Posts Tagged ‘Kentucky’

Law enforcement for profit roundup

  • Kentucky: “The day before the deal was offered, prosecutors also indicted Card’s wife, mother and father. If Card gave up the cash, the written plea offer said, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office would drop their charges, too.” [Jacob Ryan, WFPL] Same state, different case: “Conviction Or Not, Seized Cash Is ‘Cost of Doing Business’ In Louisville” [Jacob Ryan, Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting]
  • Judge in New York: “Suffolk County may not charge $80 to resolve a $50 red light camera ticket.” [The Newspaper]
  • “Civil Forfeiture Disenfranchises the Poor” [Cato Daily Podcast with South Carolina lawmaker Alan Clemmons and Caleb Brown] “Class-Action Lawsuit Challenges Detroit’s Asset Forfeiture Racket” [C.J. Ciaramella, Reason]
  • “Father and adult daughter sue feds over confiscated life savings” [Theresa Braine, New York Daily News]
  • “Free to Drive: States punish poverty by suspending millions of driver’s licenses for unpaid fines and fees” How about reserving license suspensions for instances of actual unsafety? [advocacy site with maps and more; related, Tachana Marc, Florida Policy Institute; New York state advocacy site]
  • “Missouri Cops Used Federal Loophole To Seize $2.6 Million From Drivers Who They Never Charged With Crimes” [Zuri Davis]

Intellectual property law roundup

  • The ethics (and law) of emergencies: heroic efforts to shore up medical equipment on the run, such as using 3-D printing to supply a missing ventilator valve in an Italian hospital, can run into knotty problems of IP rights [Jay Peters, The Verge]
  • “Plaintiff recognizes that the community is in the midst of a ‘coronavirus pandemic.’ But Plaintiff argues that it will suffer an ‘irreparable injury’ if this Court does not hold a hearing this week and immediately put a stop to the infringing unicorns and the knock-off elves…. The world is facing a real emergency. Plaintiff is not.” [Lowering the Bar on federal Northern District of Illinois case]
  • As churches scramble to shift their worship services online, a gnawing question: are you sure you have the right to stream that song of praise? [The Gospel Coalition] Beating hasty retreat, Disney apologizes for having sought $250 licensing fine against arents at California school who’d screened “Lion King” video to entertain kids during PTA event [Nat Orenstein, Berkeleyside; Isabel McCormick, ScreenRant]
  • “It’s still early in 2020. But this is my vote for most annoying copyright complaint so far: a map (thin copyright!) shown (apparently only in passing; I haven’t watched yet) in the background of a movie that not only flopped but did so 8 years ago” [Zahr Said on coverage by Kyle Jahner, Bloomberg Law]
  • Jury awards $1 billion to music labels against cable and internet giant Cox, after claims it didn’t do enough to combat infringement by its users [Chris Eggertsen, Billboard]
  • “Newspaper Can Talk About ‘Derby Pies’ Without Infringing Trademarks–Rupp v. Courier Journal” [Eric Goldman; my Cato podcast on that subject with Caleb Brown back in 2016]
  • “Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain” [Samantha Cole, Vice “Motherboard”]

November 20 roundup

September 25 roundup

  • “Small claims court for copyright” idea, now moving rapidly through Congress, could create a new business model for troll claimants [Mike Masnick, TechDirt; EFF on CASE Act] A contrasting view: Robert VerBruggen, NR;
  • “If Boston is weirdly NOT full of good restaurant/bar/cafes for its size, and if people don’t want to stay after they hit 26 or so, these throttled [liquor] licenses are one of the real structural reasons why.” [Amanda Katz Twitter thread]
  • Push in California underway to join a trend I warned of five years ago, namely states’ enacting laws to encourage tax informants with a share of the loot [McDermott Will and Emery, National Law Review]
  • Baltimore food truck rule challenge, single-member districts, sexting prosecution, and more in my new Free State Notes roundup;
  • “For years the Westchester County DA, Jeanine Pirro, now a Fox News host who opines on justice, rejected Deskovic’s requests to compare the DNA evidence against a criminal database. Deskovic was not exonerated until 2006, after he had served 16 years” [Jacob Sullum, Reason]
  • Come again? “Louisville judge rules Kentucky speed limit laws unconstitutional” [Marcus Green, WDRB]

In Kentucky, a blank check for child snatching

“Kentucky social workers are failing to have courts properly scrutinize and approve the drastic step of taking some children from their homes, relying instead on blank removal orders with pre-signed judges’ signatures, which is illegal according to several attorneys and judges.” The practice, now ended following an investigation by local broadcaster WDRB, was rationalized by the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services as a way to speed things up on evenings and weekends when family court judges are not sitting, although on-call judges are supposed to be available during those times to review removal orders. The practice raises grave due process concerns, since it means that judges had not (and perhaps would not have) signed off on removal orders after individualized review, and if need be questioning, of the underlying allegations. It also permits allegations to be filled in after a child is taken, perhaps tailored to whatever household conditions were or were not discovered during the seizure. “In addition, cabinet workers have allegedly called judges after hours and told them about the need to remove one child from a home, but then used multiple copies of pre-signed emergency custody orders to take more than one juvenile.” [Jason Riley, WDRB via Robby Soave, Reason]

