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It’s a sad day for the legal community in Chicago. Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles was fatally shot outside his home in Chicago’s South Side this morning. Judge Myles was killed in what appears to have been a robbery attempt gone awry. A woman he was with was shot in the leg and hospitalized. Myles, 66, had been involved in adjudicating several high-profile cases during his years on the bench, including the trial of William Balfour, who was convicted for killing several of Jennifer Hudson’s relatives....

Not all drug wars take place on the streets. Some spill over into the courts. In the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a long-fought battle over marijuana is coming back to the forefront. The Hemp Industries Association is challenging a rule by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that outlaws the marijuana derivate “cannabidiol.” It is a feud that dates back so many administrations and generations ago, like the Hatfields and the McCoys, that some have forgotten how it started....

Sometimes you just want a date on Valentine’s Day. You don’t want the relationship or the emotional attachment. A hot make-out session and a little company are just enough to take your mind off work (and make you feel like less of a loser). The problem with this scenario is that it never works. Someone inevitably gets attached and parlays the one-time date into something else. But what if you could change that?...

O. Joseph Boeckmann, a former Arkansas judge, dragged the judiciary to a new low. Eclipsing the recent judicial downfall of Alex Kozinski, Boeckmann was sentenced to five years in prison for granting leniency to defendants in exchange for sexual favors. He pleaded guilty to charges that included corrupting his judicial office, wire fraud, and witness tampering. As often occurs in plea bargains, the former judge received a much lighter sentence than he faced....

Hipster eyeglasses are increasingly the focus of criticism in some courthouses, as defendants don non-prescription spectacles to make a statement for jurors. But it’s not so much a fashion statement, The Washington Post reports: It’s strategy. “Those glasses are influencing the jury, trying to make them think they’re Boy Scouts or something,” one woman complained to the Post, after all five of her grandson’s accused killers showed up at trial wearing spectacles....

Defendant’s petition for habeas relief is denied as the parole board’s decision to deny parole was supported by evidence that defendant might revert to his prior drug use and become a danger to public safety if he is released without firm, verifiable parole plans. Read In re Cerny, No. A122964 [PDF] Read In re Cerny, No. A122964 [HTML] Filed November 4, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Siggins Counsel For Appellant: Benjamin Ramos...

Is the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals responsible for blocking the efforts of Guantanamo Bay detainees to win their cases? According to a study by Seton Hall Law School, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has repeatedly ordered lower court judges to take a certain view of the evidence provided by the government in justifying the continued imprisonment of the detainees. In fact, the report went on further to say that a clear pattern has emerged, showing that even when a Guantanamo detainee prevails in the district court, the decision inevitably gets overturned by the D....

It’s hard to say that Harvard is being dumb. But it is dumb to screen out students based on likability, isn’t it? That’s like high school popularity contest dumb. According to a lawsuit based on extensive research, however, Harvard lowered the number of Asian-American admittees by giving them lower ratings for likability and other personality traits. Low Likability It’s not so surprising that Asian-Americans, as a group, scored the highest on academics in a review of more than 160,000 applicants....

I don’t know about you, but if I had just led police on a multistate chase, only stopped after spike strips were deployed, and was facing drunk driving charges, I might be tempted to use an alias. Maybe I might even use a famous person’s name. Mind you, I’d probably go for a less recognizable famous person, like Brian Wilson, or, say, John Krasinski. I don’t think I’d be inclined to use the name of the former First Lady, senator from New York, Secretary of State, and, most recently, presidential candidate....

Mixed Martial Arts competitions have been increasing in popularity for some time now. It is billed and sold as the ultimate fighting competition as there are no padded boxing gloves, and fewer rules than in any other fighting competition. However, like most other sports, performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and other substances are banned from use by competitors. Mark Hunt, a prominent, well liked, and successful MMA fighter was recently at the center of a controversy because his opponent had been caught using PEDs....

