Washington

Are Bitcoin ATMs legal? Las Vegas company will take a flyer on gray-area regulatory question

Despite the popular success of Bitcoin, dubious U.S. regulators worried about possible money-laundering have put the brakes on efforts to make the virtual global currency more widely available. The federal investigation of Bitcoin exchange operators who authorities say provided funds for anonymous drug purchases on the now-shuttered Silk Road website,…

Feb 18, 2014 9:45 PM CST

Execution moratorium by Washington’s governor doesn’t change the law, prosecutor says

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced this week that he is suspending executions while he is in office, but that doesn’t mean a long term reprieve for death-row inmates and defendants facing prosecution. Inslee didn’t commute any death sentences to life in prison, nor did he issue any pardons to inmates…

Feb 14, 2014 3:54 PM CST

How to advise clients on legal-marijuana issues? Some bar associations mull ethics rule changes

Image from Shutterstock. Marijuana remains an illegal drug under federal law. But a growing number of states have moved to allow medical marijuana, or even recreational pot use and sales, some lawyers feel they are between a rock and a hard place. State and local government entities, as well as…

Feb 12, 2014 6:15 PM CST

High-speed-chase suspect is allowed to leave state to attend Super Bowl

A Washington state businessman accused in a high-speed police chase will be allowed to leave the state to attend the Super Bowl in New Jersey, but he won’t be driving there. A judge on Thursday approved the Super Bowl request of defendant Shaun Goodman, who will be taking cabs after…

Jan 31, 2014 12:46 PM CST

Another guilty verdict for American Amanda Knox in Italian roommate-murder case

Updated: Convicted again—along with her Italian ex-boyfriend—Thursday by an Italian court in the 2007 slaying of her former roommate in that country, onetime American exchange student Amanda Knox wasn’t there to hear the verdict. Knox, 26, has awaited the outcome of the retrial here in the U.S., and she has…

Jan 30, 2014 10:05 PM CST

Do coffee baristas serve up too much while wearing too little? Cities enact new laws, conduct raids

“Some Like it Hot,” proclaims a sign for Java Juggs, one of the racy, drive-through coffee kiosks that have become popular in Washington state. But others clearly do not, requiring municipalities in the region to determine how hot is too hot as residents complain that scantily clad “bikini baristas” at…

Jan 28, 2014 12:38 PM CST

Meet attorney Adam Karp, ‘St. Francis with a briefcase’ who gets five-figure awards in pet slayings

Traditionally, animals were considered property whose only value is what it costs to purchase them or the amount of money they could produce through breeding, sale of their meat or similar business operations. But that view has been changing, and Washington state attorney Adam Karp has been in the forefront…

Jan 24, 2014 11:00 PM CST

Cities and counties can ban marijuana use that is legal under state law, AG says

Adding more complexity to a new Washington law legalizing the possession and sale of recreational marijuana, the state attorney general is supporting the rights of cities and counties to ban pot within their precincts. In a Thursday opinion (PDF), Attorney General Bob Ferguson says the voter initiative authorizing recreational use…

Jan 16, 2014 9:25 PM CST

Now-vindicated woman charged with making a false rape report wins $150K settlement

A woman who says she was pressured by police and social workers to recant her truthful report that she was bound, gagged, raped and photographed by a stranger in her transitional housing apartment when she was 18 years old has won a $150,000 settlement from a city in Washington state.…

Jan 15, 2014 10:25 PM CST

Federal judge finds 2 cities’ public defender programs deficient; will he OK a federal monitor?

Two cities in Washington state’s Skagit County systematically violated the rights of indigent individuals through their inadequate public defender programs and were “willfully blind” to problems caused by cost-cutting, a federal judge has ruled. In a Wednesday opinion (PDF) resulting from a June bench trial of a groundbreaking class action,…

Dec 4, 2013 8:50 PM CST

Restaurant ejects diner who insisted on wearing Google Glass

A Seattle restaurant has joined a growing number of business establishments that already ban or are expected to ban Google Glass because of concerns about privacy, piracy and/or the loss of confidential material. A Facebook post explains that the Lost Lake Cafe asked a “rude” patron who wouldn’t take off…

Dec 4, 2013 6:10 PM CST

Longtime government lawyer left $188M charitable trust, including record gift to his law school

A Seattle lawyer who worked for the Veterans Administration for nearly 30 years invested his savings and an inheritance from his parents to amass the money to fund a $187.6 million charitable trust. When he died in September at age 98, Jack MacDonald left the money for three charities: the…

Nov 26, 2013 10:45 PM CST

Shook Hardy to open Seattle office with former Microsoft chief patent counsel

Shook Hardy & Bacon has announced that the law firm is bringing in the former chief patent counsel at Microsoft Corp. to head a new office in Seattle. Bart Eppenauer worked as a Shook Hardy associate for several years before joining Microsoft in 1997. He is expected to be the…

Nov 6, 2013 11:55 PM CST

Man beats rap on courthouse-restroom vandalism case after 55 days in jail

A man who had been jailed for nearly two months awaiting trial in a felony case over damage to two Washington state courthouse restrooms beat the rap on Oct. 21, when a judge dismissed the case at the prosecution’s request because the government hadn’t shown damage exceeding $750. Within hours,…

Nov 5, 2013 5:20 PM CST

Convicted bank robber-turned-lawyer is subject of planned TV show

An unlikely success story, a convicted bank robber who wrote a winning certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court while serving time and went on to a legal career is now the subject of a planned television show. Shon Hopwood, who at last report was soon to earn a law…

Oct 28, 2013 5:35 PM CDT