Ohio

Wisconsin virtual schools

Posted on January 18, 2008
In what?s believed to be the first ruling of its kind in the United States, the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Wisconsin last month ordered the state to stop funding the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, bringing focus to bear on a national policy debate as to whether virtual schools qualify for public funding or relegate to home schooling at parental expense...

Capital Punishment & Public Executions

Posted on January 11, 2008
For those following, if you haven?t seen it yet, SCOTUSblog has the 70-page oral argument transcript from Baze v. Rees posted at their site. SCOTUSblog also ?wikis? major or more notable cases such as Baze.?The Supreme Court has never held that any method of execution violates Eighth Amendment ?cruel & unusual punishment?? sanctions, a National Law Journal article last year said...

Google patent case

Posted on December 28, 2007
A PC World article, yesterday, summarized in some detail the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hyperphase/Hyperphase Technologies v. Google on Wednesday.Hyperphase Industries sued Google in April 2006, according to the article, alleging Google?s ?AdSense? and ?AutoLink? toolbar functions infringed on Hyperphase patents relating to contextual linking and presentation of information...

Company-paid health benefits cuts OK'd for retirees, spouses, over 65

Posted on December 28, 2007
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Wednesday said employers could reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees, their spouses, or any dependents once the retiree hits 65 and becomes eligible for Medicare.(See Final Rule)AARP had filed suit in Eastern Pennsylvania District Court earlier this year trying to block the new rules...

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Tennessee death penalty stays of execution

Posted on December 27, 2007
The Middle Tennessee U.S. District Court, , as have a number of others around the country, last Friday granted a stay of execution for Paul Dennis Reid pending the Supreme Court?s decision once hearing Baze v. Rees on Jan 7th.The District Court earlier this year had declared the state?s execution protocol for lethal injection unconstitutional and enjoined it from executing Edward Jerome Harbison...

Confrontation Rights at Sentencing

Posted on December 24, 2007
SCOTUS had an interesting post last week about the Justice Department urging Supreme Court justices to allow lower courts continue to explore whether to apply the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation to sentencing hearings?including those involving the death penalty...

"West Memphis Three" habeas corpus writ

Posted on December 21, 2007
In Spring 1993 three cub scouts were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, and Jessie Misskelley, who were teenagers at the time, were arrested by police and found guilty of the crimes. Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole...

Taxation of Railroad Property

Posted on December 21, 2007
The Supreme Court, back on December 4th., decided that railroads could challenge state methods for determining the value of railroad property along with the manner in which those methods are applied, resolving a split in federal circuit court holdings as to whether a state?s property tax valuation methodologies could be challenged under the federal Railroad Revitalization & Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (4-R Act)An article in CCH?s State Tax Review on Dec...

Death Penalty Updates

Posted on December 17, 2007
Last week New Jersey continued setting about to abolish the death penalty ? now only awaiting the governor?s signature in a couple of days.According to the Toledo Blade , New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, six years after Gregg v. Georgia...

Indiana Local Government Reform

Posted on December 12, 2007
Indiana cities, townships & counties would be undergoing drastic reorganization & reform under 27 proposals from the governor?s Commission on Local Government Reform announced today.Conceived of back in May, just after the close of this year?s session of the Indiana General Assembly, Governor Mitchell Daniels created the Commission in July to develop recommendations to reform and restructure local government in Indiana...

U.S. Sentencing Commission makes cocaine rule amendments retroactive

Posted on December 12, 2007
The United States Sentencing Commission unanimously voted to allow 19,500 federal prison inmates seek reductions in their crack cocaine sentences yesterday, making roughly 3, 800 persons eligible for release within a year after Tuesday?s March 3rd effective date for the decision...

Supreme Court's Kimbrough/Gall Sentencing Guideline Decisions

Posted on December 11, 2007
Two significant cases were decided by the Supreme Court Monday, giving federal judges new authority to set sentences for crack cocaine crimes below federal guidelines in Kimbrough v. U.S., and impose sentences below specific guideline ranges while still having them be regarded as ?reasonable...

New Ohio Medicaid Agency

Posted on December 11, 2007
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland yesterday signed an executive order establishing the Executive Medicaid Management Administration as a central coordinating body to administer the state?s Medicaid program across the several agencies now involved.?Federal law requires every state to appoint one agency to be responsible for applying for Medicaid grants or waivers, administering and/or amending that state?s plan, and ensuring that activities such as claim processing are conducted properly,? the order says...

2006 Prison/ Probation & Parole Reports

Posted on December 06, 2007
The Justice Department?s latest prison statistics report was released yesterday, indicating that 3.2% of the U.S. adult population ? something like seven million men and women, or 1 in every 31 persons in the country ? were in prison, jail, on probation, or out on parole by the end of 2006; an increase of 159,500 over the year...

Right-to-Counsel Supreme Court Case

Posted on December 05, 2007
As far back as 1932 the Supreme Court had been recognizing a defendant?s right to counsel as ?essential to the safeguarding of American freedoms,? leaving the extent of that, however, to the individual states. (Here)In 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright held that ?no one, regardless of wealth, education or class, should be charged with a crime and then forced to face his accusers in court without the guidance of counsel...

Alleged Accessory Denied Change of Venue in Knoxville Murder Trial

Posted on December 05, 2007
A Knoxville, Tennessee attorney, who had described his client?s case as ?one of the most heavily publicized & misreported cases in recent local East Tennessee history,? was denied a change of venue last Saturday. ( Here )Eric Boyd?s attorney referred to the Internet as ?the largest unregulated source of information? ? spreading lies and helping create an urban legend surrounding the details of the final state of the victims? bodies?meant to outrage and taint any jury pool? last month, stating that ?literally thousands and thousands of internet blogs & news accounts have been published about the case, both partially factual and fictional...

Gun Control Background Check List

Posted on November 30, 2007
Articles this morning from CBS News, the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post on the Justice Department?s list of mentally impaired individuals barred from purchasing handguns notes that list?s ?explosion,? notably from the California where some 200,000 additional names were added since last Spring?s shooting rampage at Virginia Tech...

Indiana Supreme Court death sentence case of mentally ill

Posted on November 29, 2007
Indiana?s Supreme Court Tuesday upheld that state?s death penalty for a mentally ill man convicted in 1997 of abduction, rape, and murder. (Article)(Opinion)Citing Matheney v. State and Baird v. State, both 2005 cases, a majority of the justices disagreed that ?a person who is mentally ill suffers from the same ?diminished capacities? as a person who is mentally retarded,? referencing Indiana Code § 35-36-2-5 and § 35-50-2-9(a), both just recently amended.

Thanksgiving-- the day after & five months before

Posted on November 23, 2007
Today we?re thinking the day after Thanksgiving should be a little more than a shopping day?and have even found something to maybe think about.We?re taught in grade school that Thanksgiving was a celebration between Virginia settlers and American Indians after a particularly difficult winter and all...

Supreme Court on Gun Control

Posted on November 21, 2007
The big story so far this week, and, for some, longer than that, is the Supreme Court?s decision yesterday to hear the District of Columbia?s handgun case, presumably to define the limits of the constitutional ?right to keep & bear arms. It would mark the time the Court?s directly interpreted the Second Amendment...

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