By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

The Supreme Court will not stop subpoenas issued to an advocate for chronic pain patients who is under investigation for obstruction of justice.

Siobhan Reynolds and her organization, the Pain Relief Network, are being investigated because of her involvement with a doctor and wife who illegally prescribed painkillers to dozens of patients who later died.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Reynolds.

Reynolds wanted justices to quash grand jury subpoenas and her contempt citation for not turning over subpoenaed e-mails and documents.

The court filings in Reynolds' case have been sealed.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

Attorneys for Wesley Snipes will try to convince a central Florida judge the actor deserves a new trial arguing the jury was biased.

A hearing is scheduled for Monday before U.S. District Court Judge William Terrell Hodges. It's unclear whether Snipes will attend.

Snipes argues some jurors decided he was guilty before hearing any evidence and prosecutors hid damaging information about a key witness.

Snipes was found guilty of willfully failing to file federal tax returns. The star of the "Blade" trilogy faces a three-year prison sentence.

Defense lawyers say they received e-mails from two jurors who claim three other jurors made up their minds before the 2008 trial began. An e-mail said the verdicts were a compromise.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

In a decision released Friday, the court barred William Switzer from practicing law, agreeing with a referee's recommendation that Switzer had violated state rules.

In its decision, the court said it had suspended Switzer in 2008 for 18 months, saying he had violated his oath of office in dealings with some clients. The court says Switzer continued practicing and didn't tell clients that he'd been suspended.

Switzer argued that his depression should limit his punishment to suspension. But the court, noting that Switzer had ignored his 2008 suspension, says such actions undermine the court's authority and fails to protect the public.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

In the six days Tom DeLay has been on trial, prosecutors have called 22 witnesses and presented volumes of e-mails and other documents as they try to convince a jury that the former U.S. House majority leader illegally funneled corporate donations to Texas GOP candidates in 2002.

So far, no witness or document has directly tied DeLay to the alleged scheme, and some courtroom observers are questioning how strong the prosecution's case is.

"I guess we have to give (prosecutors) the benefit of the doubt. They haven't finished their case yet. But what I've seen so far is troubling," said Bradley Simon, a New York white collar criminal defense lawyer who has been following the trial.

DeLay is charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege he and two associates — John Colyandro and Jim Ellis — illegally channeled $190,000 in corporate donations collected by DeLay's Texas PAC through the Washington-based Republican National Committee. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns. Testimony was to resume Wednesday.

Former PAC fundraisers, lobbyists and Texas candidates who allegedly received illegal corporate donations have detailed for jurors how DeLay's PAC worked, the donations it received and problems it was having in raising money from individual donors — the only type of funds that could go to political campaigns under Texas law. Prosecutors have implied DeLay was the driving force behind the PAC and the alleged scheme to "clean" the corporate donations through a money swap they say couldn't have been done without his knowledge.

The former Houston-area congressman denies wrongdoing. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking a state constitutional amendment that prohibits state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange ruled Monday morning in Oklahoma City following a brief hearing. It prevents the state election board from certifying the results of Tuesday's general election in which the amendment was approved by 70 percent of the voters.

The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a requested preliminary injunction.

It was issued in a lawsuit filed by the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. Muneer Awad said during the hearing that the law stigmatizes his religion.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

An appeals court on Friday overturned a judge's order for the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of helping al-Qaida recruit two men who became Sept. 11 hijackers.

A lower court judge had ruled Mohamedou Ould Salahi should be freed after eight years at Guantanamo because he was abused by interrogators at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and that tainted the evidence against him. Other classified information was insufficient to support a criminal prosecution, the judge ruled.

Salahi, now 40 years old, later retracted his confession to persuading the two men to travel to Afghanistan to train for jihad.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the Obama administration's request to order Salahi's continued detention. But the judges unanimously agreed the lower court must reconsider the case, given new legal opinions in other Guantanamo lawsuits.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

The Supreme Court appeared closely divided Wednesday about an Arizona tax-break program that provides millions of dollars in scholarships for students at private religious schools.

