Legal News

The Morning Wrap

By Mike Scarcella

The Waiting Game: The Federal Election Commission has not yet issued regulations over corporate and interest group spending a year after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said the government cannot prohibit corporations and unions from supporting an individual candidate, The Washington Post reports.

Do-Over: Federal prosecutors in New York want to retry Joseph Bruno, one of the most powerful republicans in the state legislature, after the government conceded a Supreme Court ruling invalidated his conviction on two counts of honest services fraud, The New York Law Journal reports.

'False Review' Suit: A paralegal who allegedly posted false review of her former firm is now a defendant in a defamation suit, The Texas Lawyer reports. The firm alleges the review cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost business.

Super-Sized: The Washington Post examines the closely watched sex discrimination class action Wal-Mart v. Dukes, which the Supreme Court is set to hear Tuesday. The suit is the largest employment discrimination class action in U.S. history.

Global Reach: The prosecutorial arm of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York extends around the world. ?As crime has gone global and national security threats are global, in my view the long arm of the law has to get even longer,? U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told The New York Times. Criminal defense lawyers criticize the approach, saying that prosecutors "manufacture jurisdiction" and pursue people unfairly.

Countdown: White House and Democratic leaders are putting together a proposal of roughly $20 billion in an additional spending cuts, with less than two weeks left to avoid a shutdown of the federal government, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Stolen Valor: The prosecution of Xavier Alvarez, a California resident who was charged with lying about being a military hero, is likely to make its way to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the first appeals court to examine the Stolen Valor Act, recently refused to rehear the dispute en banc. The appeals court struck down the law as unconstitutional.

Full post as published by The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).