“The Federal Judicial Center (FJC) will soon begin a two-year pilot study of the impact of including data from a U.S. Sentencing Commission online tool in presentence investigation reports used during the sentencing phase of criminal cases. Called the Judiciary Sentencing Information platform (JSIN), the publicly available tool provides five years of cumulative data for… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Courts
Two Supreme Court Cases That Could Break the Internet
The New Yorker $ – A cornerstone of life online has been that platforms are not responsible for content posted by users. What happens if that immunity goes away?: “In February, the Supreme Court will hear two cases—Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google—that could alter how the Internet is regulated, with potentially vast consequences.… Continue Reading
AI-powered “robot” lawyer won’t argue in court after jail threats
CBS News: “A “robot” lawyer powered by artificial intelligence was set to be the first of its kind to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket in court next month. But the experiment has been scrapped after “State Bar prosecutors” threatened the man behind the company that created the chatbot with prison time. Joshua Browder,… Continue Reading
The Obscure New York Law That Could Dismantle Trump’s Empire
Daily Beast: “Former President Donald Trump, faced with a New York attorney general who won’t back down, is finally being forced to come up with a defense to explain why he lied relentlessly about his real estate portfolio. Her gargantuan lawsuit could bankrupt his company—and pave the way for a future criminal prosecution. His riches… Continue Reading
GPO Digitizes Historic Congressional Directories From the 1800s
“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) is digitizing historic volumes of the Congressional Directory from the 19th and 20th centuries. The first release includes Directories from 1869–1888, as well as 1993. Additional digitized historic Congressional Directories will be released on GovInfo as they are completed. Historically, the Congressional Directory has been one of the most… Continue Reading
Justice – Official Site
Jezebel – “It’s been nearly five years since Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Senate in a 50-48 vote—despite allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez and about 4,500 other tips that the FBI seemingly just kind of ignored. Justice, a new documentary about the botched… Continue Reading
Legal experts slam Supreme Court report on ‘brazenly hackish’ Dobbs leak investigation
Follow up Washington Post Opinion: Was leaking the Dobbs opinion the perfect crime? It sure looks that way. Follow up to today’s post – SCOTUS Statement Concerning the Leak Investigation Jan 19, 2023 – via Alternet: “Legal experts and media pundits have had a lot to say about the investigation results. And many of them… Continue Reading
Supreme Court Poised to Reconsider Key Tenets of Online Speech
The New York Times: “On Friday, the Supreme Court is expected to discuss whether to hear two cases that challenge laws in Texas and Florida barring online platforms from taking down certain political content. Next month, the court is scheduled to hear a case that questions Section 230, a 1996 statute that protects the platforms… Continue Reading
SCOTUS Statement Concerning the Leak Investigation Jan 19, 2023
I am updating this post with the most recent article in response to the “we do not have any idea who did it” investigation [hint – they did not quiz the justices and spouses]. CNN – Supreme Court embarrassed by the opinion leak is embarrassed again Follow up to May 2, 2022 Politico article –… Continue Reading
Little-Known Surveillance Program Captures Money Transfers Between U.S. and More Than 20 Countries
WSJ: “Hundreds of federal, state and local U.S. law-enforcement agencies have access without court oversight to a database of more than 150 million money transfers between people in the U.S. and in more than 20 countries, according to internal program documents and an investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden. The database, housed at a little-known nonprofit… Continue Reading
Gonzalez v. Google
Techdirt: “In early December 2022, a former Israeli Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, three other retired Israeli generals, a former Commissioner of the Israeli Police, and a former head of the Mossad’s Intelligence Directorate filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Google arguing… Continue Reading
The Right to Equal Protection and Fourth Amendment Rights Are Distinct Rights
Courts Must Protect Both: “On behalf of MACDL, Attorney Wood and a team of attorneys from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr recently filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Judicial Court to fully enforce people’s rights not to be targeted for stops based on their race, regardless of whether the police have reasonable suspicion.… Continue Reading
