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Legal News

It's (Barely) Legal

A regular compilation about the law and legal news from Glen Ashman, who has been a municipal judge since 1988 and a lawyer since 1980
By Glen Ashman

Post Frequency: 3.2/day

Last Entry: March 24, 2011 at 11:49:36

An Ohio Prosecutor without Common Sense

Posted on May 04, 2008
While most prosecutors are blessed with common sense, one in McArthur, Ohio may want to look for his. At a residential corrections facility a 21 year old shared half a Little Debby cake with a fellow inmate who it turns out was on restriction from eating cakes...

Where can I cash a $360 Billion check?

Posted on May 02, 2008
Man arrested in Texas for trying to cash $360 billion checkAP - FORT WORTH, Texas - Charles Ray Fuller must have been planning one big record company. The 21-year-old North Texas man was arrested last week for trying to cash a $360 billion check, saying he wanted to start a record business...

2/3 of patent judges serve illegally?

Posted on April 30, 2008
Could Constitutional Flaw Unravel Eight Years of Patent Board Rulings?The National Law JournalThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may have a major problem on its hands. A petition raising the issue of the possibly unconstitutional appointment of nearly two-thirds of its patent appeals judges has been filed in the U...

Searching computers w/o probable cause

Posted on April 23, 2008
9th Circuit OKs Border Guards' Search of Traveler's LaptopThe RecorderThe 9th Circuit ruled Monday that border control agents who found child porn on a traveler's laptop didn't violate the man's right to be free from unreasonable searches. "We are satisfied that reasonable suspicion is not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote...

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Is Debt Settlement Law Firm a Fraud?

Posted on April 19, 2008
Debt Settlement Complaints Lead to Search for 'Attorney'Daily Business ReviewEdward T. Kennedy is listed as a name partner at the Hess Kennedy law firm, but no one with that name is licensed to practice law in Florida. According to a recent State Bar complaint against the firm's Laura Hess, the law firm is running a "deceptive debt settlement scheme" that is long on fees and short on assistance...

How not to be on probation

Posted on April 19, 2008
Man's trip through metal detector turns up drugs AP - Fri Apr 18, 5:01 PM ET DOTHAN, Ala. - A Dothan man attempting to report to his probation officer and pay some fines was re-arrested when he emptied his pockets for a metal detector at the Houston County Courthouse and laid out more than the usual coins and keys.

Judge sentences lawyer to 90 days jail

Posted on April 17, 2008
Judge sentences lawyer to 90 days for lewd gesture AP - Wed Apr 16, 8:01 PM ET AUSTIN, Texas - A flick of the wrist has landed an Austin lawyer in jail for contempt of court. A judge sentenced defense attorney Adam Reposa to 90 days in jail on Tuesday for making a lewd gesture and simulating masturbation while standing before a County Court-at-Law judge in March.

$41 Million Verdict Cut to Zero

Posted on April 16, 2008
The Connecticut Law TribuneThe Connecticut Supreme Court has saved a contractor more than $41 million in liability to a construction worker who was left a paraplegic after a defectively welded girder fell on him. The court found the contractor not liable because the accident was not foreseeable...

Lawyers Keep Day Job, Work at Night

Posted on April 13, 2008
Keep Your Day Job, Then Clock In Nightly at the FirmThe National Law JournalE. James Perullo realized that switching from an IT career to the law would be daunting at age 42, so he's keeping his day job while building an evening-hours law firm. Bay State Legal Services, which Perullo has branded and trademarked as After-Hours Law, is a collection of 14 lawyers and four paralegals who meet clients at their downtown Boston office Monday through Friday between 6 and 10 p...

Donald Trump Sues His Lawyers

Posted on April 09, 2008
Donald Trump Claims Law Firm Treated Him Like a 'Cash Cow'New York Law JournalDonald Trump is claiming the Manhattan law firm that represented him in a lawsuit against an overcharging golf course contractor has, in turn, overcharged him. Trump has filed a legal malpractice suit against Morrison Cohen, claiming the firm treated him like a "cash cow" and performed unnecessary work to generate higher bills...

D.C. Madam Trial Opens

Posted on April 08, 2008
Courtroom Fireworks Predicted as D.C. Madam Trial OpensLegal TimesAlleged "Washington Madam" Deborah Jean Palfrey hasn't been your standard-issue defendant. Since her indictment last March, she's cycled through four lawyers and two judges. She got her company's phone records released and implicated customers, including a U...

An instant classic dumbest criminal tale

Posted on April 08, 2008
One of the funniest stories I have seen about a dumb criminal comes from the city where I am a judge. This appeared on the site www.wsbtv.com : Police: Robber Took Cab To, From Bank POSTED: 6:06 pm EDT April 7, 2008 UPDATED: 6:49 pm EDT April 7, 2008 EAST POINT, Ga...

Can you be sued for what you post online

Posted on April 05, 2008
9th Circuit: No Immunity for Roommates.com Under Communications Decency ActThe RecorderThe 9th Circuit produced on Thursday what some observers believe is the most nuanced discussion of online content liability in the United States to date. Writing for an 8-3 majority, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski found that the housing Web site Roommates...

Art Imitates Life Too Closely

Posted on April 02, 2008
Art Imitates Life Too Closely, Says Woman Suing Over 'Red Hat Club' BookFulton County Daily ReportIn a rare defamation case over a novel, the Georgia Court of Appeals has cleared the way for a suit by an Atlanta woman who claims an alcoholic, promiscuous character in the book "The Red Hat Club" too closely resembles her...

