Recent Updates
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High court sides with state in DNA case
Legal News Feed 06/18/2012The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him. The court's 5-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions...
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Ex-DC Council chairman pleads guilty to 2 charges
Legal News Feed 06/09/2012The former chairman of the District of Columbia Council pleaded guilty Friday to lying about his income on bank loan applications, the latest blow to a city government rocked by scandal. Kwame Brown also admitted to a misdemeanor campaign finance vio...
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Court rules NY town's prayer violated Constitution
Legal News Feed 05/18/2012An upstate New York town violated the constitutional ban against favoring one religion over another by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity, a federal court of appeals ruled Thursday. In what it sa...
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US court looks at possible Edwards lawyer conflict
Legal News Feed 03/15/2012A federal judge planned to hear Thursday whether former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards would create problems for his upcoming trial by hiring lawyers who represented his mistress in a lawsuit over the couple's alleged sex tape. The hearing schedule...
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SF sheriff in political thicket after guilty plea
Legal News Feed 03/13/2012The San Francisco sheriff has a political thicket to get through now that he's putting his legal woes behind him with a plea bargain in a domestic violence case that made international headlines. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi pleaded guilty Monday to a misd...
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Foreign donations are a risk in super PAC setting
Legal News Feed 02/10/2012Money pouring into the presidential election from super political action committees and nonprofit campaign groups appears so far to be strictly American in origin, donated by U.S. companies, unions and millionaires. But it's easier than ever to conce...
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Long-awaited ruling on CA gay marriage ban due
Legal News Feed 02/07/2012Supporters and opponents of California's ban on same-sex marriage were anxiously awaiting a federal appeals court decision Tuesday on whether the voter-approved measure violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians. A three-judge panel of the 9th...
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In Vt., an attorney general's losses raise doubts
Legal News Feed 01/25/2012The first was Vermont's campaign finance law setting the lowest contribution limits in the country — shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The same fate befell the state's attempt to restrict drug company efforts to collect data on doctors' prescribin...
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Perry appeals judge's ruling on Va. primary ballot
Legal News Feed 01/16/2012Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday appealed a federal judge's refusal to add him and three other candidates to Virginia's Republican presidential primary ballot. In a filing with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Perry's attorneys requested that th...
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Gov't defends core of health care overhaul
Legal News Feed 01/06/2012The Obama administration defended the health care overhaul in a filing Friday with the Supreme Court that calls the law an appropriate response to a "crisis in the national health care market." The administration filed a written submission in the hig...
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Chief justice defends court's impartiality
Legal News Feed 01/02/2012Chief Justice John Roberts said Saturday that he has "complete confidence" in his colleagues' ability to step away from cases where their personal interests are at stake, and noted that judges should not be swayed by "partisan demands." The comment, ...
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Budget woes squeeze federal courts in NYC
Legal News Feed 12/27/2011An annual holiday show at the federal courthouse in Manhattan drew laughs, but no one is laughing now over the possibility of unfilled jobs and draconian budget cuts that court administrators say threatens the public's safety. "Their secret plan is t...