Posts on ‘November 4th, 2008’

The ACLU has filed a FOIA request with the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, seeking an explanation for the Army’s decision to initiate what the ACLU believes would be the first-ever permanent deployment of an active-duty military unit within the United States. The organization says the deployment jeopardizes the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the government from using the military as a law enforcement tool, except when authorized by Congress during national emergencies.

Funded mainly through law firms’ pro bono support, more than 100 local, state and national organizations have banded together to form an umbrella group that calls itself the largest voter protection effort in U.S. history. Still haunted by memories of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, the civil rights organizations, public interest groups and private law firms are ready to deploy an army of lawyers for duty on Election Day.

Brian Mellor, senior counsel for Project Vote, is working with lawyers around the country to fend off criminal charges against ACORN over its voter registration efforts. Its employees have come under criminal investigation in at least eight states, ACORN has been sued in two states, and there’s reportedly an FBI investigation. “The story out there is flat-out not true,” Mellor says about the wave of allegations. So far, ACORN has been vindicated in the one registration-fraud lawsuit to be ruled on to date.

A Philadelphia judge has asked the state Superior Court to uphold another of his rulings dismissing a plaintiff’s personal injury complaint that the manufacturers of her hormone replacement therapy drugs are liable for her breast cancer. Common Pleas Judge Allan L. Tereshko wrote that Hazel Blaylock knew her breast cancer might be related to her use of hormone therapy and that she had the duty to investigate the cause of her injury and file her action within two years of her cancer diagnosis.

A juror who abruptly left before a verdict was reached in the trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens lied when she told the court her father had died. The real reason: to attend the Breeders’ Cup World Championships in California. Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered Marian Hinnant to appear in court Monday to answer why she failed to communicate with the court after she left. Hinnant was accompanied by a public defender, who said Hinnant’s story about the death of her father “popped” into her head.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has recruited a securities litigation partner from the former Heller Ehrman. Lawrence Zweifach had been perhaps the most sought-after partner in Heller’s New York office. He said he joined Gibson Dunn due to his earlier experience cooperating with the firm in defending PricewaterhouseCoopers in accounting fraud litigation stemming from the bankruptcy of school bus company Laidlaw.

Compared to the drama surrounding which lawyer would argue before the Supreme Court in the case of , the actual argument came as something of an anticlimax. The tussle, which earned Rhode Island attorney Joseph Larisa a following as the David up against the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Goliath, former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, ended just three days before the argument, with Larisa bowing out. Perhaps sharpened by the rivalry, Olson was at his best at the Court on Monday.