The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] on Monday affirmed [opinion, PDF] a lower court ruling that barred Ecuadoran plaintiffs from collecting a USD $8.646 billion Ecuadoran judgment against Chevron Corp. The lower court had concluded in 2014 that the Ecuadoran judgment was obtained through corruption and fraud and barred the…
By Brittney Felder [JURIST]. The US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] dismissed [Opinion, PDF] on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by third party presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein against the Commission on Presidential Debates [official website] requesting that third party candidates be included in the presidential debate this year….
A Delaware federal judge on Tuesday invalidated two patents on a system of sharing streaming video, marking a victory for Google Inc. and its subsidiary YouTube LLC. Ruling on Google’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, U.S. District Judge Gregory M. Sleet said the patent claims of Massachusetts-based VideoShare were directed to an abstract idea…
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper, a former DC public defender, addresses prosecutor Michele Hanisee’s remarks concerning the death penalty in California… Speaking in favor of Proposition 66, the ballot initiative that seeks to speed up executions in California to Texas-like levels of lethality, Los Angeles deputy district attorney Michele Hanisee told legislators during testimony before…
[JURIST] The Delaware Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that the state’s death penalty statute is unconstitutional. Citing a January US Supreme Court decision [JURIST report] that found that Florida’s death penalty scheme violated the Sixth Amendment [text], the Delaware court found that the law gives judges too great a role in imposing…
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed into law an updated equal-pay measure that bans employers from asking job applicants about their current and previous pay. The “groundbreaking” law makes Massachusetts the first state to ban questions about salary history before job offers are made, the New York Times DealBook blog reports. Applicants can voluntarily disclose…
By: Brett Ingerman/Jonathan W. Haray/Lindsay R. Barnes Recently, four days into what had been scheduled to be seven-week trial, the US Department of Justice voluntarily dismissed the last of the criminal charges it had brought in its money laundering and drug trafficking prosecution of FedEx. Such was the abrupt end of two years of litigation in the US District Court…
[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Wednesday ordered [opinion] Ronald Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr. released from a government psychiatric hospital. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1981 and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where he has remained for 35…
[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] on Tuesday gave preliminary approval [order, PDF] to a $15 billion settlement [case materials] between German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) [corporate website] and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website], California officials and consumers. Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling…
[JURIST] Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby [official profile] announced Wednesday that charges against the three remaining officers facing trial in connection with Freddie Gray’s death will be dropped [press release]. While in police custody in 2015, Gray sustained a spinal cord injury, which ultimately resulted his death. Three officers were previously acquitted in the…
