5th Circuit Court

Sex offender living in hotel room may challenge town’s residency restrictions, 5th Circuit says

A registered sex offender and family members who had to live in a one-bedroom motel room to comply with a Dallas town’s residency restrictions have standing to challenge the ordinance, an appeals court has ruled. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday on behalf of Aurelio…

Jul 24, 2014 4:26 PM CDT

2 men get time in conspiracy to bribe federal judge overseeing $65M money-laundering case

Two men who pleaded guilty to charges that they and a third Mexican citizen tried to bribe a Texas federal judge overseeing a $65 million money-laundering case have been sentenced to a year and a day by a visiting federal judge from Louisiana. Francisco Colorado Jr. and Ramon Segura Flores…

Jul 22, 2014 5:30 PM CDT

5th Circuit upholds race in admissions at the University of Texas

A federal appeals court has upheld the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas at Austin in the remand of a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the university’s admissions plan in a suit…

Jul 16, 2014 12:36 PM CDT

State AG sues Experian, says credit-report Goliath stonewalls consumers about known errors

A state attorney general has sued Experian Information Solutions, contending that the major credit-reporting agency has knowingly left errors in its files on consumers and makes it difficult or impossible for individuals to correct them. Filed without fanfare in state court in Biloxi last month, the suit by Mississippi Attorney…

Jun 16, 2014 9:30 PM CDT

Animal-crush-video ban is upheld by 5th Circuit; obscenity restriction helps save law

A federal appeals court has upheld a federal ban on animal-crush videos that restricts its reach to “obscene” depictions of animal cruelty. The New Orleans–based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the law does not violate the First Amendment, report Legal Times and ABA Media Alerts.…

Jun 16, 2014 1:44 PM CDT

Elevator conversation results in new trial for BP engineer convicted in Deepwater Horizon case

A federal judge in New Orleans on Thursday blasted defense lawyers in a high-profile criminal case for interviewing jurors after their guilty verdict. Doing so may have violated his instructions to the jurors not to discuss their verdict even after the trial had concluded, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr.…

Jun 13, 2014 11:45 AM CDT

Woman sues GM over criminal conviction resulting from car crash

General Motors is facing a number of lawsuits as a result of its now-admitted problem with vehicle ignition switches. But one may be unique. A Texas woman who was convicted of negligent homicide as a result of a 2004 crash now says in a federal lawsuit filed in Tyler on…

Jun 9, 2014 10:50 PM CDT

Former executive takes plea in $16.6M fruitcake bakery embezzlement case

A former executive at a small town Texas bakery known for the big business it did in high-end mail-order fruitcakes has agreed to take a plea in a $16.6 million embezzlement case. Sandy Jenkins, who was until 2013 the controller at Collin Street Bakery, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court…

May 22, 2014 8:20 PM CDT

Akin Gump withdraws from case after winning $25M jury verdict, says client admitted evidence issues

After winning a verdict of nearly $25 million in a federal trade secrets case earlier this year, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has filed a motion to withdraw from its representation of LBDS Holding Company, LLC. Noting that it is unusual to do so after a favorable jury verdict…

May 22, 2014 3:57 PM CDT

5th Circuit issues last-minute execution stay based on claim Texas concealed inmate’s low IQ

Unpersuaded by an injection-drug argument Monday, a federal appeals court nonetheless issued a last-minute stay of execution Tuesday in the case of a Texas inmate. The argument that won the day for Robert James Campbell, 41, was based on his intellectual capacity, the New York Times (reg. req.) reports. His…

May 13, 2014 9:59 PM CDT

Final settlements reached in Bonfire accident at Texas A&M that killed 12 and injured 27

Dominic Braus was a freshman at Texas A&M University in 1999 when a 60-foot-high stack of some 6,000 logs came apart in a horrific Nov. 18 accident, killing 12, injuring 27 others and ending the school’s 90-year-old Bonfire tradition. Braus, who almost lost his right arm—which was partly severed when…

May 12, 2014 8:15 PM CDT

Lawyer who sued Apple last year over porn addiction now wants to marry his computer

Last year, a Tennessee lawyer made headlines when he filed a product liability suit contending that Apple Inc. was responsible for the pornography addiction that he says resulted when he mistyped a Web address into a MacBook Pro laptop. Now Chris Sevier is taking a different tack in federal litigation…

May 8, 2014 6:50 PM CDT

3 new pleas linked to ex-law firm chief serving 50 years in $1.2B swindle; 20th conviction now looms

Three more guilty pleas are scheduled in cases linked to disbarred onetime Florida law firm leader Scott Rothstein, bringing the total number of expected federal convictions, including Rothstein’s, to 20. The latest defendants who have agreed to take pleas are a former Broward County sheriff’s lieutenant and detective and the…

May 6, 2014 5:50 PM CDT

BP cries foul, says crafty lawyers and claimants collected $500M in comp unrelated to oil spill

In a written settlement agreement concerning the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with a 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, BP agreed to a compensation formula to reimburse businesses. But now BP is unhappy about language that is being interpreted not only by plaintiffs lawyers…

May 5, 2014 10:00 PM CDT

Law that would shut down Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is reviewed by 5th Circuit

Federal appeals judges on Monday considered the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that requires doctors performing abortions to have admission privileges at nearby hospitals. The law is similar to a Texas law upheld in March by the same appeals court, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But…

Apr 29, 2014 1:17 PM CDT