Posts

My favorite headline: “This is probably going to hurt her grade.” A woman from Bellevue College in Washington state has been charged with second degree assault. Faribah Maradiaga allegedly lost it during her anger management course and stabbed a classmate. According to police, the student from the Pacific Northwest “blew up,” attacking her classmate after they exchanged words. The woman suffered wounds on her arm and shoulders. So why was Maradiaga in anger management in the first place?...

The Connecticut Attorney General’s office has a little clean up work to do. The office has been asked by the state Department of Consumer Protection to sue a vacuum cleaner maker and its in-state distributors. The company, Kirby Co., has been accused by the state consumer protection agency of using aggressive, hard sell tactics and unethical business practices. One of the high-pressure tactics: sales reps refusing to leave a costumer’s home, reports the New Haven Register....

President Donald Trump has come under fire, politically, for not fully divesting himself from his personal business interests when he took office. Today, for the second time, he’s hearing the same criticism, but legally. Back in January, a bunch constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators, and former White House ethics lawyers sued Trump, claiming that payments made to Trump-owned businesses amounted to violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. Earlier today, the District of Columbia and State of Maryland filed a similar suit....

A Washington, D.C., school bus driver has been fired and charged with DUI after allegedly driving and abandoning an occupied school bus while intoxicated. Police found the school bus for handicapped students abandoned on Pennsylvania Avenue SE with “children and their adult attendant aboard” but no driver, The Washington Post reports. Police Chief Cathy Lanier told Washington’s WJLA-TV that when the driver returned, he was allegedly “under the influence of something” and was arrested....

Juveniles occupy an odd place in the criminal justice system – sometimes treated as adults, sometimes not. And when determining whether juveniles get jury trials, the answer is like that of many legal questions: it depends. So let’s take a look at some of the factors that determine if a juvenile will get a criminal jury trial. The Rule For the most part, juvenile criminal defendants do not have a constitutional right to a jury trial, and therefore cannot demand a jury trial....

It may be the world’s oldest profession, but that doesn’t make it protected under the Constitution. A federal judge in California ruled that there is no fundamental right to prostitution, dismissing a lawsuit that challenged the state’s ban exchanging sex for money. The state claimed that “there is no fundamental right to engage in prostitution or to solicit prostitution” and “any relationship between the prostitute and the client is not expressive association protected by the Constitution,” and U....

Chalk one up for Gordon Gekko. A Manhattan judge has dismissed Diandra Douglas’ lawsuit against ex-husband Michael Douglas. Diandra Douglas wanted a part of the earning from the sequel of “Wall Street,” but the judge found that the case belongs in California. Their original multimillion-dollar divorce agreement was made in 2000 in California. They had been married for 23 years. Douglas is now married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. Diandra Douglas argued that she should get half of Michael Douglas’ share of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” under the terms of their original divorce settlement, which entitled her to a portion of proceeds from movies completed while they were married....

The City of New York was sued for its failure to provide the proper equipment to rescue and cleanup workers following 9/11. After years of sickness (including asthma and blood cancers from continued exposure to toxic dusts) and legal complaints, the much publicized 9/11 settlement has been reached. Those individuals that opted into the Ground Zero class action, 10,043 in total, settled for up to $815 million – a group that represents cops, firefighters, and to emergency workers....

Just about everyone has a smartphone these days, and yet many of us still aren’t smart enough to hand over the car keys after we’ve been drinking. So is it time for our GPS- and internet-enabled devices to do our drunk thinking for us? Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel think so, and think they’ve found out how to do it without requiring a breath sample or relying on users to enter in their gender, weight, and number of drinks into an app....

Jillian Michaels, star of “The Biggest Loser,” has made a name for herself on the hit reality television show helping contestants lose weight. She has also had a very lucrative business selling various supplements designed to assist consumers in their quest to get in shape. But Michaels products have come under fire and now she has been sued for the fourth time this year. The latest controversy that got Jillian Michaels sued involves Triple Process Total Body Detox & Cleanse, which according to the lawsuit is potentially lethal....

