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Alex Malarkey was just five years old when he was paralyzed in a car accident with his father, Kevin. Alex spent two months in a coma in 2004, and after waking up, allegedly recounted a tale of being taken through the gates of Heaven, meeting angels, and talking to Jesus and the devil before returning to life. Kevin apparently sold the story to Tyndale House Publishers, which published “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” which, to date, has sold over one million copies....

Anonymous sex in the park is so hard to come by these days. A Minnesota man was arrested after he allegedly blindfolded and tied himself to a tree in a park. Apparently, he was waiting for strangers to have sex with him, according to police. Alan Petrusson, 50, was sitting on a sling with his genitals exposed in Wayside Park. His ankles and wrists were tied to a tree, the Coon Rapids Herald reports....

The report is short and sweet, but the (almost) crime is not. Police in the Badger State (Go Bucky!) have seen a new variation on the now common problem of distracted driving and this time, it is not pretty. Hang up and drive? A 54 year-old Wisconsin man is advised by police to hang up his clothes and drive. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the man in question was driving back from a very good day at the Wisconsin State Fair....

A California woman was arrested Sunday after getting stuck in the chimney of a man she had met online and dated briefly. Genoveva Nunez-Figueroa, 30, had to be rescued by firefighters after becoming lodged in the chimney of a home in Thousand Oaks, reports the Los Angeles Times. The homeowner said that he’d met the woman online and gone on several dates with her before recently breaking off the relationship....

You don’t have to be religious to have an epiphany in law school. It can happen almost anywhere, including the internet. Even science fiction characters have epiphanies. Likewise for students in online law school, it can be other worldly. Young Anakin Skywalker said it best: “It’s working! It’s working!” Effective Distance Learning According to researchers, students say online law school delivers. It is more than a success; it is the best for them....

In an action alleging detainee abuse by private military contractors that provided services to the U.S. government at the Abu Ghraib military prison during the war in Iraq, denial of summary judgment to one defendant is reversed where plaintiffs’ tort claims were preempted under the military contractor immunity doctrine. Judgment for the other defendant is affirmed on the same grounds. Read Saleh v. Titan Corp., No. 08-7008 Appellate Information Argued February 10, 2009...

At the ready age of 71, John VanBuskirk graduated from law school. Although he was the oldest student in his class, he was ready to take on the world. When he took the bar exam, however, a rumor started that he had passed. “That’s too bad,” a classmate said. “I really liked the guy.” By “passed,” he thought VanBuskirk had died. Of course, that’s not the story. Old School VanBuskirk passed the Texas state bar exam, adding to the accolades of a lifetime of service....

An underage sex scandal quickly became a billion dollar extortion attempt involving a former federal judge, a retail magnate, and Alan Dershowitz – at least according to Dershowitz himself. The famous lawyer testified under oath last Thursday that Paul Cassell, a former federal judge and current Utah law professor, and Brad Edwards, a Florida lawyer, tried to use him as part of a “criminal conspiracy” to extort one billion dollars....

A Pennsylvania man was arrested after sharing his own mugshot on Facebook. Anthony Lescowitch was a wanted criminal until he shared his wanted photo that was originally posted on the Freeland Police Department’s Facebook page. The “share” gave police a direct link to Lescowitch’s Facebook page and he was later arrested, the Associated Press reports. While Facebook posts can get you in trouble at work, how can they get you arrested?...

In plaintiffs’ class action lawsuit against a manufacturer of certain device used by dentists under the unfair competition law (UCL) and for breach of express warranty, trial court’s order decertifying the class of dentists is reversed where: 1) Tobacco II has dispatched the incorrect reasoning of the trial court that, under Proposition 64, each class member must establish standing, thereby requiring the court to delve into individual proof of material, reliance and resulting damage; 2) the order decertifying the class as to the breach of express warranty claims was improper because it was rendered in the absence of new law or evidence, and substantively, and the order was contrary to law because it improperly grafted an element of prior reliance onto the express warranty claims and this error infected the entire ruling as to those claims....

