Category Archives: Legal News

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What today’s Supreme Court decision means for the future of legal weed

By Christopher Ingraham March 21 at 1:50 PM

The Supreme Court’s decision today to toss out a lawsuit that could have brought Colorado’s legal marijuana boom to a screeching halt hasn’t deterred opponents of the national legalization effort.

Already, the plaintiffs and their supporters are looking to regroup. “The Court’s decision does not bar additional challenges to Colorado’s scheme in federal district court,” said Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson in a statement.

Oklahoma and Nebraska asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to Colorado’s marijuana legalization framework, saying that the state’s legalization regime was causing marijuana to flow across the borders into their own states, creating law enforcement headaches.

But by a 6-2 majority, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, without comment.

[Supreme Court turns down case that challenges Colorado marijuana law]

In a statement, Peterson’s office said it would work with Oklahoma and other states “to determine the best next steps toward vindicating the rule of law.”

Other opponents are remaining optimistic, as well. “It’s obviously a disappointment,” said Kevin Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana in an email. “But we think legalization will be defeated on its own policy merits,” he added.

They’re facing an increasingly steep uphill battle.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that since marijuana is illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), it can’t be regulated at the state level. But numerous legal experts have pointed out that assumption is incorrect.

“Congress has no power to compel states to prohibit the cultivation, possession and transfer of marijuana,” according to Randy Barnett, an attorney who litigated a Supreme Court case exploring the limits of the CSA. “In the absence of such state prohibition, all such activities are completely legal under state law, notwithstanding that they are illegal under federal law,” he wrote last year.

In short, Congress can say that marijuana is illegal at the federal level. But if a state doesn’t want to enforce that prohibition itself, it doesn’t have to do so. And if it wants to go one step further and set up a market to regulate the trade in the drug, it’s free to do that as well.

“This is the result that most of us were expecting,” legal professor Sam Kamin, who was part of the task force implementing Colorado’s marijuana laws, said in an email. “This never seemed like the right case to test the power of the states to tax and regulate marijuana (everyone seems to agree that they have the right to legalize marijuana).”

The U.S. Justice Department filed a brief last December urging the Supreme Court to throw the lawsuit out. “With the federal government uninterested in bringing such a suit at the moment, this seems to take things out of the courts and into the political process for the near term,” Kamen said.

Legalization advocates say that while the decision likely won’t have any big practical effects in the near-term, it does send a signal to other states mulling their own marijuana policy in the coming years. “The Supreme Court’s rejection of this misguided effort to undo cautious and effective state-level regulation of marijuana is excellent news for the many other states looking to adopt similar reforms in 2016 and beyond,” said Tamar Todd, director of the office of legal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement.

Observers on both sides of the issue point out that the court’s majority did not issue any explanation of their dismissal, which is standard practice in cases like this. The justices may have objected to the lawsuit on its merits, or they may have simply felt that it wasn’t proper for them to take up the case at this time, preferring instead to let the state-level legalization experiments play out.

“Of course, everything may change with a new administration in 2017,” law professor Sam Kamin said in an email. “But with marijuana on the ballot in another big handful of states this fall, the genie may be out of the bottle by the time the next president is sworn into office.”

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Full Article Sourced From – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/21/what-todays-supreme-court-decision-means-for-the-future-of-legal-weed/

Blog, Criminal, Legal News

Teen Sexting Prompts Efforts to Update Child-Porn Laws

  • By KRISTEN WYATT, ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER — Mar 17, 2016, 2:20 PM ET

Rampant teen sexting has left politicians and law enforcement authorities around the country struggling to find some kind of legal middle ground between prosecuting students for child porn and letting them off the hook.

Most states consider sexually explicit images of minors to be child pornography, meaning even teenagers who share nude selfies among themselves can, in theory at least, be hit with felony charges that can carry heavy prison sentences and require lifetime registration as a sex offender.

Many authorities consider that overkill, however, and at least 20 states have adopted sexting laws with less-serious penalties, mostly within the past five years. Eleven states have made sexting between teens a misdemeanor; in some of those places, prosecutors can require youngsters to take courses on the dangers of social media instead of charging them with a crime.

Hawaii passed a 2012 law saying youths can escape conviction if they take steps to delete explicit photos. Arkansas adopted a 2013 law sentencing first-time youth sexters to eight hours of community service. New Mexico last month removed criminal penalties altogether in such cases.

At least 12 other states are considering sexting laws this year, many to create new a category of crime that would apply to young people.