Medical roundup

  • “Doctors as Data Entry Clerks for the Government Health Surveillance System” [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
  • “Judge Orders Spine Surgeon to Pay Discovery Fees Over Funding Model” [Greg Land, Daily Report Online (Atlanta); defense lawyer says case “throws a harsh light on the interaction between personal injury lawyers, healthcare providers and litigation funders”]
  • What if feds’ enforcement policies on truthful off-label pharmaceutical promotion run aground on First Amendment considerations? [James Beck, Drug and Device Law]
  • Chronic pain patients: “Civilian Casualties Continue to Mount in Governments’ War on Opioids” [Jeffrey Singer] Feds’ tightening of opioid scheduling cut refills, but increased number of pills initially prescribed [same] So sinister for psychiatrist to take cash payment and keep night hours in a rented office, or is it? [Ira Stoll]
  • Certificate-of-need laws: “North Carolina Doctor Sues to Break Up State-Enforced Medical Cartels” [Christian Britschgi, Reason]
  • Law firm of Morgan & Morgan, awarded contingency contract for Kentucky opioid suit, holds fundraiser for Kentucky AG Andy Beshear [Legal NewsLine]

Police roundup

  • BBC on Baltimore police gun trace task force scandal [Jessica Lussenhop] Didn’t even bother using the real kind: “Baltimore Cops Carried Toy Guns to Plant on People They Shot, Trial Reveals” [Drew Schwartz, Vice]
  • Kentucky state police to media: do not put anything out about our investigations on social media “until OUR (KSP) press release is sent out.” Really? [Scott Greenfield]
  • “In unmarked cars, Orlando, Fla. officers box in car whose occupants are suspected of not wearing seatbelts; the driver drives off; the police catch up, ram the car, and shoot the driver dead. Allegation: Contrary to the officers’ testimony, the driver wasn’t about to run over an officer when he was killed; he couldn’t have, as the car’s engine had died after police rammed the vehicle. Eleventh Circuit: Qualified immunity. (H/t: Police4aqi.)” [John K. Ross, “Short Circuit”]
  • Police unionization may increase misconduct: “Our primary result is that collective bargaining rights lead to about a 27% increase in complaints of officer misconduct for the typical sheriff’s office.” [Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard H. McAdams, and John Rappaport via Jonathan Adler]
  • Dept. will publish accounts of misconduct investigations, but with names of officers omitted: “NYPD Argues They Simply Can’t Be More Transparent About Its Violent Cops” [Molly Osberg, Splinter News]
  • Michigan: “Seven Current and Former Police Officers Charged with 101 Felony Counts related to Fraudulent Auto Inspections”
    [Attorney General Bill Schuette]

The wages of public sector unionism

From a new paper by Michael Lovenheim and Alexander Willen, via Tyler Cowen:

Our estimates suggest that teacher collective bargaining worsens the future labor market outcomes of students: living in a state that has a duty-to-bargain law for all 12 grade-school years reduces earnings by $800 (or 2%) per year and decreases hours worked by 0.50 hours per week. The earnings estimate indicates that teacher collective bargaining reduces earnings by $199.6 billion in the US annually. We also find evidence of lower employment rates, which is driven by lower labor force participation, as well as reductions in the skill levels of the occupations into which workers sort. The effects are driven by men and nonwhites, who experience larger relative declines in long-run outcomes.

Jon Gabriel discusses the current wave of teacher strikes, Caleb Brown notes that “Kentucky Teachers Have Had Enough” — but of what? — while this Twitter thread discusses the Oklahoma walkout. More: Eric Boehm on Kentucky’s efforts to shore up underfunded teacher pensions.

Medical roundup

  • New Mercatus report on certificate-of-need laws, which operate to suppress competition in health care;
  • “Hospitals don’t dispense perfectly safe but expired drugs because that may expose them to regulatory penalties or lawsuits.” [Mike Riggs, Reason]
  • California unions push law setting minimum staffing requirements for dialysis centers [L.A. Times]
  • Glaxo neither made nor sold the pill he took, jury tells it to pay $3 million anyway [Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times]
  • Maryland and Michigan suits seek to characterize patient falls as non-medical negligence; Kentucky suit aims to avoid medical review panel requirement [Andis Robeznieks, AMA Wire]
  • “Ohio Drug Price Initiative Gives Taxpayer Money to Unnecessary Lawyers” [Hans Bader, CEI]