The Ninth Circuit can’t order a major overhaul of the VA’s mental health care system. A group of 11 appeals court judges reached this conclusion Monday, affirmatively overruling a May 2011 decision stating otherwise. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit had originally ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to institute drastic mental health care reforms. But on reconsideration, the Ninth Circuit has decided it simply does not have the jurisdiction to order such sweeping reforms....

Ads are not parenting primers. Still, they shouldn’t promote unsafe behavior with dangerous depictions. Yet, a substantial number do, according to a study reported by MediaPost. The study of 3,000 ads in two major parenting magazines, Parents and Family Fun, found that one in six ads, or 500 of them, showed kids or parents engaged in unsafe practices. University of Minnesota researchers judged the ads’ safety using guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics....

After a last minute emergency appeal, Rahm Emanuel’s name will appear on the Chicago Mayoral ballot. The Illinois Supreme Court issued a stay of the Illinois Appellate Court’s previous ruling. The Appellate Court had ruled that former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel cannot run for mayor of Chicago. In the now-stayed previous decision, the three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that Emanuel does not meet the residency requirements necessary to appeal on the ballot....

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire re-affirmed the state’s rape shield laws and overturned their own decision. The 2014 conviction for the 2012 sexual assault and murder of Lizzi Marriot was appealed, and as part of the appeal, the attorneys for the appellant wanted to include part of the record that had been sealed as it related to Ms. Marriot’s sexual history. Initially, the court granted the defendant’s motion to unseal the records for use on appeal, which would put them into the public record....

Between varying state laws and the seemingly continuous legal challenges, it can be hard to keep track of which open carry gun laws apply in which states (and to which guns). Lucky for us, Thomson Reuters put together a handy interactive map displaying which states allow open carry, which restrict it, and which prohibit it, and how the law differs from hand guns to long guns. (Disclosure: Thomson Reuters is FindLaw’s parent company....

Brian Encinia, the state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland, has been indicted for perjury and will be fired by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Bland was found dead in her jail cell three days after her arrest, and a grand jury determined Encinia lied on his arrest report. DPS has initiated termination proceedings against Encinia, and special prosecutor Darrell Jordan said that a warrant will be issued for his arrest....

Charged with two counts of second degree murder, Florida teen Tyler Hadley is accused of bludgeoning his parents with a hammer, hiding their bodies, and then inviting his Facebook friends to his home for a late night party. Though the 17-year-old Port St. Lucie boy was originally going to be charged with first degree murder, prosecutors unexpectedly reduced the charges during a court hearing on Tuesday, but have still decided to proceed against him as an adult....

“Company Doe’s” secrets could soon be revealed after a federal appeals court panel determined the corporation cannot keep product-safety litigation secret to protect its image. The case involved the death of an infant, and the corporation wished to be only known as “Company Doe” in court papers to maintain confidentiality. But a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that sealing court records in this case violated the public’s constitutional rights to “obtain access to civil proceedings,” Reuters reports....

Attorney Jason Smiekel was arrested after he was caught on both audio and video paying an undercover federal agent $7,000 in cash to kill the ex-husband of his client-turned-girlfriend, who he also happened to be representing in the pair’s divorce. Based in Algonquin, Illinois, the 29-year-old reportedly wanted the ex-husband dead prior to an upcoming court hearing, believing that the man was going to reveal information that could possibly ruin his career....

Don’t think identity theft is a “real” issue? Well, 12.6 million Americans were ID theft victims last year alone. Identity theft is a harsh reality that is not going away anytime soon. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to prevent identity theft from happening to you: Only make purchases on secure websites. Credit card fraud is the most common type of identity theft. For online purchases, stick with well-known retailers or smaller sites that use PayPal or Google Checkout....