Appellate Practice

Bypassing Arguments, High Court Tosses $5M Verdict in Fear-of-Cancer Case

In a per curiam opinion issued without oral arguments or full briefing, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a $5 million verdict because the trial court refused to instruct the jury on the standards for awarding damages for fear of cancer. The plaintiff, former CSX Corp. railroad worker Thurston Hensley,…

Jun 1, 2009 4:04 PM CDT

High Court Lectures 6th Circuit on Double Jeopardy in Retarded Inmate’s Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court is giving Ohio another chance to prove an inmate should be sentenced to death despite evidence of mental retardation. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in an opinion (PDF) for a unanimous court, wrote that a federal appeals court had “fundamentally misperceived” the application of the double jeopardy…

Jun 1, 2009 3:11 PM CDT

Phil Spector Gets 19 Years to Life

Famed pop producer Phil Spector faced the music today, as he was sentenced in Los Angeles Superior Court to 19 years to life for the second-degree murder of Lana Clarkson, reports Reuters. Prosecutors argued at trial that Spector’s shooting of Clarkson was part of a pattern of violent behavior he…

May 29, 2009 5:51 PM CDT

Key to Supreme Court Victory: Generate Fewer Questions

A new study of 2,000 oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court has found that the relative number of questions posed by the justices is a good predictor of which side will win. The study found that if the litigant seeking reversal gets 50 more questions than the opponent, the…

May 27, 2009 4:29 PM CDT

High Court Says NY Can’t Shut Courthouse Door to Prisoner Claims

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a New York law requiring all federal civil rights claims against prison employees to be heard in a state claims court. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the law violates the supremacy clause, reports the Associated Press. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote…

May 26, 2009 4:02 PM CDT

High Court Overrules Decision Barring Questioning After Lawyer Appointment

The U.S. Supreme Court has overruled a 23-year-old decision that bars police from questioning suspects without the presence of an appointed lawyer. The court overturned the 1986 decision, Michigan v. Jackson, according to the Associated Press and SCOTUSblog. The Jackson ruling had held that once a suspect has asserted a…

May 26, 2009 2:49 PM CDT

Ill. Judge OKs New Murder Trial for Cortez Brown After 3 Cops Take Fifth

After three current and former Chicago police detectives took the Fifth rather than testify in a post-conviction case concerning their alleged abuse of a capital murder suspect nearly 20 years ago, an Illinois judge has ordered a new trial for Cortez Brown. Brown, 38, who admittedly was a member of…

May 22, 2009 11:21 PM CDT

Move Over, Nino. There’s a New Sparring Justice on the Bench

Much has been made of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin’s Scalia’s sparring at oral arguments. But there’s a newer justice on the bench who outdoes Scalia, albeit in something of a Midwestern twang. He’s 54-year-old John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice who promised at his confirmation hearings that he…

May 19, 2009 3:14 PM CDT

High Court Rules Pakistani Held After 9-11 Can’t Sue Ex-AG on ‘Conclusory’ Claims

A cable TV installer who says his detention after the Sept. 11 attacks was motivated by racial, religious and national origin bias has failed to allege specific facts allowing him to sue the former attorney general and the ex-director of the FBI, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. The court…

May 18, 2009 2:48 PM CDT

Souter’s ‘Clerk Footprint’ Is Very Academic

Unlike four of his current colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice David Souter was never a law professor. Yet when he retires this summer, Souter’s legacy will live on through more than 70 former clerks. And a surprising number of them are academics: roughly half, reports the National Law…

May 12, 2009 6:57 PM CDT

Top NY Court Nixes GPS Tracking Unless a Search Warrant is Obtained

An apparent New York State Police practice of using GPS tracking devices on suspects’ vehicles for extended periods is a violation of their constitutional privacy rights unless a search warrant is obtained, according to a divided New York Court of Appeals ruling. In its 4-3 ruling today, the state’s highest…

May 12, 2009 6:19 PM CDT

9th Circuit Backs Cameras in Trial Courts

Cameras could be rolling into the federal trial courts under a proposal by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco. The 9th Circuit has asked the U.S. Judicial Conference to consider a plan to allow cameras to record and broadcast federal nonjury trials at the discretion…

May 11, 2009 11:23 AM CDT

Few Zinger Quotes from Souter Reflect His Cautious Approach

Retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter had few zinger quotes in his legal opinions, a reflection of his incremental approach to decision-making. Fred Shapiro, the editor of The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations, asked constitutional law professors for memorable Souter quotes, and received four suggestions, the New…

May 7, 2009 6:12 PM CDT

Arrested at 13, Freed 16 Years Later After Witnesses Recant

Thaddeus Jimenez said he didn’t do it. But, after being arrested at 13 for a 1993 street gang murder, he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Only after the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law took on his case and witnesses recanted did…

May 5, 2009 1:59 AM CDT

Odd Details of Souter’s Life Chronicled, Including Apple Appetite

Unusual details of Justice David H. Souter’s personal life are beginning to emerge, from the way he eats an apple, core and all, to the way he met New Hampshire’s governor—at his hometown’s town dump, something of a place for socializing. The Washington Post and the New York Times both…

May 4, 2009 1:55 PM CDT