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Akron Law Café -- Community Blog

From the category archives:

Brant Lee

Thousands of cases thrown out

October 30, 2009

But this time it's not because of a technicality. A Pennsylvania judge has been sending children to jail on first-time misdemeanor offenses in order to provide financial support to the for-profit prison company that paid him millions under the table. Can you imagine losing two years of your childhood at the age of twelve for [...]

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Cruel and unusual?

May 6, 2009

Criminal law is not my area, but the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear two cases. In one, "a minor was given a life prison sentence for a crime in which the victim was not killed.  The Court became aware last October that a case on that issue was on its way — the case [...]

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Souter's Confirmation

May 4, 2009

Not a lot of analysis here, just a personal reflection. In the fall of 1990 I was fresh out of law school and had been Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, for less than a year.

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Strip-searching children is necessary to protect our children!

April 21, 2009

That's seems to be the basic argument before the Supreme Court today. The case is Safford United School District v. Redding, which involves school officials strip-searching an honor student in search of prescription ibuprofen. I was listening to a story about it on NPR today, when i heard the school's lawyer making this argument:
"We just [...]

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A Warning for Future Lawyers

April 21, 2009

If you've been following the matter of the "torture memos" recently released by the Obama administration you know that the President has determined that CIA operatives following legal guidance provided by the (previous) Administration should not be subject to prosecution. But apparently that leaves open the possibility that officials who approved the "enhanced interrogation" policies [...]

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Facebook Owns You

February 17, 2009

This article in the New York Times caught my attention today:
Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information
Apparently there has been a change in the fine print "Terms of Service" on the ubiquitous social networking site.

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Obama poster artist a copyright thief!?

February 10, 2009

Yes, it's the Associated Press v. Shepard Fairey. Turns out that the famous poster by artist Shepard Fairey (is that a great name or what?) was confessedly based on a photograph by freelance photographer Mannie Garcia.  The AP is claiming that the poster violates their copyright in the photo.

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Prosecutions delayed

February 5, 2009

On Wednesday, the military’s highest court on war crimes prosecutions gave the Obama Administration a requested 120-day delay of a pending case to allow a new study of the fate of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

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Courtroom dogfight

February 2, 2009

I loved this story about a dog owner and his fight against the condominium association. Typically, a state will have a Condominium Act that governs the various kinds of rules and restrictions a homeowners association can impose on owners of individual condominium units. Apparently this condo association had a rule prohibiting dogs over 12 pounds. [...]

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At the polling place

November 6, 2008

I was a poll observer on election day. I saw:
One poll worker who called everybody "baby," as in: "Have you ever voted before, baby? Well, sweetie, you just fill out the bubble for the person you want, OK baby? But don't write anybody's name down there where it says 'write-in,' baby, because then you're voting [...]

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Handy Dandy Summit County Election Guide

October 15, 2008

As a class project in my Election Law class, two of my students prepared a brief, nonpartisan "Elizabeth and Clarissa's Handy Dandy Summit County 2008 Election Guide." (I have changed their names to protect their anonymity.) They were dismayed to find how difficult it was to find information about various candidates and issues. They recommend [...]

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The End of Wall Street

September 18, 2008

My learned colleague Alan Newman tells me that this article is a good general overview of what is going on on Wall Street. Not my field, but I consider the bankers, financiers, executives, and real estate professionals who made a lot of money over the last decade to be corporate welfare queens. And I'm nervous [...]

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