But one such proposal in Colorado has revealed deep divisions about how to treat the phenomenon. Though prosecutors and researchers agree that felony sex crimes shouldn’t apply to a pair of 16-year-olds sending each other selfies, they disagree about whether sexting should be a crime at all.

Colorado lawmakers this week delayed a vote on creating a new misdemeanor crime of “misuse of electronic images” by teens.

Colorado’s bill was prompted by a scandal last year at a Canon City high school where more than 100 students were found with explicit images of other teens. The news sent shockwaves through the city of 16,000. Dozens of students were suspended, and the football team forfeited the final game of the season.

Fremont County prosecutors ultimately decided against filing any criminal charges, saying Colorado law doesn’t properly distinguish between adult sexual predators and misbehaving teenagers.

In a similar case last year out Fayetteville, North Carolina, two dating teens who exchanged nude selfies at age 16 were charged as adults with a felony — sexual exploitation of a minor. After an uproar, the charges were reduced to misdemeanors.

Colorado currently classifies sexting as felony child exploitation, punishable by up to 12 years in prison and lifetime registration as a sex offender.

“What we want to do is get away from the life-altering and devastating effect of a felony charge … by having lower-level crimes,” said Republican Rep. Yeulin Willett of Grand Junction, who sponsored the new bill.

But the legislation sparked a fiery backlash from teens and researchers who told lawmakers that sexting is so prevalent that even a misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail, is too harsh.

“All different types of youth do it,” said Samantha Dehart, a 19-year-old college student who testified against the bill. “I can count on one hand the number of teens I know that have not practiced sexting.”

Amy Hasinoff, a communications professor at the University of Colorado-Denver who wrote a book on sexting last year, called the practice the modern version of a love letter or sexy Polaroid picture.

“Sexting is often portrayed as something that’s harmful, but we’re not seeing a lot of evidence of that,” she told lawmakers. She pointed out that it’s legal for two 17-year-olds to have sex, but not to consensually take pictures of themselves doing it.

Several prosecutors who argued in favor of the bill countered that minors aren’t capable of consensual sexting.

“Juveniles, left to their own devices … will do things that potentially hurt themselves,” said Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler. “We don’t let them own guns. We don’t let them rent cars. We don’t even let them vote, because we don’t trust their judgment.”

A Colorado House committee put off a decision on the bill Tuesday. Willett said he would amend his proposal to make teen sexting a petty crime, punishable by up to six months.

Hasinoff warned lawmakers that they will need to address the question soon: “Sexting is very common, and it’s not going away.”

Sourced From – http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/teen-sexting-prompts-move-update-child-porn-laws-37726083

Blog, Business Law, Civil Rights, Divorce, Family, Legal News, Personal Injury

These children of celebrity dads are taking their stepmoms to court

By

Rick Anderson
Wen Catherine Falk asked to see her ailing father, her stepmother shut the door in her face. When Kerri Kasem arrived to take her dying father to a hospital, her stepmother met her in the driveway — and hurled raw hamburger at her.The confrontations sparked headlines because the women’s fathers were well-known public figures — actor Peter Falk and legendary DJ Casey Kasem. Both died while costly family legal squabbles raged over the visitation rights of their daughters and other relatives.

“It cost me $400,000 to see my father,” Kerri Kasem recalled recently as she rushed to catch a flight to New Mexico and testify before the Legislature in Santa Fe. Her Kasem Cares Foundation is backing a bill she said would make it easier for friends and relatives to visit ailing elders.

“I don’t want others to go through what we went through,” says Kasem, 43, “emotionally and financially.”

On the same day, Catherine Falk, 44, was heading to Utah and a legislative appearance to promote a similar visitation bill supported by the Catherine Falk Organization.

Kerri Kasem, daughter of Casey Kasem, speaks in Kitsap County Superior Court in Port Orchard, Wash., where she faced off against her stepmother, Jean Kasem, second from left. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
Kerri Kasem, daughter of Casey Kasem, speaks in Kitsap County Superior Court in Port Orchard, Wash., where she faced off against her stepmother, Jean Kasem, second from left. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)

Though Falk and Kasem work independently, they’ve become a powerful one-two punch for reforming visitation laws, stumping for change in more than 30 states. Falk says her proposed legislation is now being considered in 10 states; Kasem’s bill has already been adopted in three — California, Iowa and Texas.

The two agree their efforts are getting notice because of their celebrity fathers, and have little problem with such an advantage. “This isn’t the Casey Kasem Bill, or the Mickey Rooney Bill, or the B.B. King Bill,” Kasem said, referring to other personalities who went through similar elder battles. “It’s the Visitation Rights Bill, and it affects thousands in the U.S.”

