Posts on ‘March 2nd, 2009’

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens rarely makes public appearances in Washington, D.C., outside the Court, but he made an exception last week, moderating a discussion on the 1803 landmark decision at the Newseum. He even made a bit of news, revealing that if he had his druthers, new Supreme Court justices from now on would be sworn in at the Court, not at the White House, to symbolize the Court’s independence. President Obama, take note.

A pair of pleadings in a personal injury case have taken on a life of
their own as lawyers have e-mailed them to friends for their sheer
entertainment value. In a motion, plaintiffs lawyers begged a judge to
forbid their opponent, Steven G. Leventhal of Reger Rizzo & Darnall,
from performing magic tricks or even mentioning that he is a
professional magician. Leventhal’s response asked the judge to use his
or her own sleight of hand to make the plaintiff’s motion disappear –
with prejudice.

Lawyers for Ali al-Marri are bittersweet over the Obama administration’s decision to transplant him from a Navy brig where he was held for five years, without charge, into the civil criminal justice system. Now he and his lawyers may lose their chance to challenge before the Supreme Court the Bush administration’s use of executive power to hold civilians indefinitely on American soil. On Friday, the Obama administration moved to dismiss the case, arguing that al-Marri’s transfer rendered the case moot.

In September 2008, U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of Texas spoke loudly and forcefully when entering a not guilty plea to sex abuse charges. But last week in a Houston courtroom his tone was markedly different as a clearly beaten Kent whispered “guilty” to an obstruction-of-justice charge. Kent’s decision to plead guilty to the obstruction charge will cost him any chance at a standard judicial retirement salary and most likely his bar card and freedom, five experts say.

Less than two years after Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal announced the opening of its office in Charlotte, N.C., partners voted Friday afternoon to close up shop in the battered banking center. In a statement, Sonnenschein Chairman Elliott Portnoy cited “local marketplace realities, the declining demand for legal services in the Charlotte legal and financial markets, and the needs of our financial institution clients” as reasons for the move.

The trustee of a trust fund for sick Florida smokers is prepared to settle some claims by the federal government for $18 million, freeing up the rest of the $580 million fund for smokers and their attorneys. The trustee offered two scenarios for how the money will be paid — a quick and easy method dividing the total by about 45,000 authorized claimants for a charge of $400 each, or a belabored process of running their Social Security numbers through government benefit databases.

Former Pennsyvlania Judge Michael Conahan used to hold meetings about twice a month with a reputed mob boss and a common friend — also an admitted felon — to discuss pending court cases, according to a supplement to a King’s Bench petition filed with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday. Conahan and Mark Ciavarella Jr. have pleaded guilty to charges they accepted $2.6 million in kickbacks from the owner and builder of a juvenile detention center, to which they allegedly steered juveniles.

Federal Judge Royce Lamberth has chopped WilmerHale’s fee request for a second time in the whistleblower case , this time also awarding the firm a lecture. In his opinion knocking down the fee award from the requested $1.3 million to $730,000, Lamberth runs down a detailed list of perceived missteps, declaring in a footnote that the case was “yet another reason to proclaim that ‘this is the time to get rid of the billable hour.’”

A year after the California Supreme Court entertained arguments on extending marriage to gay couples, many of the same lawyers will be back before the same justices this week arguing why California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage should stand or fall. The passage of Proposition 8 last November changed the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage and trumped the high court’s decision a few months earlier to legalize it.

New Attorney General Eric Holder has authorized a deal that could abruptly end a rare San Francisco death penalty trial only days after it began. Not only does Holder’s reversal likely spare defendant Emile Fort his life, but it may signal a less aggressive approach to the death penalty in federal court. And it vindicates the local U.S. Attorney’s Office, which had been rebuffed by Holder’s predecessor, Michael Mukasey.