Recent Updates
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Ruling: Court failed its duty to Muslim scholar
Lawyer Blogs 07/20/2009U.S. officials should have given a Muslim scholar a chance to show he was no supporter of terrorism before barring him from the country, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. Tariq Ramadan, a professor sympathetic to Palestinian resistance to Israel,...
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Washington court reverses ban on homeless camp
Lawyer Blogs 07/17/2009A Seattle suburb violated the state's constitution by using a temporary ban on development to block a church's effort to set up a tent city for the homeless, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The high court's unanimous decision reversed lower c...
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Mich. minister wins appeal on free-speech grounds
Lawyer Blogs 07/16/2009A Michigan appeals court overturned a ruling on Wednesday that had sent a minister to prison for six months after warning a judge that he could be tortured by God. The Rev. Edward Pinkney was convicted in 2007 of paying people $5 to vote in a recall ...
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Sotomayor says Obama didn't ask about abortion
Lawyer Blogs 07/15/2009Judge Sonia Sotomayor said Wednesday neither President Barack Obama nor anyone else in the administration asked her views on abortion rights before she was nominated for the Supreme Court. "I was asked no question by anyone including the president ab...
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Ohio executes trucker who went on killing spree
Lawyer Blogs 07/15/2009A former truck driver who went on a multistate killing spree has been executed in Ohio for the murder of a Cincinnati-area man who gave him a ride in 1991. Forty-five-year-old John Fautenberry of Oregon was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m. Tuesday at th...
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U.S. officials moving Madoff to federal prison
Lawyer Blogs 07/14/2009Swindler Bernard Madoff was temporarily moved to a prison in Atlanta from New York and was in transit to yet another facility on Tuesday, a U.S. official said. A spokeswoman at the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Madoff "had left Atlanta and was in tr...
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Lawyer: Obama artist makes plea deal in Mass. case
Lawyer Blogs 07/10/2009A lawyer says the artist who created the "Hope" poster of President Barack Obama will plead guilty to some of the vandalism charges he faces in Boston, while other charges will be dropped.Shepard Fairey was in Boston Municipal Court on Friday. His at...
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Mock exercises prepare Sotomayor for hearings
Lawyer Blogs 07/10/2009Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has endured weeks of insults, obnoxious questions and unwelcome drilling into her work as a judge and a lawyer — and it was all on purpose, essentially a dress rehearsal for her confirmation hearings.In a series ...
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Astor's son back in NYC court, day after falling
Lawyer Blogs 07/09/2009Brooke Astor's son is back at his Manhattan trial, a day after he fell and hit his head in a courthouse restroom.Anthony Marshall, who's 85, had heart surgery last fall. He takes blood thinners and walks unsteadily with a cane. He also has reportedly...
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Dole sues "Bananas" documentary maker
Lawyer Blogs 07/09/2009Dole Food Company Inc filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against Swedish film makers it accuses of knowingly including "patent falsehoods" in a documentary about Nicaraguan banana workers who sued Dole for allegedly exposing them to pesticides o...
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Appeals court rules for Abbott in AIDS drug case
Lawyer Blogs 07/08/2009A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit accusing Abbott Laboratories of antitrust violations over a sudden 400-percent price hike of a popular AIDS drug.Advocacy groups and drug benefit providers sued Abbott in 2004. They alleged the North Chi...
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Woman seeks to decrease $1.92M fine for downloads
Lawyer Blogs 07/07/2009A central Minnesota woman ordered to pay $1.92 million for illegally sharing copyright-protected music is asking a federal judge to reduce the damages she must pay or grant a new trial, while the recording industry is taking steps to make sure she do...