Recent Updates
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Court reinstates $675,000 damages for downloading
Lawyer Blogs 09/19/2011A federal appeals court has reinstated a $675,000 judgment against a Boston University student who illegally downloaded and shared songs on the Internet. In 2009, a jury in Boston awarded $675,000 to the Recording Industry Association of America, rep...
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Appeals court to weigh Ark. desegregation case
Lawyer Blogs 09/19/2011A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments over whether Arkansas can stop making desegregation payments to Little Rock-area schools more than 50 years after troops escorted nine black students into an all-white school.The 8th U.S. Circuit Court...
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Illinois high court hears police torture arguments
Lawyer Blogs 09/15/2011Illinois Supreme Court justices questioned prosecutors Thursday about evidence in the rape conviction of a man who says he was tortured into confessing by Chicago police officers. In oral arguments in a case with potentially far-reaching impact on ho...
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McCourts to argue over spousal support in LA court
Lawyer Blogs 09/14/2011A judge on Wednesday will consider reducing the amount of spousal support paid by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to his ex-wife Jamie their divorce battle over ownership of the team. McCourt filed a motion in July indicating that he's paid more than $5 ...
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Former Ukraine PM's trial halted for 2 weeks
Lawyer Blogs 09/13/2011The judge presiding over former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's trial unexpectedly postponed hearings Monday for a two-week period, following renewed pressure from the United States and the European Union. Tymoshenko, 50, the former Sovie...
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Pa high court to meet in historic chamber
Lawyer Blogs 09/12/2011Pennsylvania's highest court plans to convene in a historic chamber in Philadelphia for the first time in more than two centuries. Tuesday's oral arguments session in the Supreme Court Chamber in Old City Hall will be the first time the justices have...
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Va. high court considers ex-King confidant's case
Lawyer Blogs 09/12/2011A lawyer has asked the Virginia Supreme Court to throw out the incest conviction of a former top adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. The Rev. James Bevel, the architect of the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Ala., died in 2008 at age 72 while hi...
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US says 11 currency traders operating illegally
Lawyer Blogs 09/09/2011Federal regulators are suing 11 firms they say broke the law by selling foreign-currency contracts to the public without being registered with a government agency.The lawsuits announced Thursday were the second "sweep" by the Commodity Futures Tradin...
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Guilty plea for Va. man in $318K Social Security fraud
Lawyer Blogs 09/09/2011A Bristol man has pleaded guilty to stealing Social Security benefits and making false statements in an attempt to hide the thefts. Seventy-one-year-old David Ross entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Abingdon. Ross faces a sentence of up to...
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Fed appeals panel upholds bar of videotape
Lawyer Blogs 09/06/2011A federal appeals court says a Mississippi court did not err in barring jurors from seeing a videotape made by a former butcher who had claimed it might have prevented him getting a death sentence. Gary Carl Simmons Jr. was convicted of capital murde...
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Ex-Pa. House speaker pleads guilty to corruption
Lawyer Blogs 09/04/2011The onetime speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight criminal charges stemming from a public corruption investigation, making him the highest-ranking state politician to be convicted in the four-and-a-hal...
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Colombia court reinstates conviction in Galan hit
Lawyer Blogs 09/01/2011The Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the murder conviction of a former justice minister for masterminding the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, a courageous foe of drug cartels. The court also reinstated the 24-year...