7th Circuit Court

Dissenter blasts Posner’s Internet research in inmate’s suit over acid reflux treatment

Judge Richard Posner’s Internet research led to sparring in a divided opinion on Wednesday that reinstated a lawsuit filed by an Indiana inmate who claimed prison staffers failed to treat his acid reflux properly. Posner defended his online research about the condition, saying it was used only to demonstrate the…

Aug 20, 2015 8:59 AM CDT

Wrong man arrested on ‘troubling’ reality TV show has no civil rights case, 7th Circuit rules

Allowing a television reality show to pay and film police homicide detectives as they are investigating a case is hardly a good idea, a federal appeals court says. And it is easy to see how such a joint effort by producers of The Shift and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department…

Aug 19, 2015 2:18 PM CDT

7th Circuit says court erred by upholding prison’s refusal to allow inmate and former guard to marry

A constitutional right to marry includes prison inmates and the guards. So a federal district judge erred in granting summary judgment to the Indiana Department of Corrections in a civil rights suit over a blocked wedding, a federal appeals court says. In a unanimous ruling (PDF), a three-judge panel of…

Aug 18, 2015 3:55 PM CDT

7th Circuit says sorry about forgetting case for 5 years

A Thursday federal appellate ruling made headlines because the court admittedly forgot about the case for five years after it was remanded in 2010 by the U.S. Supreme Court. “We close with an apology to the parties,” the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its order (PDF). “After…

Aug 6, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

7th Circuit questions the accuracy of Lex the drug-sniffing dog but upholds car search evidence

A federal appeals court has upheld a car search that uncovered cocaine, though it occurred after an alert by a drug-sniffing drug with a poor accuracy record. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said officers in Bloomington, Illinois, had probable cause for the search because Lex the drug-sniffing…

Aug 3, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

Backpage sues sheriff over letters to credit card companies

Efforts by a Chicago-area sheriff to persuade credit card companies not to deal with Backpage.com are “an especially pernicious form of prior restraint,” the company says in a federal lawsuit filed this week. Arguments on the First Amendment lawsuit, which seeks a restraining order against Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart,…

Jul 23, 2015 5:00 PM CDT

7th Circuit nixes 5 counts in conviction of ex-Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, calls for new sentence

Faced with an 18-count conviction and what it described as overwhelming evidence of a former Illinois governor’s guilt in a political corruption case, a federal appeals court Tuesday nonetheless nixed five counts and called for a resentencing. The impeached former governor, Rod Blagojevich, “now asks us to hold that the…

Jul 21, 2015 4:20 PM CDT

City wins federal civil rights case over police shooting of dog attacked by pit bull

A downstate Illinois family had sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages from the city of Champaign because a color-blind police officer shot their pedigreed chocolate Labrador retriever to death after it was attacked by a stray pit bull. However, a jury didn’t see the federal civil rights case…

Jul 13, 2015 10:25 AM CDT

Posner admits he’s ‘brutal to lawyers’ but defends his critique of Roberts’ gay-marriage dissent

A well-known federal appeals court judge says he may sometimes be “a little brutal to lawyers” when expressing his views of their arguments. But Judge Richard Posner, who made headlines by publishing a recent critique of U.S. Supreme Court dissents in last month’s same-sex marriage ruling, says the nation’s top…

Jul 9, 2015 2:25 PM CDT

Federal judge nixes jail’s newspaper ban, but says articles about gang activities can be cut out

A ban on newspapers at Chicago’s Cook County Jail that has been in effect for over 30 years was struck down as unconstitutional on Monday by a federal court. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly saw merit in Sheriff Tom Dart’s security concerns about newspapers, but said they can be addressed…

Jul 8, 2015 11:55 AM CDT

Lawyer who hosted radio show avoids prison in $10M mortgage-fraud case

A federal judge gave a real estate closing attorney who once hosted a national radio show a break on Tuesday. Warren Ballentine, 44, got three years of probation, 300 hours of community service and must pay over $140,000 in restitution to lenders for his role in a mortgage fraud that…

Jul 8, 2015 11:05 AM CDT

7th Circuit criticizes lawyer for raising too many issues on appeal

A federal appeals court is criticizing an Indianapolis lawyer for filing an appeal that raises too many issues and “conveys the impression of ‘dictated but not read.’ ” The decision (PDF) by the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that lawyer Ronald Weldy filed the appeal too late…

Jul 7, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Law grad gets 6 years for Ponzi scheme said to have cost investors $9.2M

Updated: Only last year, it seemed that Neal Goyal was living large because of his remarkable success in business. He had just begun working in a luxurious corner office on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, he was residing with his family in a $1.5 million home, and he took his employees…

Jul 2, 2015 1:40 PM CDT

Posner: Chief justice’s gay-marriage dissent is ‘heartless’

Federal appeals judge Richard Posner is using an op-ed to criticize Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for a “heartless” dissent in the gay-marriage case on Friday. Posner says all four dissents in Obergefell v. Hodges are weak while Kennedy’s majority opinion “is convincing, though I would have preferred to…

Jun 30, 2015 8:27 AM CDT

Posner dissent criticizes penalties for ‘harmless procedural bobbles’ by lawyers

A dissent by Judge Richard Posner is questioning whether it does any good to punish litigants for “harmless procedural bobbles” by their lawyers. Posner dissented in a decision (PDF) last week by the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which tossed a suit seeking enforcement of a settlement agreement.…

Jun 29, 2015 5:45 AM CDT