7th Circuit Court

Posner opinion upholds lifetime GPS bracelet for sex offender who isn’t ‘just a harmless old guy’

A federal appeals court has upheld a Wisconsin law requiring convicted sex offenders to wear a GPS ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives after their release from civil commitment. The Jan. 29 opinion (PDF) by a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was…

Feb 3, 2016 5:45 AM CST

Courts use special masters, mediation to help solve e-discovery issues

Robert Moore got an education during his time with a special master for e-discovery and electronically stored information. Moore, the managing partner of Heaton and Moore in Memphis, Tennessee, was in the discovery phase of a wrongful death suit. He retained an information technology expert to find data requested by…

Jan 1, 2016 2:00 AM CST

Posner advises disability office to clean up its act, says expert testimony was ‘worthless’

A federal appeals court says an administrative law judge “inappropriately ‘played doctor’” in denying disability benefits for a 56-year-old woman who had worked more than 13 years in a factory where she carried steel sheets weighing up to 100 pounds. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the…

Dec 9, 2015 6:00 AM CST

Posner explains his changing views on gay marriage; should public opinion matter?

In 1997, Judge Richard Posner reviewed a book advocating a right to same-sex marriage through changes in state laws and through constitutional rulings by courts. Posner, a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, thought the author, Yale law professor William Eskridge, made a powerful argument for…

Dec 2, 2015 5:45 AM CST

7th Circuit overturns abortion regulation; Posner says health benefit is ‘nonexistent’

The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down a Wisconsin abortion law that required abortion doctors to have admission privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. Writing for the majority in the 2-1 opinion (PDF), Judge Richard Posner said the law would shut down one of the…

Nov 24, 2015 7:30 AM CST

7th Circuit: Sheriff must stop asking credit card companies to cease business with Backpage.com

A federal appeals court has ordered Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff Thomas Dart to stop taking any action—formally or informally—that seeks to persuade credit card companies not to do business with Backpage.com. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the injunction Monday pending an appeal by Backpage, which contends…

Nov 20, 2015 5:45 AM CST

Did Posner opinion calling murder conviction ‘nonsense’ violate precedent? SCOTUS to decide

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether an opinion by Judge Richard Posner overturning an Illinois murder conviction violated clearly established precedent. The court agreed on Thursday to review Posner’s opinion for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Courthouse News Service reports. Posner’s March opinion (PDF)…

Oct 2, 2015 7:11 AM CDT

Are weeds protected by the First Amendment? Posner thinks not

A federal appeals court has upheld Chicago’s weed ordinance in an opinion that includes photos of native plants and an entreaty to lawyers to provide more background information about the litigants. The author of the Sept. 28 opinion (PDF) for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Richard…

Sep 30, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

7th Circuit Judge Richard Cudahy dies at 89

Judge Richard Dickson Cudahy of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals died of natural causes at his Winnetka, Illinois, home on Tuesday, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. He was 89. Cudahy was elevated to the appeals court in 1979 by former President Jimmy Carter and served 36 years—15…

Sep 24, 2015 1:51 PM CDT

Posner dishes on senile federal judges, judicial snark and law prof ‘refugees’ in upcoming book

Some federal judges continue working despite senility. One federal appeals court is so divided that the opposing factions won’t eat lunch together. Some law professors are “refugees” escaping from more competitive or less lucrative fields. Those are some of the criticisms expressed by Judge Richard Posner in an upcoming book…

Sep 10, 2015 8:10 AM CDT

7th Circuit overturns unique halvsies procedure for judicial elections

A judicial election system that produces an even split of Democratic and Republican judges is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court has ruled. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) on Wednesday that the judicial selection system, used only in one Indiana county, burdens the right to vote…

Sep 9, 2015 12:20 PM CDT

Dissenter blasts Posner’s Internet research in inmate’s suit over acid reflux treatment

Judge Richard Posner’s Internet research led to sparring in a divided opinion on Wednesday that reinstated a lawsuit filed by an Indiana inmate who claimed prison staffers failed to treat his acid reflux properly. Posner defended his online research about the condition, saying it was used only to demonstrate the…

Aug 20, 2015 8:59 AM CDT

Wrong man arrested on ‘troubling’ reality TV show has no civil rights case, 7th Circuit rules

Allowing a television reality show to pay and film police homicide detectives as they are investigating a case is hardly a good idea, a federal appeals court says. And it is easy to see how such a joint effort by producers of The Shift and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department…

Aug 19, 2015 2:18 PM CDT

7th Circuit says court erred by upholding prison’s refusal to allow inmate and former guard to marry

A constitutional right to marry includes prison inmates and the guards. So a federal district judge erred in granting summary judgment to the Indiana Department of Corrections in a civil rights suit over a blocked wedding, a federal appeals court says. In a unanimous ruling (PDF), a three-judge panel of…

Aug 18, 2015 3:55 PM CDT

7th Circuit says sorry about forgetting case for 5 years

A Thursday federal appellate ruling made headlines because the court admittedly forgot about the case for five years after it was remanded in 2010 by the U.S. Supreme Court. “We close with an apology to the parties,” the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its order (PDF). “After…

Aug 6, 2015 4:30 PM CDT