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Seven experts. Seven opinions that all agree: Warren Lee Hill, Jr. is mentally retarded. Judge Barkett’s passionate dissent starts at a point the majority barely reached when they used procedural hurdles to deny Hill’s habeas petition – the fundamental proposition that Hill, per the Constitution, is exempt from execution. The crux of her argument is this: no statute, even one as strict as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), should trump the Constitution....

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin of Manhattan (no relation to reality television star Judge Judy Sheindlin) has ruled that there is still an attorney-client privilege even if an attorney has an inactive status in the Gucci case, the ABA Journal reports. The Gucci case involved a Guess trademark lawsuit about fake handbags, but ultimately revealed a “fake” lawyer in the process. During the discovery process of the litigation, Guess challenged Gucci’s claims that there was an attorney-client privilege between Gucci’s in house counsel Jonathan Moss....

After the wild success of the “Serial” podcast, Adnan Syed, convicted in 2000 of the murder of former girlfriend and fellow high school student Hae Min Lee, was granted a new appeal by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Actually, the appeal was in progress before the podcast series began, but interviews conducted by reporters for “Serial” led to the discovery of more evidence on appeal that Syed contends his lawyer should have introduced....

It turns out that the information collected by the Innocence Project is serving another purpose: helping to develop better lie-detection software. Researchers at the University of Michigan have used clips of witnesses collected by the Innocence Project and other sources to put together a system of “tells” that trains a computer to predict whether or not someone is lying. And you know what? It’s about fifty percent more accurate than humans....

Implicit bias is not so easy to grasp, but the findings make it painfully clear: Everyone is biased, one way or another. Unfortunately, the solution is also not so easy as it requires individuals to recognize their own biases. To help, some courts, like the ones in Seattle, actually show jurors videos explaining the concept. And now, a recent appeal challenging a Seattle jury’s (pre-video showing days) decision based upon the jury’s implicit bias is making headlines for the novel theory....

District court’s grant of defendant-union’s motion to compel arbitration and denial of plaintiff’s petition for declaratory judgment is affirmed where: 1) the Union neutrality agreement at issue was not void ab initio; and 2) the arbitration clause of the agreement remained in effect. Read South Bay Boston Mgmt., Inc. v. Unite Here, Local 26, No. 09-1081 Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts...

The First Circuit has been making national headlines for the past year, as all eyes wanted to see the fate of Whitey Bulger. Now, an equally (if not more) gripping case is progressing through the First Circuit – the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a/k/a the surviving accused Boston Marathon bomber. As we give you an update on this case, we also explain that the Supreme Court recently granted cert in an unrelated criminal case that could have far-reaching effects on our Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure....

Smartwatches and Ultra HD 4K televisions don’t impress me much. Neither do smart toothbrushes or beds. What, then, has us all hot and bothered from the wave of CES announcements from Las Vegas? It’s all about practicality. Well, mostly. Our top three things that we’ve learned from spending way too much time on Cnet.com’s CES coverage include: We’ve been over this concept before, but imagine how great it would be if an iPad was capable of running all of your law firm software....

Over the past year, the Supreme Court has issued an array of groundbreaking decisions, impacting discrimination in jury selection, Obamacare’s contraception mandate, public union dues, immigration reform, and much more. And that’s not to mention the recent historic decisions impacting the Affordable Care Act and legalizing same-sex marriage. A single opinion by the Court, as the co-equal third branch of the government, can have immediate and long-lasting implications, and while in the old days, one would have to wait for newspaper articles or published volumes to hear the latest from The Nine, today, there is no delay....

Earlier today, Apple held its much-anticipated March 2015 event in San Francisco. On the docket, as rumored, were product updates, the introduction of the fabled Apple Watch, and a surprise for those of us who have been pirating “Game of Thrones” all these years. So, what happened? The often-overlooked black sheep of Apple’s product line, Apple TV, just got a lot more desirable as CEO Tim Cook announced that it would be the first vector for HBO’s standalone service, HBO Now....

