Teenager whose prank calls sent armed SWAT teams to dozens of US homes got 16 months

A single Canadian teenager made dozens of prank phone calls to police throughout the U.S., sending SWAT teams to hold innocent individuals at gunpoint at their homes as authorities investigated his false claims of dangerous crimes in progress. But because of both legal loopholes and the teen’s location on the…

Nov 25, 2015 2:30 PM CST

New court at one of world’s busiest train stations will speed administration of justice

Railway police stand ready to ticket fare-dodgers and others who violate the rules at one of the busiest train stations in the world. But a cumbersome judicial process, compared to the relatively minor nature of the alleged crimes, can be a deterrent to those responsible for issuing and enforcing the…

Nov 18, 2015 4:35 PM CST

Polish judge rejects extradition for Polanski; will US continue to pursue case?

An Oscar-winning film director has won another round in a long-standing battle to avoid extradition to the U.S., where he has admitted having unlawful sex with a minor and was convicted in 1977 after fleeing the country. A Polish judge on Friday ruled against extraditing Roman Polanski, whose age is…

Oct 30, 2015 5:00 PM CDT

Pistorius to serve remaining sentence for law grad’s slaying on house arrest

Almost exactly one year after he was sentenced to five years in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Oscar Pistorius is about to be allowed to serve the rest of his time on house arrest instead of in prison, starting next week. Law graduate and model Reeva Steenkamp was killed…

Oct 16, 2015 11:20 AM CDT

EU court strikes down agreement for digital transfers of personal data to US

The European Court of Justice ruled declared invalid an international agreement for moving its citizens’ digital data to U.S. servers, saying their privacy might be violated—especially by U.S. government surveillance, the New York Times reports. The ruling by the EU’s highest court, which cannot be appealed, is a serious blow…

Oct 6, 2015 10:47 AM CDT

Lawyer who dodged train fare will pay restitution based on discounted weekly pass rate

A British lawyer who cut the cost of commuting to London by pretending to travel from a station much closer to the city’s center would have had to—over a period of more than 2½ years— pay tens of thousands of pounds in train fare at the daily rate. But a…

Sep 30, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

French regulators reject Google’s attempts to limit the scope of European privacy ruling

French regulators have dealt a blow to Google’s hopes of limiting the scope of the “right to be forgotten.” The New York Times reported on Monday that French data protection agency Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has handed down an expansive ruling bolstering a privacy decision issued…

Sep 21, 2015 3:20 PM CDT

AG Loretta Lynch says US prosecutor will work at European police agency

Citing a need to work more closely with European authorities on cybercrime investigations, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Wednesday that a federal prosecutor will be temporarily stationed at Europol. “This person will be a day-to-day presence for all issues,” Lynch said in remarks made during a conference at The…

Sep 17, 2015 6:20 AM CDT

Served with process Tuesday, man shows up at court Wednesday with revving chainsaw, police say

Served with process Tuesday in a family-law case, the respondent showed up at a Canadian courthouse Wednesday morning—holding a revving chainsaw, police say. Sheriff’s officers at the family division of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador Family Division saw him coming and prevented the unidentified 43-year-old from entering the…

Sep 2, 2015 12:50 PM CDT

Vivek Maru: Drawing the arc to global justice

After finishing at Harvard College and before entering Yale Law School, Vivek Maru, born and reared in the U.S., took off more than a year to live in a hut made of sticks and dung amid the poverty and pollution of India’s Kutch region, from which his grandfather came. Maru…

Sep 2, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

EU court invalidates Louis Vuitton’s trademark on checkerboard pattern

Sep 1, 2015 3:50 AM CDT

Canadian lawsuit seeks $578M over dump of hacked info from Ashley Madison dating site

Two Canadian law firms filed a class action lawsuit in Windsor, Ontario, on Thursday over a much-publicized data dump this week by unknown hackers of information about users of the Ashley Madison dating site. Although a disabled widower is currently the only named plaintiff, attorney Ted Charney of Charney Lawyers,…

Aug 24, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

If US were to prosecute over Cecil the lion’s slaying in Africa, what would legal basis be?

Following news that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service was seeking to question a Minnesota dentist who has been linked to a high-profile lion-poaching case in Zimbabwe, Africa, observers wondered what the legal basis might be. There is speculation that American officials may be looking for possible violations of the…

Aug 5, 2015 11:15 AM CDT

Lawyer in Petrobras cases quits practice, cites concern for ‘security of my family’

A lawyer known for her representation of witnesses in an unfolding Brazilian corruption scandal concerning the state-run oil company Petrobras has given up her practice and at last report was vacationing in Florida. Beatriz Catta Preta told TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional in a Portuguese-language interview that she had received no…

Jul 31, 2015 1:00 PM CDT

US seeks to question Minnesota dentist in shooting of Cecil the lion

Already sought for questioning by authorities in Zimbabwe over the claimed poaching of a popular lion allegedly lured from an African national park to be hunted and slain, a Minnesota dentist is now in hot water in the U.S. as well. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has tried without…

Jul 30, 2015 4:55 PM CDT