Ohio

Ohio/regional foreclosure news

Posted on September 20, 2010
With the Columbus Dispatch reporting last week that foreclosure filings in Ohio had risen18.6 percent last month, compared with August 2009, according to RealtyTrac, a California foreclosure service, and 2.5 percent during the first six months of this year according to figures collected by the Ohio Supreme Court, and headlines relating that "banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3

New Online Map of State Legislatures

Posted on September 15, 2010
Sabrina Pacifici at LLRX.com relays that the Library of Congress via Thomas has a new online interactive map of state legislative links, providing "mouse-over and text based links to state legislature websites for U.S. states, territories, and key links to other legislative information...

6th. Circuit Court of Appeals judge confirmation

Posted on September 15, 2010
The United States Senate has confirmed Nashville attorney Jane Branstetter Stranch to join the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, it was reported yesterday. Stranch, a labor and employment lawyer who has worked on the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, takes the seat previously held by Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, who is now serving as a semi-retired senior judge...

2009 FBI Crime In the United States Report

Posted on September 15, 2010
Historically, crime increases during a recession. That has criminologists scratching their heads and wondering as they reviewed the data and pondered the reasons for significant statistical declines in crime nationwide last year -- the third straight decline -- according to the FBI's annual report on violent crime, released Monday...

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Changes to Ohio Supreme Court Primary Election Law Proposed

Posted on September 15, 2010
With the Southern Ohio District Court already considering the issue, Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor was quoted yesterday as saying that that Court should move to reduce political influences by eliminating partisan primary elections.O'Connor, the Republican candidate for chief justice ? and, along with the entire bench of the Ohio Supreme Court, a defendant in the District Court's case --

Ohio adult guardianship bill

Posted on September 13, 2010
A bill seeking revamp Ohio's provisions for adult guardianships was introduced in that state's House of Representatives last week. Included in amending current ORC §2111.02, the HB 578 specifies that "If the person for whom the guardian is to be appointed is an adult, the person must be a qualified respondent as described in section 2112...

Cincinnati passes cellphone texting ordinance

Posted on September 13, 2010
Cincinnati City Council last week approved an ordinance banning the sending, reading or writing of text messages while driving in city limits. The ordinance also bans accessing the Internet while driving, but does not prohibit drivers from talking on a cell phone while driving or entering information into a GPS navigational system, as long as the vehicle is stopped and not in the traffic flow...

Lawsuit targeting Ohio campaign donation statute

Posted on September 09, 2010
Ohio Revised Code §3599.45, originally passed in 1978, bars doctors and health service providers from contributing to candidates for state attorney general or county prosecutor officials who prosecute Medicaid fraud. Last Friday, nine Cleveland, Ohio doctors filed suit in U...

Second Campbell County, Ky. jail suit

Posted on September 09, 2010
"Eight current or former Campbell County jail inmates have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming they have been denied medical care while locked up at that detention center," the Cincinnati Enquirer reported yesterday ? the second such action filed against that institution...

Ohio election procedure lawsuit

Posted on September 07, 2010
A lawsuit, filed in Ohio's Southern District U.S. Court last Wednesday, is challenging that state's "increasingly popular absentee ballot system of voting," a Dayton Daily News article Friday morning said. "Voters are subjected to different rules depending on which county they live in, violating the equal protection clause of the U...

Self-insured compliance guidance for appeals & reviews

Posted on September 02, 2010
Non-grandfathered self-insured plans for the first time have detailed, prescriptive claims appeals and review processes they must comply with, and if a plan does not strictly adhere with those procedures, its determination can be summarily reversed, a Thompson news alert last week said...

Federal closing cost rules

Posted on September 02, 2010
New federal rules requiring mortgage lenders, as of Jan 1, to give borrowers more reliable estimates of closing costs appear to be working -- one reason being that, in many cases, they must now make up the difference between the estimate provided and the actual total...

Utah "concealled carry" permits

Posted on September 01, 2010
While about 200,000 Ohioans have obtained permits to carry concealed firearms through their own state, nearly 2,000 ? 1,885 to be more precise -- have bypassed Ohio's requirements and gotten licenses from Utah -- without even going there, according to an article in The Columbus Dispatch yesterday...

Court indictment not defective when it tracks language of statute

Posted on August 30, 2010
In answering a certified question presented it last Friday, the Supreme Court of Ohio overruled its 2008 decision in State v. Colon holding:1) An indictment that charges an offense by tracking the language of the criminal statute is not defective for failure to identify a culpable mental state when the statute itself fails to specify a mental state...

2009 Ohio Mayors Courts Summary

Posted on August 30, 2010
While traffic cases in Ohio municipal and county courts -- constituting 42 percent of new filings -- was at its lowest mark since 2000 with 1,259,095 filings, a 7 percent decrease from 2008, more than 300,000 new cases were filed in Ohio's 330 mayors courts in 2009 following a four-year decline in that venue...

