First Class Is on Verge of Beginning Studies at Concordia U Law School

At least 71 students and perhaps as many as 75 are about to begin their studies at the new Concordia University School of Law in Boise, Idaho, which is opening its doors to its first class this month. Each will have a judge or lawyer assigned as a mentor, reports…

Aug 3, 2012 11:44 AM CDT

Unhappy with State AG’s ‘Completely Unsupported’ Opinion, Idaho House Speaker Goes Lawyer-Shopping

Dissatisfied with a legal opinion from the Idaho attorney general, the speaker of the state’s house of representatives sought—and got—a more favorable ruling from a private practitioner. Like the AG, the speaker, Lawrence Denney, is a Republican. However, that didn’t prevent the state’s Republican party from issuing a press release…

Jan 24, 2012 7:00 PM CST

Landowners’ Wetlands Dispute Becomes Conservative Cause and Supreme Court Case

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider an Idaho property rights case that has generated landowner sympathy among conservatives, libertarians and developers. The issue before the court next week is whether landowners Chantell and Mike Sackett may go to court to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that their property is…

Jan 4, 2012 12:00 PM CST

High School Had Right to Search 18-Year-Old’s Car for Smokes; Drug, Weapon Charges Result

At 18 years of age, Joseph A. Voss Jr. was old enough to smoke without violating the law. But because he was potentially violating high school rules if found to be doing so on campus, officials were within their rights to search the senior student’s car in the parking lot…

Nov 28, 2011 11:45 PM CST

Lawyer Guilty in Failed Contract Hit on Wife Gets 50 Years; They Both Say Feds Framed Him

Federal prosecutors were seeking a 50-year sentence today for a lawyer in northern Idaho who was convicted of trying to arrange a contract hit on his wife, and they got it. Both Edgar J. Steele, 65, and his wife, Cyndi, who survived the failed attempt when an undetonated pipe bomb…

Nov 9, 2011 6:05 PM CST

Disbarred After $1.48M Alleged BigLaw Billing Fraud, Ex-Attorney Faces Uphill Reinstatement Battle

Gary and Maureen Fairchild made headlines in the 1990s when the high-profile BigLaw couple were accused of bilking their respective law partners of more than $2 million through collusive law firm billing fraud at the same time that the two Chicago lawyers were legally taking home hundreds of thousands of…

Oct 21, 2011 10:31 PM CDT

Federal Judge Blocks Enforcement of Idaho Law Criminalizing Certain Abortions

A federal judge has temporarily barred Idaho from enforcing a decades-old state law prohibiting women from terminating their own pregnancy. The law, enacted in 1972, criminalizes abortions not specifically authorized by law, such as those performed by a licensed physician. Jennie Linn McCormack, 33, was charged earlier this year with…

Sep 29, 2011 9:41 PM CDT

Spotlight On the Three States That Maintain All-Male High Courts

Jun 1, 2011 7:30 AM CDT

Fed’l Jury Convicts Lawyer of Hiring Hitman to Kill His Wife with Pipe Bomb

Although his wife stood by him and insisted that attorney Edgar Steele was the victim of a government plot to silence him, the Idaho lawyer today was convicted by a federal jury concerning his alleged contract with a family handyman to kill his spouse with a pipe bomb. Steele, who…

May 5, 2011 7:29 PM CDT

Released on $1M Bond, Suspect in Lawyer Murder Briefly Returns to Home He Shares with Sole Witness

The suspect in what authorities describe as a murder of an Idaho lawyer over “domestic issues” apparently related to his assistant, has pleaded not guilty and will not face the death penalty, KBOI reports. After being charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Emmett Corrigan, suspect Robert Hall caught…

Apr 21, 2011 5:45 PM CDT

How Did Private Prosecutor Spend $300K? County and Individual Citizen Seek Answers

As an Idaho county battles with a former contract prosecutor to collect some $300,000 it says it is owed in unearned payments, a local citizen is asking the state supreme court to award him attorney’s fees in a related public records case. Bob Henry, who owns a local insurance company,…

Apr 12, 2011 10:00 AM CDT

Prosecutors and Judges to Join Police at DWI Checkpoints to Enforce New ‘No Refusal’ Law

In what is billed as a first-of-a-kind law enforcement effort in Jasper County, Mo., prosecutors and judges will be joining police at drunken-driving checkpoints, starting tonight, to enforce a new “no refusal” statute in the state. If motorists who seem to be driving while intoxicated refuse to take a breath…

Apr 1, 2011 10:21 PM CDT

Smartphone, Dumb Idea: Using Blue-and-Red Light App to Pull Over Fellow Motorist

An Idaho man has been arrested for allegedly using a blue-and-red light application on his smart phone to pull over a fellow motorist. Alexander Welch, 20, was charged in Boise with unlawful exercise of a police function and is being held in the Ada County Jail, the Idaho Statesman reports.…

Mar 15, 2011 8:26 PM CDT

Bill to Nullify Federal Health Care Law Introduced in Idaho; Other Lawmakers May Follow

Two Idaho GOP lawmakers want their state to be a federal-health-care-law free zone. The lawmakers, Vito Barbieri and Judy Boyle, have introduced a bill that would make President Obama’s health-care law null and void within state boundaries, according to the IdahoReporter.com. The legislation would bar state workers from collaborating with…

Jan 27, 2011 1:03 PM CST

Idaho Law Student Sues over Campus Gun Restrictions

A University of Idaho law student claims in a lawsuit that campus gun restrictions violate his Second Amendment rights. Aaron Tribble, a 36-year-old 2L, is representing himself in the lawsuit, according to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News Online. He lives in university housing for married students, and says rules banning guns…

Jan 25, 2011 4:46 PM CST