Being a crafty lawyer is almost a badge of honor, but being a crafting lawyer is better. That’s because crafting, like many hobbies, can make you a better person. It’s about work-life balance, which most lawyers find hard to achieve. Some lawyers make it an art form – literally – like Jeena Cho, co-author of The Anxious Lawyer. Relax and Recharge Cho, a San Francisco attorney, got a bump for her book from the ABA Journal....

Hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked every year. They’re smuggled across borders, forced into sex work, or used as unpaid labor. In all, there are nearly twice as many modern day slaves as there were at the height of the transatlantic slave trade 350 years ago. While human trafficking is generally a low-tech industry, “big data” from some of the world’s biggest financial institutions is being mined in order to identify and combat the crime – part of what’s been called a data war against human rights abuses....

Social media, text messaging, and mobile devices are nothing new, but they are increasingly being integrated into business life. Whether it’s recruiting an employee through Twitter, closing a deal via text message, or friending your colleagues on Facebook, our mobile lives are becoming more and more integrated into our work lives. That means mobile technology is also becoming more central to eDiscovery. Texting, mobile apps, and social media are the “new frontier” in eDiscovery, according to a new report by the law firm Gibson Dunn....

The Supreme Court has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Married gay and lesbian couples are entitled to federal benefits, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a milestone victory for the gay rights movement. If your company is not already more inclusive of LGBT employees, it’s time to update the benefits packages offered to your LGBT employees and their spouses. Survivors’ benefits. Same-sex spouses will now be eligible for Social Security survivors’ benefits upon the death of a partner, among other forms of assistance, according to a December 2012 report by the Human Rights Campaign....

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is seeking comments regarding a proposed amendment to Rule 41.3, Effect of Granting Rehearing En Banc. The comment period closes on July 25, 2011. Currently, Rule 41.3 states, “If the court grants a petition for en banc rehearing, the panel opinion is vacated and the mandate is stayed.” The proposed amendment would add, “If, after voting a case en banc, the court lacks a quorum to act on the case for 30 consecutive days, the case is automatically returned to the panel, the panel opinion is reinstated as an unpublished (and hence nonprecedential) opinion, and the mandate is released....

Yesterday was apparently Data Privacy Day. Didn’t notice? We don’t blame you. Like the concepts of temperance, abstinence, and alchemy, it might seem like a bygone idea. After all, we live in the days of eroding social media privacy settings, data breaches, and online advertisers tracking your every breath. Just last week, Google released its biannual “transparency report” where it breaks down the number of data requests by time period, requesting government, and for the first time, by legal procedure used to make the request....

Way back in March, you might have seen a story about agitators who were paid over $3,000 a person to protest outside Trump rallies. Or maybe you spotted the story about President Obama limiting American gun ownership to three guns per person, max? None of them were true, but you could be forgiven for being duped. Both came from ABC.com.co, a fake news website designed to trick the unsuspecting. And when it comes to ....

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. and Macy’s reached a settlement in a breach of contract lawsuit, bringing an end to Macy’s claims against Stewart’s company for allegedly violating an exclusivity agreement by selling products at rival chain J.C. Penney. But the confidential settlement leaves Macy’s suit against J.C. Penney intact. Martha Stewart and J.C. Penney announced a partnership in 2011 to open Martha Stewart home shops at hundreds of J.C. Penney stores....

The First Circuit Court of Appeals case that challenged religion in schools and the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance didn’t make it very far in the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 13, the Supreme Court denied review on the case against religion in schools, made by atheist activist Michael Newdow, who argued that the requirement that New Hampshire public schools set aside a daily period for voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments....

A New York lawyer’s bilingual skills and 20 years of experience in personal injury law led him to uncover an international scam by some phony survivors of the Costa Concordia disaster. Attorney Peter Ronai traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to represent six real-life survivors of the Italian cruise ship disaster. Soon a Hungarian woman contacted him, claiming her daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter were among the missing, the New York Daily News reports....