2024 HIPAA Final Rule: The New Attestation Requirement

On June 25, 2024, changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rule aimed at supporting reproductive health care privacy went into effect. Last week, I published a blog post about these changes, including the creation of three new types of prohibited uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI). This post addresses another major change to the law: a new attestation requirement that applies to four types of uses and disclosures when the PHI at issue is “potentially related” to reproductive health care. It’s not just covered entities and business associates that need to understand this new requirement- judicial officials, law enforcement, health oversight agencies, and medical examiners who frequently request PHI to carry out their official duties will likely encounter situations that require them to comply with the new attestation requirement, too.

Read more

blank

How O.J. Got the Fuhrman Tapes (and You Can Get Out-of-State Materials)

Almost everyone knows about the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Many people also know about a key piece of evidence introduced by the defense—taped interviews in which one of the investigating officers, Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman, used racial slurs. Less well known is the legal mechanism that the defense team used to obtain the tapes, which were in the possession of a North Carolina writer who refused to turn them over voluntarily. How did O.J.’s lawyers compel a resident of North Carolina to produce the tapes in faraway Los Angeles, California? This post reviews the procedure used in the O.J. case and other ways to obtain out-of-state materials in a criminal case.

Read more

blank

State v. Marino Finds No Error in Denying Defendant Source Code

The North Carolina Court of Appeals decided its first breath-testing source code case yesterday.  The court in State v. Marino affirmed the trial court’s determination that the defendant had no right to examine the source code for the Intoximeter EC IR II, the instrument used to analyze his breath alcohol concentration after he was arrested … Read more