The conservative justices indicated they are likely to rule against a challenge to the Arizona program that says it amounts to an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. The court's liberals suggested they have problems with the state's tax credit.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the decisive vote in ideologically divided cases, asked questions of both sides that did not tip his hand.

The Obama administration joined with the state in arguing in strong defense of the program, saying the Arizona residents who oppose it should not even be allowed to bring their lawsuit in federal court.

For the past 13 years, Arizona has allowed residents to send up to $500 to a tuition scholarship organization that they would have otherwise paid the state in taxes on their incomes.

The problem, in the view of the American Civil Liberties Union-backed challenge to the program, is that most of the money goes to groups that award scholarships on the basis of religion and require children to enroll in religious schools.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

California voters rejected a ballot measure on Tuesday that would have made it the first U.S. state to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

The "no" vote on Proposition 19 had 56 percent of the vote to 43 percent for "yes," with 20 percent of precincts counted. CNN projected the measure's failure.

The nation's eyes were on Prop 19 because legalization would have put the state at odds with federal drug laws and the Obama administration said it would continue to prosecute individuals in California for possession or growth of pot.

A maverick move by California could also have inspired other states, as has been the case with medical marijuana.

California in 1996 led the nation with a ballot measure approving cannabis for medical purposes and 13 other states have since followed suit.

Passage of Prop 19 would also have had a financial impact because it cleared the way for local governments to regulate the "business side" of pot, including commercial cultivation and taxation.

Prop 19 supporters argued that ending prosecutions of marijuana possession would free up strained law enforcement resources and strike a blow against drug cartels, much as repealing prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s crushed bootlegging by organized crime.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

Early returns show voters rejected Initiative 1098 being rejected with about 65 percent of the vote to 35 percent in unofficial returns.

Initiative 1098 would institute a new state tax on the top 1 percent of incomes to pay for education and health programs while trimming state property and business taxes. The campaign follows January’s overwhelming decision by Oregon voters to increase taxes for corporations and wealthier households.

"I'm particularly gratified the way Initiative 1098 is going down to defeat. I don't think we're going to see that kind of initiative back anytime soon," said former Senator Slade Gorton.

Initiative 1098 campaign was referred to as the "battle of the billionaires."

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his father are among the wealthy Washingtonians who joined labor unions and other traditional Democratic allies to support the tax-the-rich ballot measure. Opposing 1098 were Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Boeing, Russell Investments, Paccar Inc., software billionaire Charles Simonyi and members of the Nordstrom family.

And, big money was thrown into the fight. Supporters of the initiative spent more than $6.1 million, while the campaign against it spent more than $5 million of the $6.4 million raised.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

By Breaking Legal News, Breaking Legal News.

A panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday blocked a U.S. district judge from demanding that the military enforce her order against the Pentagon's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

The immediate effect of the decision is to leave in place indefinitely a congressional ban that U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips had found in September was unconstitutional because it infringed on the First Amendment rights of gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors and Marines. In October, she ordered the Pentagon to stop enforcing the ban, a ruling that briefly ended 'don't ask, don't tell,' the repeal of which has foundered in Congress, despite pledges by President Barack Obama to end it.

In its ruling, the panel said it had found "convincing" the government's arguments that suddenly ending the prohibition on gays and lesbians serving openly would have a deleterious effect on the military. "The public interest in ensuring orderly change of this magnitude in the military — if that is what is to happen — strongly militates in favor of a stay," the court said.

The panel also questioned whether Phillips' opinion would be upheld in the end.

"The district court's analysis and conclusions are arguably at odds with the decisions of at least four other circuit courts of appeals: the first, second, fourth and eighth," the panel said. The panel said the 9th Circuit was obligated by precedent not to interfere with the decisions of a "sister circuit" until it had undetaken a full hearing on the merits of the case.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.