Birmingham Mother Shot and Killed While Holding Infant In Birmingham, Alabama, Sherri Williams, of Birmingham died on her sofa still holding her son. A stray bullet meant for someone else ricocheted and hit Williams as she watched from the doorway of her home, holding her ten-day old son. The April 2013 shooting still has neighbors […]
READ MORESome Legal Experts See Bausch & Lomb Moving Toward Quick Settlement in ReNu Cases
A subscription-only article that ran this week on the website Lawyers USA quotes several legal experts who say they think Bausch & Lomb will settle quickly in lawsuits related to ReNu with MoistureLoc, the now-withdrawn contact lens solution that had been causing serious fungal infections in some users. The article quotes Paul J. Pennock, a […]
READ MOREVioxx, ReNu and Ortho Evra: A Look at Three Responses to Problematic Drugs
The comment in the recent post about Johnson & Johnson’s approach to Ortho Evra litigation — specifically, the suggestion that the company was “the anti-Merck” in terms of its legal strategy because of its willingness to settle — got my wheels turning about the different ways that corporations respond to the legal fallout of drugs that […]
READ MORETechnology Leap Frogs Over the Law – Again
Newfangled machines, called cars, scared the hell out of horses and ran over pedestrians in the early 20th century as their numbers exploded from 200,000 to over 2 million. By the time government could pass traffic laws, it was too late to stop the growth. Nothing has changed. New technologies spread practically instantly and take […]
READ MOREOnline Prescription Case Ends in Conviction for Doctor
A former doctor from Colorado has been convicted of practicing medicine in California without a license for prescribing a generic form of Prozac over the Internet for a Stanford student who later committed suicide. Christian Hageseth, 68, could face up to a year in jail when he is sentenced April 17, in a precedent-setting case […]
READ MOREUnderstanding Hate Crime Laws
It is a longstanding principle that people should not be punished for bad thoughts, but only for bad actions. A person can think about breaking the law, but should only be charged with an offense when a step is taken towards violating the law as people cannot be punished for thought crimes. There is, however, […]
READ MORECriminal Impersonation in New York
Valbona Yzeiraj, an office manager in New York, appeared before a judge last week to answer to charges that she impersonated a dentist while the real dentist was away. According to prosecutors, Yzeiraj seriously injured patients while pulling their teeth and performing root canals on them. Yzeiraj told the judge that she had been trained […]
READ MOREElectronic Monitoring Can Be Expensive for Defendant
Electronic monitoring involves a defendant being required to wear an ankle bracelet so his or her movements can be monitored. The use of electronic monitoring has increased dramatically in recent years. From 2000 through 2014, there was a 32 percent rise in the use of electronic monitoring. One article from International Business Times reported that […]
READ MOREFederal Wire Fraud Crimes– 18 USC 1343
Three Notorious (Recent) Cases of Wire Fraud Wire fraud is the act of fraud used in electronic communication. That’s simple. Easy to understand. The American Supreme Court mucked things up — for the laymen — when they “several times observed the wire fraud statute has a long arm.,” Pasquantino v. United States. Despite the Court’s […]
READ MOREFederal Judge Orders Access to Experimental Drug
A federal judge has ordered the drug company PTC Therapeutics to give a teenager access to its still-experimental drug PTC124, which the company is developing for treatment of duchenne muscular dystrophy. This decision would seem to be at odds with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in Abigail Alliance v. Eschenbach , unless the legal […]
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