|
Electronic copies
of this information may be obtained from our librarians at
help@lawlibrary.co.za or click
on the underlined hyperlink where relevant
United States
Courts
Supreme
court term has major gun rights, business cases - 5 October
The US Supreme Court will again consider gun rights and decide
an important case that could loosen restrictions on corporation
spending in political campaigns in its new term beginning on
Monday. - Reuters website
In
precedential ruling, Second Circuit sets high standard for alien
tort plaintiffs in Sudanese human rights case - 5 October
Plaintiffs suing global corporations for their alleged role in
human rights abuses abroad may want to consider avoiding the
Second Circuit after the appellate court's 68-page decision last
Friday. It not only affirmed the dismissal of a case against a
Canadian energy company, it set a high bar for future Alien
Torts Statute plaintiffs. The plaintiffs in the Sudanese case
alleged that Talisman Energy aided and abetted human rights
abuses by the government in Khartoum. But Manhattan federal
district court judge Denise Cote granted Talisman's motion for
summary judgment, finding that the plaintiffs had not shown that
Talisman provided substantial assistance to the government for
the purpose of committing crimes. In affirming Judge Cote's
ruling, the Second Circuit articulated a high standard for
proving the requisite state of mind of a defendant. The
plaintiffs in the case had argued that the standard should be
mere knowledge of the human rights abuses. But Talisman,
represented by Lovells, urged the court to adopt the
international law standard that requires plaintiffs to show that
defendants intended to further the crimes. - The
Am Law Litigation Daily website
Keyphrase :
United States. 'Apartheid Case'
See
:
Court
decision
Criminal
Justice System
Execution
troubles - 6 October
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 15, Romell Broom sat in
his Ohio prison cell hoping for a last-minute court reprieve
that never came. But in the hours that followed, the 53-year-old
faced a grisly ordeal that would make him the first US prisoner
in more than six decades able to tell the story of his
execution. - News24 website
[Firsthand account]
Judge
accused of sex with inmates - 5 October
The trial of a former US judge accused of having sex
with male inmates in exchange for leniency is set to start in
Mobile, Alabama. Herman Thomas denies the charges, which include
sodomy, kidnapping, extortion, sex abuse and assault. Up to 15
current and former prisoners are set to testify against him at
the jury trial. - BBC News
website
Cyberlaw
Ringtones
are not public concerts - 16 October
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
(ASCAP) sued AT&T and Verizon looking to recoup additional
royalty fees from people who use ringtones. ASCAP members
already receive money from ringtone purchases, but they wanted
more money. You know, like a little charge every time a phone
rings or something. They lost. - Above
the Law blog
See
: Judgment
Finance
Trustee
sues Madoffs who helped run firm - 3 October
Four Madoffs most closely associated with swindler Bernard
Madoff's firm could have stopped the fraud but they milked the
business to buy everything from luxury vacation homes to paying
for restaurant meals, a court-appointed trustee said on Friday.
The trustee sued the brother, sons and a niece of the imprisoned
fraudster for what he said was $198.7 million of misappropriated
customer money while they were executives of Bernard L Madoff
Investment Securities LLC in New York. - Business
Report website
Miscellaneous
The
Balloon Boy bust : can authorities come up with federal charges?
- 18 October
On Thursday morning, a "homemade flying saucer" took
off from the Colorado yard of Richard and Mayumi Heene. The
Heenes drew nationwide attention when they claimed that their
6-year-old son Falcon was inside. Now it looks like the Heenes
were full of hot air. Robert Thomas, a former assistant to
Richard Heene, penned a column for Gawker calling
it all a big hoax by his attention-hungry boss, claiming to have
discussed a plan like this with Heene earlier this year. The
authorities appear to agree and announced last night that they
will be filing charges. - Above
the Law blog
The
Balloon Boy Show comes to a court near you - 19 October
Whether it's true that this was a hoax has yet to be proven, but
if so, it begs the question: Was it wrong? Was it a crime?
Should the Heenes be prosecuted for causing a nation to care
about the welfare of their son? The answer, unfortunately, is
that this was not only wrong, and likely unlawful, but also a
terribly bad precedent that has to be squelched quickly. - Simple
Justice blog
Why
we watched Balloon Boy - 16 October
Thursday, as we all watched the televised spectacle of what
everyone believed was a 6-year-old boy trapped in a wooden box
attached to a helium balloon that was soaring uncontrollably
thousands of feet above the earth, it seemed that our deepest
fears were being turned into myth before our very eyes.
After it was discovered that the boy, Falcon Heene, was hiding
in his attic the whole time and that the Heene family had
courted public attention several times by appearing on a
reality-TV show—and after the child blurted out to a TV
interviewer that his parents had told him to hide "for the
show"—something even stranger than the original story
started to happen. The terrifying thought of a helpless boy
trapped in a vagrant balloon thousands of feet above the earth
gave way to another, equally startling, notion. Perhaps American
truth and American falsehood had blurred so completely that we
were all, literally, up in the air when it came to knowing what
the hell was going on around us. And if this was what was
happening, if the whole country was, in effect, soaring
uncontrollably through the sky, over forbidding valleys and
hills, to where wilder things than we could ever imagine are,
who was going to help us now? - Lee Siegel on The Daily
Beast blog
|