Reading is the laboratory of the mind. It is where we experiment with ideas, played out on an inner stage set by a writer against the background of another place and time. And when we choose a book for leisure reading, it should be for the adventure of that world more than to escape our own. So you want to know how this ends? For law students and lawyers, try reading one of these books this summer:...

During his campaign, Trump promised to repeal, relax, or replace much of the modern regulatory state. He would be a bull in a china shop, and now that he’s been elected, many are wondering just what is going to break, and when. Will he be able to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act? Will Dodd-Frank be scrapped? And what might happen to international trade deals and domestic civil rights regulations?...

As President Trump’s economic policies take shape, observers predict a surge in mergers this year. It may also bring back merger litigation, which slowed down in the last years of the Obama administration. Trump’s new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has already promised to “weed whack” many regulations, signaling his intent to follow the president’s lead and keep hands off corporate America. With proposed mergers moving forward for giants like Verizon/Yahoo and At&T/Time Warner, this may be the year of the big deal....

If you have ever questioned what you could do with your law degree – beyond practicing – you have come to the right post. Perhaps it happened while watching a lunchtime speaker panel on alternative careers in law. Maybe it happened during the 9th week of your Admin Law class when Chevron suddenly didn’t hold the mystique it once did. Or, maybe it happened after submitting your 536th timesheet to your managing attorney....

Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. FERC, No. 08-1243, concerned a petition for review of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders holding that under its tariff petitioner could only recover from its shippers gas that was lost in the course of normal pipeline operations. The D.C. Circuit denied the petition, holding that FERC’s interpretation of the tariff was reasonable, and its conclusion that the loss did not result from normal operations was supported by substantial evidence....

No one ever said law school was going to be easy. However, when people tell you that law school grades are random and arbitrary, well that’s just ridiculous. Sure, there may be a couple random circumstances that arise, like whether you wake up sick, or your bus breaks down on the way to the exam, or some jerk passes some nasty gas right next to you during the exam, but that doesn’t mean your law school grades are random or arbitrary....

Airport security agents are pretty sensitive about explosive devices, so it’s no surprise that a bomb-like watch didn’t make it through security. Last week, Geoffrey McGann showed up at Oakland International Airport wearing a watch that looked like a timing device for an explosive. It had a toggle switch, wires, and fuses protruding from it, which attracted the attention of TSA agents. That, combined with McGann’s military-style shirt with built-in tourniquets in the sleeves and too-large shoes with a homemade cavity, raised a few eyebrows....

Shocker: the death penalty in California is a joke. Okay, we all knew that. It’s a ridiculously expensive, wasteful, inefficient, broken, delayed, and completely and utterly dysfunctional system that, quite frankly, isn’t doing its job: killing killers. Out of more than 900 sentenced to death, the state has only executed 13 since 1978 – less than two percent. And any deterrent effect, after waiting decades for sentences to maybe, just maybe, be carried out is minimal at this point....

When the U.S. Supreme Court announced the pair of holdings in Perry and Windsor, it left us, and many others, a bit concerned. Though the decisions in the cases had positive outcomes for marital equality advocates, the means employed to get there may have created a sort of unofficial “pocket” veto for the governor’s office, which simply refused to enforce legislation that was approved by a popular majority. Ironically, such legislation is usually passed in response to inaction from, or disagreement with, the state government that refuses to enforce it....

Cincinnati Bengals running back Cedric Benson was arrested early Sunday in Austin, Texas. The charges? Apparently, Cedric Benson assaulted a former roommate. Benson, also a former University of Texas football star, was held for seven hours in county jail last Sunday. He was released after posting a $10,000 bail, reports the American-Statesman. Benson was arrested after a former male roommate alleged he was punched by by the ex-Longhorn running back, the American-Statesman reports....