Matthew Heller reports: An Alaska judge’s decision allowing public access to proceedings in a custody battle over Sarah Palin’s grandson could encourage her to make a deal with the child’s father rather than risk an “onslaught” by “scandal-hungry tabloids.” Palin’s personal attorney, who is not a family law specialist, is representing her daughter Bristol in…
Category: Court
TN: Court spectator seized and forced to undergo urinalysis – lawsuit
Liz Potocsnak reports on a lawsuit arising from the seizure and urinalysis of a spectator in a Tennessee courtroom. The judge was eventually censored for his “routine practice” in his courtroom, and now the individual is suing: A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom “on a hunch,”…
Suits filed over Aurora’s use of medical data in bankruptcy cases
Bruce Vielmetti reports: Susan Dandridge knew that when she sought protection in bankruptcy court last year, information about her debts and income would go into a public court file. “It’s old bills and stuff from my earlier life I’m trying to clean up,” said the 53-year-old admissions adviser at Herzing University, a for-profit college with…
Privacy rights in a digital age
Betsy Powell reports: During a routine traffic stop, police suspected the car was stolen. That led to a search uncovering a handgun concealed in the back seat. With a suspect in custody, an officer looked through the man’s hand-held device and discovered a seemingly incriminating text message. But the officer found that, while he was…