned a challenge to defendant’s convictions for murder and firearm offenses. In reversing with respect to the murder conviction, the court held that the evidence against defendant was not so overwhelming as to show there is no reasonable probability that he would have obtained a more favorable result if the jury had been instructed concerning voluntary manslaughter on a heat of passion theory....

A Texas sheriff’s deputy is facing some charges of his own after allegedly tricking sex offenders into posing for nude photographs. One man recently released from prison reported that when he went to register as a sex offender with the Wise County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Chad Hightower informed him of a new state law that required all sex offenders to be photographed in the nude. The deputy took the man into a bathroom, where he stripped naked and had photographs taken from all sides, reports the Wise County Messenger....

Harris Faulkner, the toy hamster, is no longer going to be sold thanks to Harris Faulkner, the Fox news anchor that sued for $5 million because Hasbro made a toy that accidently shared the same name as … what was her name again? The popular toy was sold as part of the Littlest Pet Shop line of toys, where adorable little plastic animals are designed for children to obsess over until their parents buy them....

People say there are a lot of health benefits associated with consuming ginger. From digestion and nausea to inflammation and heart health, it’s touted as a wonder root. Maybe that’s why some people drink ginger ale, whether on its own or mixed with whiskey. But what if there’s no real ginger in ginger ale? One man is heading a class action suit against Dr. Pepper, claiming their ginger ale doesn’t actually contain ginger, despite labeling that says otherwise....

Lawyers who leave government service aren’t necessarily going to BigLaw anymore; many are moving to small boutique firms instead. For a long time big corporate firms were the next career step for government attorneys looking to get out of politics. But the economy hasn’t just affected recent grads. It’s also decreased profits for large firms which makes them less attractive, reports the ABA Journal. Now it’s the smaller firms that have the perks to attract top talent....

Normally, if you show up on your attorney’s doorstep with a dead body, things aren’t going to turn out well. But they didn’t end up too badly for Bokeelia resident John Marshall, who delivered the corpse of his neighbor, whom he had just shot and killed, to the Harris Law Firm in Fort Meyers, Florida in the back of his pickup truck. A grand jury declined to indict Marshall, finding no evidence that he committed a crime....

Lawrence Phillips, former Nebraska Cornhusker, St. Louis Ram, Miami Dolphin, and San Francisco 49er running back was found unresponsive in his jail cell yesterday at Kern Valley State Prison in California. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital and prison officials are investigating his death as a suspected suicide. Phillips was serving a 31-year sentence for various domestic abuse offenses, and had been charged with murdering his prison cellmate in September....

A Tennessee man who stole a semi-truck and a box of frozen chicken was sentenced to 27 years in prison. 51-year-old Felix Hall was pulled over by police in 2012 in a Freightliner big rig that had been reported stolen, according to a Shelby County District Attorney’s office press release. In the truck, police found bolt cutters, a cut lock, and a box of partially frozen chicken breasts that had been stolen from a local Wendy’s restaurant....

A Florida State University junior recruit has been arrested for eating marijuana, allegedly in an attempt to hide it from police during a traffic stop. Nope, the weed was not ingested in brownie or banana bread form. Cinmeon Bowers, 20, widely considered one of the top junior college prospects in the country, allegedly swallowed the weed whole in all its green bud glory. Unfortunately for Bowers, his half-baked plan didn’t pan out too well....

While most law firm holiday parties are hotly anticipated by most employees, it seems like the employees at the Century City law firm Glancy Binkow & Goldberg got more than they bargained for at the 2009 party. The Los Angeles Times reports that a former employee has filed a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit because she alleges that the founding partner Lionel Z. Glancy took his employees to a Los Angeles bikini bar called Fantasy Island after their 2009 holiday party....

Most law schools want the American Bar Association to say whether they should accept the graduate record exam in lieu of the law school admissions test. According to a recent survey of 120 law schools, 61 percent of the respondents said the ABA should make a statement about the GRE. Traditionally, the bar association has approved only the LSAT. “The ABA is the accrediting body of law schools,” said one law school admissions officer in the telephone survey....

For most 1Ls, and even 2Ls and 3Ls, getting cold called is perhaps the most dreaded part of attending class. It’s not that uncommon for students to skip a class if they didn’t do the reading due to the fear of getting cold called. But that’s just a bad idea. That fear isn’t something any law student should let get in the way of attending class. To help law students get over their fear of the Socratic method, below you can find three reasons why you shouldn’t be worrying about getting cold called....

It would be one thing if Afzal Lokhandwala were advertising buckets of KFC as “holy” or posting a sign that said God loves his thighs extra crispy. Instead, Lokhandwala is merely trying to reassure his thousands of Muslim customers that the chicken served at his eight Chicago-area franchises is certified “Halal,” or butchered properly under Islamic law. Which it is – Lokhandwala even registered, at KFC’s suggestion, as a dealer of Halal food products with the Illinois Department of Agriculture....

The lawyer/tipster who set off the Ohio State University football scandal that resulted in Jim Tressel’s ouster and the team’s current probation has been suspended from practicing law for a year. Christopher Cicero made headlines a couple years ago when he reportedly tipped off then-coach Tressel that his players were trading team merchandise for tattoos, reports the Dayton Daily News. However, by tipping off the coach, Cicero violated two provisions of Ohio’s Rules of Professional Conduct, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled....

On April 10, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will be hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of graphic images on cigarette packages. On February 29, a U.S. District Court ruled that the images were unconstitutional. The labels in question include images of a sewn up cadaver and diseased lungs. The district court judge held that the images, which take up 20 percent of the cigarette carton, infringe upon the First Amendment free-speech rights of the tobacco companies....

As a bank robber, the last thing you want to do is make a statement by handing out dollar bills covered in red dye. Maybe Todd J. Kettler was just color-blind or perhaps he thought the crimson cash was normal with the red interior lighting. The bank robber used the cash to pay for services at the Angels Gentlemen’s Club in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Instead of making it rain, he got caught by the cops....

A Florida lottery winner (and registered sex offender) is being sued by his alleged victims. Timothy Poole opted to take about $2.2 million in a lump sum after purchasing a winning Florida Lottery ticket earlier this month. According to Orlando’s WKMG-TV, Poole also is also being sued by two brothers who claim he abused them when they were children. Can these alleged victims get a chunk of Poole’s lotto winnings?...

A ruling permitting surviving spouses of deceased veterans and military retirees to receive Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) payments unreduced by the amount of their reinstated Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) payments is affirmed where the plain language of 38 U.S.C. section 1311(e) unambiguously precludes the DIC-SBP offset of 10 U.S.C. section 1450(c)(1), and partially repeals it so that surviving spouses who receive reinstated DIC by virtue of marrying after age 57 receive their SBP payments unreduced by the amount of their DIC payments....

Prison Employees Put the “Duh” in Florida DOC Florida prisons are in need of some public relations corrections, after employees at three facilities in the state were fired or placed on administrative leave in the last month for using stun guns on kids during “Take Your Children to Work” days. On April 24, Sgt. Walter Schmidt lost his job at Franklin Correctional Institution for using a handheld stun device on visiting kids, once he got their parents’ permission, the St....

As the FBI announced that it would not recommend indicting Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of state on Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit simultaneously ruled that emails kept on private accounts could be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The ruling didn’t touch on Hillary’s emails. Rather, it involved the little-known White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. But the implications for Hillary and other politicians are clear: keeping government records on private servers may not shield them from public scrutiny....