Kasem and Falk are contacted regularly by people with horror stories to share, such as the Colorado woman who described her mother’s common-law husband as an abusive alcoholic who prevented the rest of the family from seeing her, then beat her. The mother ended up in a rehab facility after a fall and the daughter was not allowed to visit. Not long after, the daughter learned her mother had died.

Though the coroner was called, she said, there was no autopsy and her mother’s body was cremated.

“I do not know where her remains are,” the woman said.

Read Full Article – http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-elder-visitation-rights-20160315-story.html

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News, Personal Injury

Jury to Decide if Monsanto PCBs Caused Plaintiffs’ Cancer

| March 15, 2016 12:45 pm

Monsanto’s controversial history with PCBs is being played out in trial in California state court this week, as the agrochemical giant has been accused of causing two retired plaintiffs to develop cancer.

The civil lawsuit, Dauber, et al. v. Monsanto Co., et al, regards plaintiffs Roslyn Dauber, 62, and John Di Costanzo, 87, who both claim that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was caused by eating PCB-contaminated food for years, Courtroom View Network (CVN) reported.

PCBs, or Polychlorinated Biphenyls, are man-made chemicals once used to insulate electronics decades ago. Before switching operations to agriculture, Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of the compound, raking a reported $22 million in business a year. But when PCBs were found to be highly toxic, the company stopped production of them in 1977 over human health and environmental concerns.

Still, the pervasive legacy of PCBs remains. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)banned them in 1979, saying:

PCBs have caused birth defects and cancer in laboratory animals, and they are a suspected cause of cancer and adverse skin and liver effects in humans. EPA estimates that 150 million pounds of PCBs are dispersed throughout the environment, including air and water supplies; an additional 290 million pounds are located in landfills in this country.

Countless individuals, school districts as well as major U.S. cities have since slammed Monsanto with lawsuits for cleanup costs, environmental pollution and for claims that exposure to PCBs causes health problems to people and wildlife.

On Thursday, plaintiff attorney Scott Frieling of Dallas-based law firm Allen Stewart PC delivered an opening statement to jurors and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger about the history of PCBs, the difficulty in removing them from the environment and how these chemicals make their way into the food chain.

“They are virtually indestructible,” Frieling said. “Once PCBs are created, they will last a very long time.”

Frieling also touched on how Monsanto allegedly knew that PCBs were toxic for decades but continued production of the profitable compound anyway.

According to CVN:

Frieling showed jurors internal Monsanto documents dating back to the 1950’s that he claimed would prove the company knew for decades that PCBs posed a substantial public health risk but falsely represented them as being safe.

Freiling told jurors it was easy to link the PCBs in Dauber and Di Costanzo’s bodies to Monsanto, because the company produced 99 percent of the compounds sold in the United States. He claimed Monsanto intentionally avoided long-term safety testing on PCBs and instead publicized the results of short-term tests which didn’t allow enough time for negative health effects to become evident.

In response, Monsanto attorney Anthony Upshaw of Chicago-based law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP argued that it could not be definitively proven that PCBs caused the plaintiffs’ cancer and that many people who have the same amounts of PCBs in their bodies never suffer any adverse effects, CVN reported.

“The evidence simply doesn’t support the assertion that the historic use of PCB products was the cause of the plaintiffs’ harms,” Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Marie Lord told CVN. “We are confident that the jury will conclude, as past juries have done, that the former Monsanto Company is not responsible for the alleged injuries.”

She also added that Monsanto’s involvement in the trial stems from contractual obligations associated with former chemical businesses that operated under the company’s name, and that Monsanto today is focused solely on agriculture.

The current trial is expected to run through the end of March. Previous rulings over PCBs lawsuits, however, have ruled in favor of Monsanto. CVN noted that a Los Angeles jury and a Missouri state court jury handed the company wins in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Incidentally, a current House bill could give Monsanto permanent immunity from liability for injuries caused by PCBs. The New York Times reported last month that Republicans in Congress have inserted a clause into the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reauthorization bill that would effectively exempt Monsanto from liability for injuries caused by PCBs.

Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has sparred over PCBs for three decades, wrote this week that the “so-called ‘Monsanto Rider’ would shield the chemical colossus from thousands of lawsuits by cities, towns, school districts and individuals, who have been injured by exposure to PCBs.”

“If Monsanto gets its way, the American people will pay a high price for corporate greed and political corruption,” Kennedy said.

Full Article – https://ecowatch.com/2016/03/15/jury-decide-pcbs-caused-cancer/