Family Law

9th Circuit strikes down same-sex marriage bans; SCOTUS rejects Idaho’s stay request

Updated: The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled late Tuesday that same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada are unconstitutional. The Washington Post, the Associated Press and CNN have stories. The court found that the bans violate the rights of same-sex couples to equal protection under the…

Oct 7, 2014 5:24 PM CDT

Candidate for family court bench owes back child support

A candidate for a family court judgeship in Kentucky owes more than $2,800 in back payments for child support, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Attorney Carl Knochelmann Jr., running in the nonpartisan race in Kenton County, near Cincinnati, has at times owed as much as $9,632 in a child support case…

Oct 7, 2014 2:12 PM CDT

SCOTUS won’t hear same-sex marriage cases, clearing the way for gay marriage in 11 more states

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand rulings that struck down gay-marriage bans in five states. The Supreme Court on Monday denied cert in seven petitions seeking review of those rulings. SCOTUSblog had an early report, followed by stories by the National Law Journal, the New York Times, USA Today…

Oct 6, 2014 8:53 AM CDT

SCOTUS releases new list of grants for 2014 term, with no same-sex marriage cases

The order list released Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court did not include any grants for the seven same-sex marriage cert petitions filed. The court will issue more orders over the next weeks, Bloomberg News reports. According to SCOTUSBlog, if the court denies the seven marriage petitions, it would release…

Oct 2, 2014 10:17 AM CDT

Wrongful birth suit claims sperm bank erred by shipping vials from black donor

A white Ohio woman has filed a wrongful birth suit alleging an Illinois sperm bank mistakenly shipped sperm from an African-American donor. The suit (PDF) filed Tuesday on behalf of Jennifer Cramblett of Uniontown, Ohio, says she and her domestic partner, Amanda Zinkon, ordered sperm from donor No. 380, who…

Oct 1, 2014 12:23 PM CDT

UK top court overturns 180 divorces by Italians over ‘conspiracy to pervert the course of justice’

The judge overseeing Britain’s top family court on Tuesday overturned 180 divorce cases involving Italian nationals, on the basis that the parties were not truthful about their U.K. residencies. In 91 of the cases, the final decrees had been granted. According to the Financial Times (reg. req), divorce in Italy…

Sep 30, 2014 11:55 AM CDT

Same-sex spouses face extra legal hurdles in divorces and custody matters

The spreading legal right to same-sex marriage has lagged in developing the necessary legal corollary: ways to get divorced. That becomes particularly problematic when the couples have children and enter same-sex custody battles, the Associated Press reports. For example, same-sex couples can get an easy, uncontested divorce in states that…

Sep 30, 2014 10:57 AM CDT

Pick me! Lawyers tell SCOTUS why their gay-marriage cases are cert-worthy

Some of the nation’s top lawyers are jostling for the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers whether to grant cert in a gay-marriage case. The lawyers made out their arguments in a half-dozen briefs recently filed with the court, the New York Times reports. According to the…

Sep 23, 2014 1:26 PM CDT

Justice Kagan performs same-sex wedding, following in the footsteps of Ginsburg and O’Connor

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan performed her first same-sex wedding Sunday when she officiated at the Maryland wedding of one of her former law clerks. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg tells the Associated Press that it was the first same-sex wedding Kagan has officiated. Justice Elena Kagan. Image courtesy…

Sep 23, 2014 6:15 AM CDT

Citing Good Samaritan law, police don’t charge woman who broke into hot car to save baby

Warned by a security guard that she could be arrested, Angela Radtke nonetheless broke into a hot car in a San Antonio parking lot and unlocked it. Inside was a 1-year-old boy, hot and thirsty but OK, according to CNN and KENS. “I don’t care if I get arrested; I’m…

Sep 22, 2014 2:40 PM CDT

Which lawyers won MacArthur ‘genius grants’ in 2014?

Three of this year’s MacArthur “genius grant” winners are lawyers who focus on criminal justice or civil rights issues, while a fourth is a professor who studies the impact of racial stereotypes in the criminal justice system. The Chicago Tribune (sub. req.), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times…

Sep 17, 2014 8:54 AM CDT

Gunman kills lawyer, wounds client in shooting at Denmark courthouse

A gunman killed a lawyer and critically wounded his client Tuesday in a courthouse shooting in Denmark. It may have been the first shooting in the history of the Copenhagen City Court, which was founded in 1771, the Associated Press reports. The names of the 57-year-old attorney who was killed…

Sep 16, 2014 4:10 PM CDT

Vikings’ Adrian Peterson says sorry for hurting son, 4, in latest incident to test new NFL policy

A Minnesota Vikings running back who is being prosecuted in a child-abuse case in his home state of Texas publicly apologized via social media Monday for injuring his 4-year-old son with a “switch” cut from a tree, which reportedly left marks on the boy’s legs and body. However, Adrian Peterson,…

Sep 15, 2014 5:10 PM CDT

Wevorce CEO Michelle Crosby is shaking up the adversarial divorce process

The most traumatic moment of Michelle Crosby’s life has also been her most transformative. “My parents had one of those War of the Roses-type divorces,” says Crosby, referring to the 1989 film starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in an escalating marital dogfight that ends in double disaster. “I was…

Sep 11, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Former Texas judge is reprimanded for delayed rulings, mass case dismissal

A former Texas family court judge has been reprimanded for delayed rulings and a mass dismissal of more than 600 cases, though she resigned more than five months ago. The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct reprimanded Judge Denise Pratt in an order (PDF) made public on Monday, Texas Lawyer reports.…

Sep 10, 2014 8:36 AM CDT