Retired Supreme Court Justice O'Connor visits SC

Issues dealing with church and state will always be among the toughest the nation's courts deal with and there's no easy test for deciding them, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Monday.

"Religious pluralism lies at the very heart of the American political tradition and I think it remains a major concern as our country becomes ever more the home of larger and larger communities of people from widely different ethnic and religious backgrounds," the first woman appointed to the high court told a legal symposium focusing on a constitutional test she proposed in a high court ruling almost 30 years  ago.

The symposium at the Charleston School of Law was sponsored by the Charleston Law Review and the Riley Institute at Furman University.

O'Connor's endorsement test proposed that a government action can violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state if a reasonable observer sees that action as either endorsing or disapproving religion. But O'Connor, who is 83 and who retired from the court in 2006, said that there is no grand unified theory for applying to such cases. Over the years the Supreme Court has made seemingly contradictory decisions.

Doctor to plead guilty in CA prescription case

A Southern California doctor has agreed to plead guilty to charges of illegally prescribing drugs to his patients at nightly meetings in Starbucks stores.
Court documents show 44-year-old Alvin Mingczech Yee entered into a plea agreement earlier this week. He is expected to plead guilty to seven counts at a April 17 hearing.
Prosecutors say Yee saw up to a dozen patients nightly at Starbucks coffee stores across suburban Orange County at meetings that cost up to $600. Prosecutors say Yee barely examined them but prescribed drugs including OxyContin and Vicodin.
Yee was arrested in October 2011 at his Irvine office and has been free on bond.

MJM Law Office, P.C. - DUII / DUI / DWI Offenses

Most people agree that driving while you are high and/or drunk is not a good idea, but it is also a very common and sometimes difficult to avoid occurrence in America’s geographically dispersed car culture.  Residents of Oregon should be aware that the state’s drunk driving laws are some of the toughest in the country, making DUII (Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants) an extremely serious offense.  If you’ve been charged with driving under the influence, you’ll want to have an experienced Eugene DUI lawyer on your side to ensure you make the best possible decisions throughout your case.

Losing your driving privileges can create major obstacles in your everyday life.  After a DUII arrest, you are at risk of losing your license both criminally (through the court) as well as civilly (through the DMV).  A DMV hearing is used to determine whether you will keep or lose your license, regardless of whether or not you are convicted.  Long term consequences of a DUII conviction can include difficulty obtaining employment, maintaining professional licenses, and qualifying for financial aid for schools.  In addition, those offenders that are professional motor vehicle operators may lose their commercial driver’s license and be completely out of work.

http://www.mjmlawoffice.com/criminal-law/duii-dui-dwi-offenses

Ex-hedge fund manager pleads not guilty in NYC

A former hedge fund portfolio manager charged with engineering a record-setting inside trade scheme has pleaded not guilty to insider trading charges.

Authorities say Mathew Martoma persuaded a medical professor to leak secret data from an Alzheimer's disease drug trial. Investigators say it helped him earn more than a quarter-billion dollars in illegal profits.

Martoma appeared Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. He remains free on bail.

He was arrested in November at his $2 million Palm Beach County, Fla., home on securities fraud and conspiracy charges.

He is a former portfolio manager at an affiliate of a Stamford, Conn.-based firm owned by Steven A. Cohen, one of the world's richest men.

Martoma is the fourth person associated with SAC Capital to be arrested on insider trading charges in the past four years.

Court: Officers may have to pay fees in lawsuit

The Supreme Court says a South Carolina sheriff's office can be held liable for attorneys' fees for stopping abortion protesters in South Carolina who wanted to hold up signs showing aborted fetuses.

Justices on Monday reversed a decision saying the Greenwood County sheriff's office was not required to pay attorney's fees in a lawsuit brought by Steven Lefemine and Columbia Christians for Life. The group was told by officers they couldn't protest with their signs in November 2005. A federal judge agreed that the sheriff was wrong, but did not award damages or lawyer's fees.

The justices threw out that decision without hearing arguments, saying the legal decision that officers could not stop the protesters "supported the award of attorney's fees." The case now goes back to the lower courts.

Probate of Estates, Trust Administration and Asset Transfers

When a loved one dies, families and heirs must address the transfer of his or her assets.  Depending on the estate planning which has been done in advance, various processes are required.  We have decades of experience in this area.  This allows us to advise clients what procedures and tasks are necessary to comply with the requirements of law and to protect their interests as well as accomplish what needs to be done efficiently, as fast as possible and at a reasonable cost. 

We also provide counseling to protect our clients’ interests whether they are in charge of an administration or simply a beneficiary.

Please contact our Torrance office for consultation with an attorney regarding your legal matter. (310) 543-1616 or fill out a contact form on our website http://www.pettlermillerlaw.com/practice-areas/probate

New DC drunken driving law to take effect

A new law that toughens penalties for drunken driving in the nation's capital takes effect Wednesday, but the city's police department still is not using breath tests on suspected drunken drivers more than a year after the tests were suspended.
The new law, which was approved by the D.C. Council and signed by Mayor Vincent Gray earlier this summer. It doubles mandatory minimum jail terms for people with blood-alcohol concentrations of .20 percent or higher and establishes a blood-alcohol limit of .04 percent for commercial drivers, including taxi drivers.

The law also establishes new oversight for the district's breath-testing program. But there's still no timetable to the resumption of breath tests, which D.C. police stopped using in February 2011 in the wake of revelations that their breath-testing devices had produced inaccurate results. Police have been using urine and blood tests instead.

A year earlier, District of Columbia officials had notified defense lawyers about nearly 400 drunken-driving convictions that relied, at least party, on inaccurately calibrated blood-alcohol tests.
More than two dozen people sued the district over convictions based on those flawed tests, and the district Attorney General's office said Tuesday that all the outstanding lawsuits had been settled. The district paid a total of $136,000 to 17 plaintiffs, with individuals receiving between $2,000 and $42,000, said Jeffrey Rhodes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.