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

Posted on March 31, 2008
Hotel Bedbugs Don't Warrant Punitive Damages, Judge DecidesNew York Law JournalIn a ruling of first impression, a Manhattan judge has scratched a request for punitive damages in a bedbug case. But the judge, Acting Supreme Court Justice Judith J. Gische, let go forward the negligence claims of two Maryland tourists for bites they sustained during a two-night stay at the Milford Plaza Hotel, and for which they're seeking $2 million in compensatory damages...

Supreme Court Tackles a Precedent

Posted on March 26, 2008
Saucier Than Usual, the Supreme Court Tackles a PrecedentLegal Times In granting review in a new case on police immunity Monday, the Supreme Court took the rare step of announcing its intention to examine whether one of its relatively recent precedents, Saucier v...

Judge Disciplined for Shackling Lawyer

Posted on March 23, 2008
Judge Found in Violation of Conduct Code After Ordering Attorney to Be ShackledLegal TimesThe D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure determined last week that D.C. Superior Court Judge John Bayly Jr. violated the code of judicial conduct when he ordered a Public Defender Service attorney to be shackled after an argument...

One more dumb criminal...

Posted on March 21, 2008
This type call is amazingly somewhat common at some police departments... Australian's break-in report goes to pot Thu Mar 20, 10:38 PM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man has found himself in trouble after calling police to report that his house had been broken into and some of his cannabis plants stolen.

Online Legal Research Revolution

Posted on March 20, 2008
Law Technology NewsWhen nonprofit Public.Resource.Org published 1.8 million pages of federal case law online -- free of copyright or other restrictions -- it encouraged Web developers to build new tools. Attorney Robert J. Ambrogi sees this and other developments as a revolution in online legal research...

Prosecute Spitzer?

Posted on March 14, 2008
Deciding Whether to Prosecute Spitzer Poses Sensitive IssuesNew York Law JournalEthical constraints on prosecutorial discretion are rarely scrutinized more than in cases of political corruption by elected officials of either major party. Against that backdrop, defense attorneys and former prosecutors said Wednesday that U...

NY Governor Caught in Call Girl Sting

Posted on March 11, 2008
NY governor linked to prostitution ring AP - Mon Mar 10, 7:27 PM ET NEW YORK - Gov. Eliot Spitzer's political career teetered on the brink of collapse Monday after the corruption-fighting politician once known as "Mr. Clean" was accused of paying for a four-hour romp with a high-priced call girl...

8-Yr-Old Passes Law School Entrance Test

Posted on March 07, 2008
The Associated PressAn 8-year-old boy with dreams of becoming a judge has passed a law school entrance exam -- shocking Brazil's legal profession and prompting a federal investigation. The Universidade Paulista, a private university, issued a statement acknowledging that the boy had passed the entrance exam and that it initially enrolled him...

Judge Lies to get Credit Cards

Posted on March 07, 2008
The Legal IntelligencerPhiladelphia Municipal Court Judge Deborah S. Griffin's use of a false Social Security number to obtain credit card accounts doesn't rise to the level of an infamous crime that would disqualify her from holding office, her attorney argued Wednesday before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court...

Bank Accuses Lawyers of Debt-Relief Scam

Posted on March 06, 2008
Daily Business ReviewChase Bank USA is suing two Florida attorneys specializing in reducing consumer debt, claiming they are engaging in blatantly illegal and fraudulent practices. Filed in Delaware, the federal suit accuses Hess Kennedy Chartered, Laura Hess, Edward Kennedy and others of using "an unlawful debt elimination scheme" relying on lawsuits challenging valid credit card charges...

Court Faults Removal of Obese Child

Posted on March 03, 2008
Appeals Court Faults Removal of Obese Child From ParentsNew York Law JournalA couple's efforts to control their obese daughter's weight were made in good faith and did not justify a county agency's repeated removal of the girl from her parents' custody, a New York appeals court has ruled...

U.S. Imprisons One in 100 Adults

Posted on February 29, 2008
The U.S. rate also is higher than almsot any nation in the world: U.S. Imprisons One in 100 Adults, Report Finds By ADAM LIPTAK - NY TimesWith 1.6 million people in prison, the incarceration rate is now the highest in American history, a new report says.

Surgeon kills patient to harvest organs

Posted on February 28, 2008
Surgeon Accused in Death of Patient to Get Organs By JESSE McKINLEY - NY Times SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — On a winter night in 2006, a disabled and brain damaged man named Ruben Navarro was wheeled into an operating room at a hospital here. By most accounts, Mr...

"Deal, or No Deal, or a Lawsuit?"

Posted on February 25, 2008
Millions May Be at Stake in Suit Over Hit NBC Game ShowFulton County Daily ReportText messages, cell phones, TV game shows, Howie Mandel: None of these could have been contemplated by Georgia's colonial lawmakers when they passed a law allowing gamblers to recover losses through lawsuits...

Insurer dumps patients in mid-treatment

Posted on February 24, 2008
One of the worst health insurance companies in the business gets its rear (deservedly) whipped in court: Cut-off cancer patient to get $9M AP - Sat Feb 23, 2:30 PM ET LOS ANGELES - A woman who had her medical coverage canceled as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer has been awarded more than $9 million in a case against one of California's largest health insurers...

Web Site Enjoined From Posting

Posted on February 22, 2008
Web Site Enjoined From Posting Confidential DocumentsThe National Law JournalA federal judge in San Francisco has temporarily enjoined a Web site known for posting a wide array of confidential documents that allege skullduggery by companies and governments around the world...

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