Courtney Minick

Election season is upon us, and an interesting opinion came out last week. In Democratic Nat’l Comm. v. Republican Nat’l Comm., the Third Circuit upheld a consent decree between the parties that restricted voter fraud enforcement actions.

According to the facts in the case, the Republican National Committee (RNC) was sued for voter intimidation in 1981:

The RNC allegedly created a voter challenge list by mailing sample ballots to individuals in precincts with a high percentage of racial or ethnic minority registered voters and, then, including individuals whose postcards were returned as undeliverable on a list of voters to challenge at the polls.  The RNC also allegedly enlisted the help of off-duty sheriffs and police officers to intimidate voters by standing at polling places in minority precincts during voting with ‘National Ballot Security Task Force’ armbands.  Some of the officers allegedly wore firearms in a visible manner.

Our Justia caselaw summary writers have suggested some interesting cases from last week’s load.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in the case concerning Jared Lee Loughner, who is accused of shooting U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, among others. In United States v. Loughner, the appellate court upheld the trial court’s decision permitting the defendant to be involuntarily medicated. The appellate court concluded that defendant was provided with the substance and procedure demanded by the Due Process Clause before the government involuntarily medicated him: the defendant clearly suffered from a severe mental illness, he represented a danger to himself or others, the prescribed medication was appropriate and in his medical interest, and the district court did not arbitrarily deny the motion to enjoin defendant’s emergency treatment.

In October, we blogged about a lawsuit against the editors of tz info, the time zone database for Unix. The editors were sued by a company called Astrolabe, Inc., who claimed a copyright interest in data used to populate the database.

The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff this week. It turns out the EFF got involved. According to their statement,

“In January, EFF advised Astrolabe that Olson and Eggert would move for sanctions if Astrolabe did not withdraw its complaint. Today’s dismissal followed.”

The 10th Circuit decided an interesting FOIA case this week. In World Pub. Co. v. United States Dept. of Justice, the Court held that Tulsa World magazine was not entitled to six mugshots under the Freedom of Information Act. For more on this case, see posts on Politico and ABA Journal.

The Maryland Supreme Court denied a negligence claim against the state for serving a peanut butter sandwich to an allergic child through the free lunch program. In Pace v. State, the court found that the National School Lunch Act simply establishes a subsidized lunch program to benefit children at participating schools and did not impose a specific statutory duty of care towards children with food allergies.

I’m from Chicago, where everyone knows someone who knows someone in the mob. That’s why I loved this case, U.S. v Ambrose, sent to me by Laurel. It’s chock full of good mafia stories and lingo involving a crooked Deputy U.S. Marshal and a made guy in the “Chicago outfit” who turned state’s evidence.

In other criminal law cases, a defendant in the 10th Circuit was convicted of selling drugs at his apartment and for selling them within 1000 feet of a playground. Defendant challenged the definition of playground, which the court did not find convincing, holding that even if there was “one apparatus…intended for recreation of children,” then the place was a playground under the statutes. US v. West. In other words, “that’s nice.”

This was kind of a slow week for our Daily Summary writers, but we did have a blockbuster from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: Perry v. Brown.  This case involved Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. The 9th Cir. chose to address the constitutionality of Prop. 8 and declined to address the broader question of whether same-sex couples had the right to marry. As a preliminary matter, the 9th Cir. held that proponents of the ballot measure had standing.  The 9th Cir. held that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional because it violated the Equal Protection Clause by targeting a minority group and withdrawing a right that the group possessed without a legitimate reason for doing so. The court also affirmed the denial of a motion to vacate former Chief Judge Walker on the basis of his purported interest in being allowed to marry his same-sex partner.

The mainstream media extensively covered this case — for more information, check out the New York Times article.

Here are some of last week’s highlights from our Daily Opinion Summaries writers.

US v. Strandhof, US Ct. App. 10th Cir., 1/27/12
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Stolen Valor Act (18 U.S.C. 704(b)) which makes it illegal to falsely claim to have received a military award or honor. The district court found that appellant’s false claims to a Purple Heart, Silver Star, and rank of Marine Corps captain were protected by the First Amendment, but the 10th Circuit relied on SCOTUS precedent to overturn that ruling.

Our Daily Opinion Summaries writers chose these cases to highlight this week.

From the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, we have In Re FEMA Trailers Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation (1/23/12). This case is about the “toxic trailers” issued by FEMA in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Plaintiffs sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries related to their exposure to formaldehyde in the trailers, but the Court held that the voluntary, cost-free provision of the trailers to disaster victims was immunized conduct under the FTCA, and affirmed the district court’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

From the U.S. Court of Appeal for the 10th Circuit comes SECSYS, LLC v. Vigil (1/23/12). This corruption case involves government officials in New Mexico. In it, the plaintiff sued for discrimination because they were denied a bid-rigged contract, since they would not pay the full “allegedly extortionate demand.” The Court in this case affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s case.

Here’s a round-up of interesting cases from this week, as reported by our Daily Opinion Summary writers.

From the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Ochoa v. Workman, which looked at the Atkins standard of mental retardation in a capital case. In that case, the petitioner argued that the trial court erred in applying the Atkins test to his mental condition at the time of trial instead of at the time of the crime. The Court denied his petition.

From the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, we have Higgins v. R.I. Hosp.

This case offered an interesting application of the firefighter’s rule, which bars public-safety officials from “maintaining a negligence action against a tortfeasor whose alleged malfeasance is responsible for bringing the officer to the scene of [an]…emergency where the officer is injured.” The plaintiff here brought a patient to the hospital while working as an EMT/firefighter. After he delivered his patient, he assisted a nurse with a disorderly patient, who seriously injured the plaintiff. The district court and Supreme Court found the firefighter’s rule barred the plaintiff’s recovery even though the plaintiff’s injury did not arise from the same circumstances that originally brought him to the scene.

As you may know, Justia provides free daily opinion summaries for all state supreme courts and the federal courts of appeal. We’ve asked our talented attorney writers to send us the most interesting, funny, or important cases they come across each week, and we’ll run them as a column here on the blog.

Awad v. Ziriax, et. al., US Ct. App. 10th Cir.
This case made the news this week, when the 10th Circuit upheld an injunction against a controversial ballot initiative in Oklahoma that would amend the state constitution to prevent courts from considering or using Sharia law. Plaintiff argued that this law would violate his rights under the Free Exercise and Establishment clause of the Constitution. The 10th Circuit found that his claims were justiciable, and upheld a preliminary injunction against the law.