The National Pulse

States keep mum on where lethal injection drugs are made

Like other states with the death penalty, Missouri is facing a shortage of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital, primarily because its Danish manufacturer won’t allow it to be used in executions. So when the state initially set an execution date for convicted serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, officials announced that…

Mar 1, 2014 10:19 AM CST

California city seeks eminent domain to bail out foreclosures

In the Bay Area, foreclosures are a tale of two economies. In San Francisco, real estate company Zillow says home values are down by only single-digit percentages from their peak. The same is true of its wealthiest suburbs. But across the bay in Richmond, home values were down more than…

Mar 1, 2014 10:00 AM CST

Generic drugs leave a bad taste for patients filing tort suits

Even the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that its ruling in 2011’s PLIVA v. Mensing “makes little sense” to people hurt by prescription drugs. Plaintiffs Gladys Mensing and Julie Demahy were prescribed the brand-name drug Reglan, used to treat digestive ailments. Instead, their pharmacists gave each the drug’s generic version. After…

Feb 1, 2014 9:40 AM CST

Governors battle to shape the judiciary without merit selection

While election watchers look to legislative results in the bellwether 2014 races, many state judiciaries will be facing under-the-radar challenges that could meaningfully change the political landscape. “We know already there’s going to be one or two ballot items dealing with merit selection—simply getting rid of it or giving the…

Feb 1, 2014 9:19 AM CST

Internet car companies offer convenience, but lawyers see caution signs

Want to get a car ride just by pressing an app icon? New businesses like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar match drivers and passengers via smartphone technology. They claim they can get vehicles to your door in minutes. Unlike taxicabs and limousines, the companies don’t see themselves as common carriers, and…

Jan 1, 2014 10:00 AM CST

1st Amendment at issue in ban on gay-conversion therapy for minors

In the early 1970s, the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was not an illness. As a result, many mental health providers declined to use “sexual-orientation change effects” therapy, designed to dissuade gay and lesbian clients from homosexual desires. Yet some therapists continued to use SOCE, mostly with nonaversion methods…

Jan 1, 2014 9:40 AM CST

California begins to release prisoners after reforming its three-strikes law

In 1992, 18-year-old student Kimber Reynolds came home to Fresno, Calif., to be a bridesmaid. As she left a restaurant, two men rolled up on a motorcycle and tried to snatch her purse. When she resisted, one of them shot her. She died 26 hours later. As the Reynolds family…

Dec 1, 2013 10:00 AM CST

‘Link rot’ is degrading legal research and case cites

The World Wide Web may seem like a limitless superhighway. But it is filled with dead ends: hyperlinks that point to webpages that have become permanently unavailable. It’s a phenomenon known as “link rot.” While landing on a broken link can be frustrating, a growing body of research has identified…

Dec 1, 2013 9:40 AM CST

Food truck vendors dig in for a piece of street turf against brick-and-mortar restaurants

Entrepreneur Greg Burke ekes out his living hawking sausages and breaded-and-fried meat sandwiches aboard the Schnitzel King, a food truck he operates in Chicago. But he says restrictive local ordinances make it tough to keep his head above water. So Burke is suing the city for what he contends are…

Nov 1, 2013 8:00 AM CDT

High court tackles another 4th Amendment case

The U.S. Supreme Court has had a good deal to say about the Fourth Amendment in recent terms, especially on some high-tech or relatively novel questions. The justices held in 2012 that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle to track its movements constituted a search. And last term, the…

Nov 1, 2013 7:50 AM CDT

Miami-Dade’s overburdened PD’s office may decline new clients, Florida court says

In 2008, the Miami-Dade County public defender’s office was in crisis mode. The average assistant public defender was handling 400 felony cases at a time and experienced attorneys were juggling 50 third-degree felony trials a week. Defendants suffered, attorneys were struggling, and as a last resort the PDs turned to…

Oct 1, 2013 8:50 AM CDT

Merchants say loss of credit card ‘swipe fees’ violates their 1st Amendment rights

What do a unisex hair salon, an ice cream parlor, a liquor store, a martial arts and fitness studio, and an outdoor furniture and billiards company have in common? First, they are all in New York state. And second, each business and its owners have challenged the state’s no-surcharge law…

Oct 1, 2013 8:30 AM CDT

Ordinance that evicts tenants for seeking police aid is putting abused women out on the street

Even though her boyfriend had attacked her repeatedly, Lakisha Briggs of Norristown, Pa., says, she did not want to call the police for help. Even when he went after her with a brick, she did not want to call. When neighbors finally contacted the police during one incident, Briggs’ injuries…

Sep 1, 2013 8:50 AM CDT

Predictive policing may help bag burglars—but it may also be a constitutional problem

Imagine a police officer at roll call. He gets a printout stating that at a certain time, on a particular city block, there’s a certain percentage chance that a burglary will take place. Motivated by the odds, the officer heads over to that neighborhood around that very time. While there,…

Sep 1, 2013 8:40 AM CDT

Record industry tussles over whether a resale market for online music violates the Copyright Act

When computer science professor Larry Rudolph and entrepreneur John Ossenmacher launched the online company ReDigi in late 2011, they promised that the service would offer people something missing from the market: a legal means for consumers to sell their old digital music files. ReDigi’s system allows people to upload old…

Aug 1, 2013 8:20 AM CDT