Remember that officer in Utah who handcuffed the nurse who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient? CNN reports that he has been fired. Keep reading for more news.
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News Roundup
On Sunday evening, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history occurred at a country music concert in Las Vegas. Armed with more than 20 guns, some modified for increased rates of fire, Stephen C. Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 500 others by firing upon concert-goers from an elevated position inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. The Las Vegas Review-Journal has comprehensive coverage of the shooting. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
CNN reports that “[t]he latest FBI annual hate crimes report shows a sharp spike in the number of hate crimes nationwide, with attacks against Muslims increasing the most sharply.” The report is based on data from 2015, compared to 2014. While the percentage increase for crimes against Muslims was greatest, anti-Semitic incidents were the most prevalent in absolute terms. The report is available here. Has there been an increase in hate crimes after the recent presidential election? Yes. Or, no. Or, yes, just like after President Obama was first elected. We may need more than 10 days of data to answer that question definitively. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
The Charlotte Observer reports that North Carolina did not have a Powerball jackpot winner but that two tickets worth $2 million each were sold in the state, one in Raleigh and the other in Spring Lake. According to the Chicago Tribune, lottery winners should hire lawyers before coming forward to claim their prizes. According to the ABA Journal, if you participate with others in a ticket-buying group, it may be a good idea to consult with a lawyer before even buying tickets in order to avoid a potentially costly dispute regarding the terms of the joint purchase agreement. The first thing we do, let’s hire some lawyers, as it were.
News Roundup
[Editor’s note: We’re trying a new system for the news roundup. Rather than having a faculty member, usually Jeff, compile the roundup, we’ve asked a staff attorney to take the lead most weeks.]
In the fortnight since the final news roundup of 2015, a group of armed protesters seized a building in a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, President Obama announced new executive actions intended to reduce gun violence, Durham posted the job description for the city’s Chief of Police, and the new Star Wars film became the highest-grossing film in North America. The news has wandered many a weary foot since auld lang syne, and it’s time to round it up:
News Roundup
It’s the last news roundup of 2015! The blog will be on its annual holiday hiatus for the next two weeks, resuming on Monday, January 4, 2016.
It was certainly a full news week. A Baltimore jury hung on manslaughter charges against an officer in connection with the death of Freddie Gray (Baltimore Sun), Disney World added metal detectors after a Florida lawyer was arrested last week trying to smuggle a handgun into the Magic Kingdom (Orlando Sentinel), and California proposed new rules “that could hobble the development of autonomous cars and even ban ‘driverless’ ones outright” (Jalopnik). Quite a bit happened here in North Carolina as well.
News Roundup
Most of the office chatter around the SOG this week concerned the new lawsuit challenging the recently-enacted retention election procedure for North Carolina Supreme Court Justices. The basic question is whether that procedure satisfies the state constitution’s requirement that justices be elected. The Fayetteville Observer has more information here. But that wasn’t the only interesting story of the week.
News Roundup
This week, the mighty fell. Locally, Dana Cope, the former director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, pled guilty to spending $570,000 of the Association’s money on personal expenses, like landscaping, flying lessons, a trip to China, a home theater system, clothing, and much more. During his court appearance, Cope acknowledged “I am a thief.” He received a sentence of 58 to 82 months in prison. WRAL has the story here. Nationally, Subway spokesman Jared Fogle was sentenced to 15.5 years in federal prison after admitting he possessed child pornography and had sex with minors. The sentence exceeded prosecutors’ recommendation of 12.5 years. Fogle will also pay $1.4 million in restitution. Reuters has the details here.
News Roundup
A divided North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Packingham last Friday, upholding the statutory ban on registered sex offenders using social networking websites that allow minors to join. G.S. 14-202.5. The defendant argued that the statute violated his First Amendment rights, but the court ruled that the statute targets conduct, not speech, and that any incidental burden on speech is justifiable. A law professor’s skeptical analysis of the decision is here. Another professor’s suggestion that the case may merit review by the United States Supreme Court is here.
News Roundup
Superior Court Judge Arnold Jones, the Chair of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, was arrested this week and charged in federal court with bribery and related offenses. WRAL reports here that the judge allegedly attempted “to bribe an FBI officer [by paying him $100] to collect text messages between two phone numbers in what the judge said was a family matter.”