6th. Circuit's Coroner/Family Rights Decision

Posted on August 27, 2010
In a legal battle that's dragged on for almost two decades now, the 6th. Circuit Court of Appeals here in Cincinnati last Tuesday ruled that "coroners don't have to tell families when they keep body parts of a relative after an autopsy, as long as they have an investigative reason for withholding the organs balancing the rights of families and the responsibilities of coroners," the Cincinnati

9th. Circuit GPS tracking/privacy case

Posted on August 27, 2010
The 9th. Circuit Court of Appeals, last January, ruled that law enforcement officers could secretly place GPS devices on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge. A request for a full-court, en banc, rehearing was denied last Thursday. "Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Oregon in 2007 surreptitiously attached a GPS unit to the silver Jeep owned by Juan Pineda-Moreno, whom

International Reach of RICO Laws

Posted on August 27, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court's logic & reasoning used in its June decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd. -- where the Supreme Court rejected the application of U.S. securities laws abroad and reaffirmed the presumption that, when "a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none" -- was applied by New York Southern District Judge Jed S...

Ohio Child Support Laws

Posted on August 26, 2010
A bill introduced in the Ohio General Assembly last week would mark Ohio's first substantial child support overhaul in nearly 20 years, said, Sen. Shirley Smith, the bill's sponsor. "Ohio's child support laws are outdated and no longer effectively serve the children meant to benefit from them," Sen...

Credit Card Accountability Responsibility & Disclosure

Posted on August 23, 2010
"New rules designed to protect credit card users from 'unreasonable late payment and other penalty fees' came into force Sunday as a result of the Wall Street reform bill -- the final provisions of federal legislation that placed new restrictions on credit card interest rates and fees, completing the most comprehensive overhaul of the credit card industry in history," CNN reported this morning.

2009 Ohio Courts Summary

Posted on August 20, 2010
The Ohio Supreme Court publishes two reports annually: the Ohio Courts Statistical Summary, which, this year, examines data from Ohio courts for the years 2000 to 2009, and the Ohio Courts Statistical Report . Raw data is published in the Statistical Reports, while the Summaries analyze the data from the reports and identifies trends...

Ohio election laws case

Posted on August 20, 2010
The lawsuit filed last month challenging Ohio election laws which "banned judicial candidates from direct fundraising and disclosing of their political affiliation" met with a major setback yesterday when U.S. District Judge Susan Diott denied those plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order to permit judicial candidates to be listed by political party on the general election ballot in

Ohio Prison Reform/Criminal History legislation

Posted on August 20, 2010
The Columbus Dispatch, Wednesday morning, had two mentions of bills that have been introduced in the Ohio Senate we found of interest. Senate Bill 22 (article) (bill analysis) "'We are at a crisis in the state of Ohio,' Ohio ACLU legal director James Hardiman was quoted as saying, in releasing 'Reform Cannot Wait,' a report examining the cost and impact of prison incarceration

Ohio Supreme Court 4th. Amendment Learning Tool

Posted on August 19, 2010
The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday announced that its Visitor Education Center would be offering lesson plans & tools for middle- and high school students and teachers to study & consider the Court?s 2009 decision in State v. Smith, requiring police to obtain warrants before searching cell phones and related Fourth Amendment considerations...

Ohio lethal injection law upheld

Posted on August 18, 2010
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost, beginning last week, rejected the appeals of 15 Ohio inmates, USAToday reported yesterday morning, upholding Ohio's never-tried "backup method" in executions that would inject drugs directly into an inmate's muscle when veins can't be readily accessed...

COBRA status

Posted on August 18, 2010
A USAToday article this morning discussed the ? at least at present ? demise of COBRA benefits for many people. The longstanding federal law passed in 1985, requires employers to continue insurance for former employees, typically for 18 more months, if they pay the entire premium plus a 2% administrative fee...

Ohio sex offender update

Posted on August 18, 2010
Citing its June 3rd. decision in State v. Bodyke , dispositions were entered by the Ohio Supreme Court, yesterday, in 127 other sexual offender reclassification cases that were pending on appeal. ( See In re Sexual Offender Reclassification Cases, Slip Opinion No...

9th. Circuit holds on same-sex marriages

Posted on August 17, 2010
ScotusBlog this morning reported that "the Ninth Circuit Court, acting swiftly on the hotly controversial issue of same-sex marriages in California, on Monday afternoon delayed for at least four months any grant of licenses to gay couples to wed in the state...

More on pending Proposition 8 issue

Posted on August 16, 2010
Three articles this morning address the West Coast?s "Proposition 8,"same-sex marriage issue, and the possible course it could take. Law.com?s Tony Mauro?s article, first of all, says "..now that Judge Vaughn Walker has decided that Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, is unconstitutional, the possibility is real that the case might never make it on appeal all the way to the

Same-sex marriage update

Posted on August 13, 2010
By now we guess everyone heard that "the federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban had more bad news for the measure's sponsors: he not only is unwilling to keep gay couples from marrying beyond next Wednesday, but doubts the ban's backers have the right to challenge his ruling...

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