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The fear of Halloween candy being laced with drugs or razor blades has caused parents to obsessively check their children’s Halloween candy for decades. While reports of candy tampering on Halloween are exceedingly rare, with the proliferation of medical marijuana, marijuana candy is the new razor blade in the apple. Since it should be easy to spot, parents really only need to provide a small addition to the usual warning to their kids: Don’t eat anything unwrap-able, opened, or with a pot leaf or warning label....

Lately, we’ve heard a lot of discourse and protest about excessive use of police violence against minorities. However, there is an equally vulnerable minority group, the mentally ill and disabled, who are also frequent victims of police force. In the case of City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, the Supreme Court considered whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires police to provide accommodations to armed and violent mentally ill suspects....

The Second Amendment protects the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms but like any other legal right it has its limits. Those limits have been clarified several times by the U.S. Supreme Court, most recently in 2008. But the development of new and more sophisticated weaponry opens up the possibility for renewed investigation. Justice Antonin Scalia, whose decisions generally favor gun rights, told Fox News that Second Amendment rights are certainly limited although he didn’t elaborate how....

The Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling in favor of a group of black firefighters, finding they did not wait too long to sue the city of Chicago over alleged discrimination. The decision, in essence, found that despite a delay in filing the suit from the time of the initial violation, the case can still proceed because the violations were ongoing. Today, the Court ruled in Lewis v. City of Chicago, a suit brought by a class of 6,000 black firefighters who alleged that they missed employment and promotion opportunities in Chicago firefighting jobs in the 1990s because an entry-level test had a “disparate impact” that was race based....

If you don’t like a law, you can always seek to change it. John Wesley Ewell sought to change California’s three-strikes law several decades ago. Ewell managed to narrowly avoid the three-strikes law, which provided for 25 years to life on any third offense on a third conviction, despite several major convictions including two robbery convictions. However, Ewell has now been charged with quadruple murder in a home-invasion robbery this year....

Hollywood lost a little of its luster in 2016, with the passing of stars from Alan Rickman to Alan Thicke. But it didn’t lose any of its litigiousness, with plenty of A-listers involved in high-stakes lawsuits. Here’s a look at the biggest celebrity lawsuits of the last year: 1. Erin Andrews Hotel Peeping Tom Suit Goes to Trial The popular sportscaster sued the man who stalked her and filmed her naked in her hotel room, along with the hotel itself, who provided her room information to her stalker....

Good news! The next time you go to wire your life savings to a prince from the country of New Africa that needs your help to claim his thousand million dollar inheritance, Western Union may not let you. As a result of a joint Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission prosecution, Western Union not only has to pay over half a billion dollars to the feds, they must implement new policies to safeguard consumers from getting scammed....

Local law enforcement is supposed to report hate crimes to the FBI so that it can get a handle on how many people nationally are targeted every year for who they are. What makes a hate crime special and deserving of this extra attention is that it’s motivated by hate for the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity. But according to the Associated Press, about 17 percent of local agencies have submitted no reports in six years, which makes it much more difficult to assess and address hate nationwide....

Californians will cast their votes this fall on whether to allow same-sex marriages to continue, after the state’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an effort to have the ballot initiative removed. Proposition 8 (called the “California Marriage Protection Act”), which would amend a relevant portion of the California constitution to read “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” will now likely go before state voters in November, after the California Supreme Court voted unanimously to turn away a drive to have the proposition removed....

One day after Abbott Laboratories announced the Similac recall for its powdered infant formula, a class action suit was filed. The named plaintiff in the suit is a Kathleen A. Brandner, individually and on behalf of her minor child, against defendants Abbott Labs and Sam’s Club. The plaintiffs are being represented by Michael Brandner Jr. of The Brandner Law Firm and Stephen S. Kreller of The Kreller Law Firm in New Orleans, where the suit was filed in federal court....

Maybe your neighbor took down a fence without your consent. Or maybe they blast reggaeton music all night long. Both pale in comparison to the problems played out among neighbors in North Portland, Oregon. Residents on North Massachusetts Avenue were so irritated with one of their fellow homeowners that they decided to make heroin fliers advertising the sale of the illegal drug. This definitely wasn’t your typical suburban spat, nor your normal police reaction....

As has been fully reported in Findlaw’s Common Law, the CPSC has issued recalls regarding the drop side crib, the most recent from Storkcraft. The CPSC has just announced a new effort to find and recall drop side cribs by the makers Simplicity Inc. and SFCA Inc., of Reading, Pa. The Commission believes the companies are no longer in day-to-day operations. The CPSC has been made aware of the death of an infant in September 2009, due to suffocation when part of the child’s crib broke....

Parents and child care providers should immediately stop using certain “Simplicity” brand baby bassinets due to the risk of accidental infant strangulation, a federal product safety agency announced on Wednesday. At least two infant deaths have been linked to a design problem with the bassinet, and CPSC has begun asking retailers to recall more than 900,000 of the affected products. The warning from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) applies to convertible 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 “close-sleeper/bedside sleeper” bassinets manufactured by Simplicity Inc....

Up in smoke. That is what some might say on hearing the news that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) banned the chemicals used to make Spice, K2 and similar “fake pot” products, reports USA Today. In essence, synthetic marijuana compounds containing JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, or cannabicyclohexanol are now officially illegal after the DEA placed these chemicals in the federal drug Schedule I on an emergency basis. They are now designated as having a high potential for abuse with no medical use....

Donald Trump is having himself quite a year. His presidential run means that he has to open his mouth. And every time he opens his mouth he loses business partners. And every time he loses a business partner he sues that business partner. First it was suing Univision after the network dropped Trump’s Miss Universe competition due to Trump’s racist comments about Mexican immigrants. Now The Donald is suing a celebrity chef for backing out of a restaurant in a new Trump hotel....

A judge in Florida ruled that the state’s updated self-defense law, still known as the stand your ground law, violates individuals’ constitutional rights. Surprisingly, it’s not due to the principles behind the law, but rather the judicial procedures required by the update. However, unlike the powers vested with a federal district court judge to block laws from being enforced state- or nation-wide, as recently seen in the travel ban cases, the Florida state court judge’s ruling is not binding on other courts....

Food Network has been sued and surprisingly, it doesn’t involve Paula Deen. The network’s reality show “Giving You the Business” doesn’t really give you the business, claims a disgruntled contestant’s new lawsuit. In the show, which just wrapped up its first season, competing food service workers are put to the test with unexpected challenges in their eateries. The competitors do not know they are being filmed by hidden cameras – and whoever out-performs the others wins his or her own franchise of the episode’s featured restaurant....

The first execution in the U.S. in more than seven months was carried out in Georgia last night, less than a month after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection. Convicted killer William Earl Lynd was executed by lethal injection at a prison facility in Jackson, Georgia, after appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court were refused. The execution was the first since the U....

Remington, the gun maker, has finally settled the massive class action brought against it by gun owners over the defective, extra hair-trigger on certain models. Despite the fact that as part of the settlement Remington has agreed to replace the defective triggers in nearly 7.5 million guns, they refuse to actually admit there is a defect. Remind you of anyone? Remington’s refusal to accept fault, despite agreeing to replace the part plaintiffs claimed was defective, isn’t even the most shocking part....

Kevin Hart settled an Intellectual Property suit brought against him for trademark infringement. In the end, it appear Hart’s co-defendant, Lionsgate, has agreed to pay Plaintiff Scott Montoya an undisclosed sum out of their insurance policy, and both sides will cover their own legal costs. In the lawsuit, Montoya says he is the owner of “Laugh Out Loud Comedy Productions,” which has distributed stand-up comedy content on various platforms since 2009....