Legal Research

Selections from National Law Journal Daily Headlines April 29, 2009

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: NLJ.com, April 29, 2009.

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FROM THE UPCOMING ISSUE  |  Divided high court upholds FCC ban on 'fleeting expletives'
"By a narrow 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Bush Federal Communications Commission acted reasonably in banning even the single-time utterance of 'fleeting expletives' over broadcast airwaves. But the decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, which was based on principles of administrative law, stopped short of deciding whether the ban violates the First Amendment, as broadcasters had argued. "

FROM THE UPCOMING ISSUE  |  Justices weigh funding for special education
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday waded into the contentious debate that takes place in public schools every day between parents seeking special education services for their children and school administrators who are trying to contain costs."

WEB-ONLY  |  SEC: Lawyer traded on client information
"An Oklahoma attorney has agreed to pay double the $80,000 in losses he allegedly avoided by selling shares in an energy firm days after receiving confidential information about the company from his client, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced on April 28."

WEB-ONLY  |  Ex-partner may appeal arbitration award
"A former managing partner at Fisher & Phillips will get another crack at an action against the Atlanta-based labor and employment law firm. Reversing a trial court, a state appellate court in California ruled on that Robert J. Bekken is entitled to have a state court review a 2006 arbitration award that favored the law firm in a dispute that began after Bekken left it in 2004."

WEB-ONLY  |  Judge explains media ban in beheading case hearing
"A Michigan judge says technology and popular Web sites such as YouTube led him to ban the media and public from a recent post-conviction hearing in a beheading trial. The case involves a teenager convicted of beheading a man last year."

WEB-ONLY  |  NACDL report blasts misdemeanor courts
"Misdemeanor courts are a waste of time and money. So claims the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which on Tuesday issued a first-of-its-kind national report on the status of misdemeanor courts across the country. The report, which involved 18 months' worth of research at courts in seven states, found that taxpayers are footing the bill for more than 10 million misdemeanor prosecutions per year, paying an average of $60 a day, per inmate, to incarcerate misdemeanor defendants."

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on April 29, 2009 (boomark / email).