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Selections from National Law Journal Daily Headlines May 26, 2009

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: NLJ.com, May 26, 2009.

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CHEATING 2.0

"Law schools rely on honor codes to keep students from cheating, but changes in technology and exam formats have rendered some of the codes outdated and ineffective, say law students and faculty. A 2006 survey of 54 colleges found that 45% of law school students had engaged in some form of cheating at least once in the previous year".

O'Connor on vacancy, Souter

"When she retired in 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lamented that her successor Samuel Alito Jr. did not wear a skirt. In an interview last week, O'Connor said that, with a new vacancy on the Court, most people are "expecting and indeed hoping" that the next appointee will be a woman. 'There was a little backsliding when I left.' "

Fears rise over new fraud law

"The big gun wielded by the U.S. Department of Justice last week against drug maker Wyeth for hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged Medicare fraud grew more lethal a few days later when President Obama signed a new law that broadens the liability of businesses for defrauding the government. "

Frozen assets

"The U.S. Department of Justice is scrambling to save an important tool in the investigation of international crime, a provision of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 that gives federal district judges the authority to freeze U.S.-based property that is subject to a foreign forfeiture judgment. Defense lawyers who specialize in asset forfeiture disputes are closely watching the case."

Plaintiffs lawyers predict broad impact of high court's detainee decision

"A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday could make it significantly harder for plaintiffs in a broad range of cases to survive defendants' motions to dismiss, according to experts in civil procedure. 'This is very bad for plaintiffs,' said Alan Morrison, former head of Public Citizen Litigation Group, reacting to Monday's 5-4 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. The ruling dismissed a complaint filed by a Pakistani Muslim against former Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking to hold Ashcroft liable for policies that led to the roundup of aliens following Sept. 11, 2001."

Mass. lawyer sentenced to 87 months for money laundering, obstruction of justice

"A Boston federal judge sentenced Lawrence Novak, a lawyer and former Massachusetts Republican State Committee officer, to seven years and three months in prison for obstruction of justice and money laundering. Besides the 87 months in prison, District Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced the 57-year-old Novak of Brockton, Mass., to two years of supervised release, a $20,000 fine and an order to pay $107,000 in forfeiture on May 22."

OPINION

Sacrificing principles?

"Did the questions put by Justice Anthony Kennedy and his more conservative brethren during the April 29 argument of the challenge to the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act indicate how they will eventually rule? If they did, these justices would have sacrificed not only a vital safeguard for minority voting rights, but their own jurisprudential principles, to a misplaced states' rights ideology".

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).