Articles Posted in Laws

A bill to abolish the death penalty in Illinois has cleared the House and the Senate, and is now in front of Governor Pat Quinn for approval. If he signs this bill, Illinois will become the 16th state to ban capital punishment.

You can view the bill on the Illinois General Assembly Site. From the synopsis, the bill:

“Amends the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963. Abolishes the death penalty. Provides that all unobligated and unexpended moneys remaining in the Capital Litigation Trust Fund shall be transferred into the Death Penalty Abolition Fund, a special fund in the State treasury, to be expended by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, subject to appropriation, for services for families of victims of homicide or murder and for training of law enforcement personnel. Amends the State Finance Act to create the Fund. Repeals the Capital Crimes Litigation Act. Provides for severability.”

Comedians, satirists, and Fake Steve’s everywhere, take note: under California’s new anti-Internet impersonation law, you want to make sure that you show your intent to tickle your reader’s funny bones on the Web.

That’s because under California Penal Code Section 528.5, someone who “knowingly and without consent” uses the Internet to “credibly impersonate[] another actual person” with the intent of “harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Some high-profile personalities and companies in California could put the new law through its paces in court. Here’s why.

January 3rd, 2011 marked the start of the 112th United States Congress, which shifted control of the House of Representatives to the Red Republicans. In a moment that harkened back to a prior Red Revolution, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) promptly introduced legislation seeking to end the reign of the Tsar.

In all seriousness, the true focus of the Republicans is H.R. 2, also known as the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. But, if truth be told, the real job killer is not the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed on March 23, 2010. Just look at the Unemployment Rate Chart, which I have created with help from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last week, I saw a penny machine at the San Francisco Zoo. These machines are commonly found at amusement parks and other popular tourist destinations. Basically, for 50 cents, the machine will flatten and emboss your penny with a commemorative design. If you experience a case of buyer’s remorse, you can always unload your pressed penny on eBay.

On January 10th, the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game will feature an exciting match-up between the 12-0 Oregon Ducks and the 13-0 Auburn Tigers. Cameron Newton, the quarterback who led the Tigers to an undefeated regular season, has already garnered several prestigious college football awards, including the 2010 Heisman Memorial Trophy for being the nation’s most outstanding college player. The House of Representatives even congratulated Cameron Newton for winning the Heisman Trophy.

While Cam Newton’s athletic achievements certainly merit some form of acknowledgement, the violation of amateurism rules by his father, as determined by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, is problematic. Considering that the NCAA had recently sanctioned USC, leading the BCS to vacate the Trojans’ 2005 Orange Bowl victory over Oklahoma, the potential disqualification of another Heisman winner and national champion cannot be entirely discounted.

Great news, friends! Starting in 2011, Public.Resource.Org will release a Report of Current Opinions (RECOP) on a weekly basis. The Report will include a FREE HTML feed of ALL slip and final opinions from the appellate courts of the 50 states and the federal government. The feed will be available for reuse under a CC CC-Zero license, and will include page numbers. For more details, read Carl Malamud’s announcement on O’Reilly Radar. This is one of the major projects that Public.Resource.Org has undertaken since being awarded the Google 10^100 Grant in September.

Divorce can be messy with the roller-coaster ride of emotions, the legal fight over finances, child support, and dog custody, as well as the divvying up of mementos from the marriage that did not last.

For married couples who own a small business, a divorce can be particularly challenging. Even though millions of dollars may be at stake, one spouse may be in the dark about the finances of the family business. While lengthy divorces can be expensive, does that mean that you should not fight to get what you are entitled to?

Stacey Napp, the founder of Balance Point Divorce Funding, doesn’t think so. Her company just might lend you money to fight your soon-to-be-ex in court.

British authorities arrested Wiikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange on Tuesday based upon a Swedish warrant charging him with sexually assaulting two women there over the summer.

Assange’s arrest, along with decisions by technology companies, finance companies, and banks to distance themselves from the document-leaking web site he founded, have placed Wikileaks in a difficult position. Will the site remain under constant threat of being booted off the web?

Probably, but that just doesn’t appear likely to happen. Once Wikileaks started sharing documents with journalists around the world, it guaranteed that removing the diplomatic cables would be impossible.

Amazon evicted Wikileaks from the company’s servers, telling the group to look for hosting space elsewhere.

Election Day 2010 is but a faint memory as we head towards the s-l-o-w end of the year. With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas just around the bend, we all recognize that the abundance of joy and good tidings that this winter season brings comes only from hard work. After all, someone has to pay for all that online holiday shopping. And, as we seek to right the direction of our fair nation, we should certainly offer thanks to our dedicated members of Congress for not heading home early for the holidays. Proving that no lame ducks exist in a recession, our political class continues to put in an honest day for their six-figure pay.

One of the pro bono projects we’ve been able to work on here at Justia is the Stanford Fair Use & Copyright site.  For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the site is a terrific resource for anyone interested in learning more about copyright in general, as well as for researchers more focused on exploring issues related to the fair use of copyrighted materials.  We frequently update the site, so we encourage even those of you who may already be familiar with it to stop by and check it out!