Minorities are definitely in the minority of general counsel, according to a new report. The Minority Counsel Corporation Association says barely 11 percent of general counsel are minorities. That is slightly better than the statistics for minority partners in law firms, but worse than the percentage of minority attorneys altogether. The statistics show that things are getting better at the lower levels of the law, but not at the top. So what else is new?...

New regulations adopted in New York state are set to allow pet owners to be buried with their pets. Late New Yorker Joey Ramone would not have approved. Nevertheless, the regulations are set to take effect next month. What do they allow, and what made New York legislators consider allowing human remains in pet cemeteries in the first place? Under the new regulations, cremated human remains will be allowed to be interred alongside the remains of pets in licensed New York pet cemeteries, reports the New York Daily News....

Erick Williamson was finally vindicated after he was found not guilty of breaking Virginia’s indecent exposure law. A jury acquitted Williamson, 29, who earned a nickname in Fairfax County as “The Naked Guy” last year when he was busted for being in the buff in his own home, the Associated Press reports. As previously discussed, a judge convicted Williamson of indecent exposure for spending spent several hours naked in his Springfield home packing up belongings....

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the Equifax data debacle probably helped many corporate attorneys to reprioritize. The first order of business, after the colossal failure was announced, was for the company to get new leadership. Mark Feidler, a board member, has taken over for outgoing CEO Richard Smith. The next order of business, assuming the general counsel still has a job, should be to rebuild trust. That may be more important than rebuilding cybersecurity....

Despite not being a selfie at all, so-called “ballot selfies” are now legal in New Hampshire. A federal judge struck down the state’s ban on posting photographs of filled-out voting ballots, which are obviously not the face of the person taking the picture. The judge overturned the law on free speech grounds, which apparently means everyone is free to call any old photo a “selfie” these days. No Sense of Selfie New Hampshire passed the law in 2014, which prohibited a voter from “taking a digital image or photograph of his or her marked ballot and distributing or sharing the image via social media or by any other means....

An alleged Oregon pot farmer was busted after cops noticed a neat (g)row of plants on Google Earth – and they weren’t Douglas Firs. Curtis W. Croft was legally allowed to grow up to 30 marijuana plants for medical purposes, but the cops found 94 plants when they raided his property. You give ’em an inch and they want grow a mile. But is it OK for an arrest to come not through a raid or a tip, but through satellite imagery provided by Google Earth?...

In Payne v. Salazar, No. 09-5291, an action alleging retaliation in violation of Title VII, the court affirmed in part the dismissal of the action for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, holding that the district court properly held that plaintiff failed to exhaust one of her claims. However, the court reversed in part on the ground that an employee’s right to trial de novo – whether her employer is the federal government or a private company – means that she is entitled to a plenary trial of whatever claims she brings to court, and it does not mean that she must sue on claims she has no interest in pursuing....

Union disputes. Protests with picket signs. A labor complaint filed with the state. This has to be something big, some terrible labor law violation, right? Nope. The San Francisco Superior Court simply decided to enforce its long-standing, laxly enforced 1996 dress code. No flip flops, no beach attire, and no gym clothes. Guys in ties, gals in something business-y. According to Robyn Hagan Cain at Racked SF, back in December, court employees received a memo reminding them of the 1996 dress code....

Just because you’re an attorney doesn’t mean you should file a lawsuit every time someone infuriates you. It just makes you look ridiculous. And it makes the rest of us look like greedy, obnoxious slime balls. The following lawyers had to learn this lesson the hard way. Their lawsuits – most of which were filed pro se – have been forever immortalized on the Internet for future generations to read. Google them, and details about the following legal missteps are amongst the first things you see....

Parolees are required to meet wherever and whenever their parole officer tells them. The head of the city’s parole department can indeed ask all 25-30 paroled sex offenders to meet at city hall for the designated hours. Whether or not a meeting of the town’s paroled sex offenders is a good idea or not is debatable for a variety of reasons. What’s on the Agenda? If one is trying to tamp down a population, organizing a meeting for them to share thoughts and best practices isn’t exactly a great idea....