Appellate Practice

Are secret arbitration panels illegal? Del. Chancery asks SCOTUS to nix 3rd Circuit ruling

In an unusual case pitting one of the nation’s most respected corporate law tribunals against a federal appeals court, the Delaware Court of Chancery is seeking a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court concerning a recent ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that banned…

Jan 22, 2014 9:30 PM CST

Woman gets 5 years for making false rape report

A 38-year-old Michigan woman was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after being convicted last month of making up a story that two men had entered her home about 80 miles from Detroit and raped her. The two men, who attended the same church as Sara Ylen’s ex-husband, likely…

Jan 17, 2014 6:30 PM CST

Lawyer leaves Winston & Strawn to defend Utah ban on same-sex marriage

Updated: Winston & Strawn partner Gene Schaerr is leaving the law firm to defend Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes announced on Thursday that Schaerr will be lead outside counsel for the state’s defense of the ban in a case pending before the Denver-based 10th U.S.…

Jan 17, 2014 2:30 PM CST

Two courts reject appeals in Michael Jackson death cases; insurance suit over $17M policy is settled

Litigation related to the death of pop singer Michael Jackson appears to be nearing a conclusion after the settlement of an insurance coverage case over a $17.5 million policy and a unanimous California appellate court ruling upholding the involuntary manslaughter conviction of his personal physician. Both were announced in court…

Jan 16, 2014 12:20 AM CST

Drew Peterson appeals murder verdict on basis that his own witness shouldn’t have been allowed

A former suburban Chicago police officer found guilty in 2012 of killing his third wife is blaming both the trial judge and his former lawyer for allowing attorney testimony that helped convict him in the high-profile Illinois murder case. In a filing mailed Monday that seeks to overturn his conviction,…

Jan 14, 2014 7:54 PM CST

In wake of crime lab scandal, ACLU asks top state court for dismissal of 40,000 cases

Instead of putting the burden on defendants to challenge convictions in over 40,000 Massachusetts criminal cases linked to a rogue chemist who falsified results while working at a state evidence laboratory, all of the cases should be dismissed, a civil rights group says. More than two years after the faked…

Jan 9, 2014 10:40 PM CST

Need a court’s OK to settle? That means terms may be public, 7th Circuit judge says

When a judge must rule on the terms of a settlement, those settlement terms become public, a federal appellate opinion suggests. In a Dec. 26 opinion (PDF), Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejects two requests to seal settlements that came before him during a…

Dec 30, 2013 4:30 PM CST

Church official gets $250K bail after reversal of landmark conviction

Updated: The first Roman Catholic church official criminally convicted over his handling of child sex-abuse allegations against other priests sought and got bail that will allow him to be released from prison, following an appellate court’s reversal last week of his conviction. At a Monday hearing, Common Pleas Court Judge…

Dec 30, 2013 3:55 PM CST

3rd Circuit agrees to en banc rehearing in GPS vehicle tracking case

A federal appeals court has agreed to rehear en banc a panel’s decision requiring police to obtain a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling (PDF) Thursday, set the case for a rehearing before the full…

Dec 16, 2013 8:00 PM CST

Should woman lose license for driving drunk to flee abuser? Top state court must decide

A Minnesota woman drove less than a mile when she got in the car after drinking in a rural area of the state to avoid her husband’s physical abuse, according to her attorney. But that was enough to cost Jennifer Axelberg her driver’s license for six months. Convicted of careless…

Dec 13, 2013 6:20 PM CST

Lawyer convicted in failed contract-hit attempt on wife sues defense counsel for malpractice

An Idaho lawyer serving a 50-year federal sentence after being convicted two years ago in what prosecutors described as a failed contract hit attempt on his wife and mother-in-law is now suing his defense lawyers. Edgar Steele, 68, insists, along with his wife, that he is innocent. He has blamed…

Dec 13, 2013 5:00 PM CST

Top prosecutor faces ethics case over racial remarks that derailed murder trial

The top prosecutor in a southern Illinois county is facing a legal ethics case because of racial remarks he made that derailed a murder trial. Williamson County State’s Attorney Charles Garnati violated four legal ethics rules and “tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or…

Dec 5, 2013 5:40 PM CST

Federal judge finds 2 cities’ public defender programs deficient; will he OK a federal monitor?

Two cities in Washington state’s Skagit County systematically violated the rights of indigent individuals through their inadequate public defender programs and were “willfully blind” to problems caused by cost-cutting, a federal judge has ruled. In a Wednesday opinion (PDF) resulting from a June bench trial of a groundbreaking class action,…

Dec 4, 2013 8:50 PM CST

9th Circuit to provide live Internet coverage of en banc oral arguments

In what is believed to be the first such effort by a federal appeals court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will launch live streaming Internet coverage of its en banc oral arguments in San Francisco on Monday. “The 9th Circuit has a long history of using advances in…

Dec 4, 2013 1:15 PM CST

Judge calls evidence against OJ Simpson ‘overwhelming,’ denies bid for new trial in robbery case

Calling the evidence against O.J. Simpson in a Las Vegas casino hotel robbery case “overwhelming,” a Nevada judge on Tuesday denied the former football star’s bid for a new trial. Rejecting Simpson’s arguments that his trial and appellate counsel were ineffective and prejudiced his case, Clark County District Judge Linda…

Nov 27, 2013 3:30 PM CST