Background: Laroy West was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, aggravated assault, and criminal possession of a weapon stemming from two separate incidents. The first incident, in March 2021, involved West brandishing a firearm during a verbal confrontation with employees at a Mexican restaurant after being asked to leave. The second, in May 2021, resulted in West…
Held: The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Laroy West's convictions, finding no reversible error in the district court's decisions. Regarding the joinder of charges, the Court concluded that the district court correctly denied West's motion to sever. It found that the charges from both the March and May incidents were of the "same or similar character" under K.S.A. 22-3202(1), citing multiple commonalities.…
Background: In 2025, the Frederick County Council enacted Ordinance 26-01-001 (the "CDI Ordinance"), which amended the comprehensive zoning plan to establish a Critical Digital Infrastructure (CDI) Overlay Zone for data centers. An organized citizen group, the Frederick County Data Center Referendum Committee, sought to challenge this ordinance through a referendum petition, collecting a sufficient number of…
Held: The Supreme Court of Maryland affirmed the circuit court's judgment, holding that the CDI Ordinance was not subject to referendum under the Frederick County Charter and that the referendum petition was deficient. The Court addressed two primary legal issues: the interpretation of the Frederick County Charter regarding referendum authority over zoning ordinances and the sufficiency of the referendum petition.
Background: A custody dispute turned on a mismatch between what an Alaska superior court judge said from the bench and what the prevailing party’s lawyer later put into proposed written findings. During an informal divorce trial, the judge found that the mother’s pushing, shoving, and breaking of a dish formed one cumulative incident of domestic violence.…
Held: The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. It held that Alaska Civil Rule 60(a), which permits correction of clerical errors at any time, authorized the superior court to conform the written findings to the original oral decision. A Rule 60(a) correction may fix an objectively ascertainable error in form when the court need only examine the existing record, without making new factual…
Background: The complainants are an Afghan woman, a human rights activist, and her two minor sons. In September 2021, following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior issued a declaration of admission for the family under a humanitarian program known as the "Human Rights List." This program was intended to help Afghans…
Held: The Federal Constitutional Court granted the constitutional complaint, overturning the Higher Administrative Court's decision. The Court held that the lower court's refusal to review the government's action violated the complainants' rights under Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the German Basic Law (equal treatment) in conjunction with Article 20, Paragraph 3 (rule of law), which together establish a constitutional prohibition of…
Background: A Casper police sergeant stopped Thomas Glenn while Glenn rode a bicycle at night. From roughly 150 feet away and then from indirect angles, the officer did not see a front light and suspected a violation of Wyoming’s bicycle-light statute. As he approached after initiating the stop, however, he saw that the bicycle did have…
Held: The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld the initial stop. A bicycle stop is a Fourth Amendment seizure, but an officer needs only reasonable suspicion—a particularized, objective basis to suspect a legal violation. The Fourth Amendment tolerates an objectively reasonable mistake of fact. Here, the officer first saw Glenn from the side or diagonally, later viewed the bicycle from behind, and saw…
Background: The City of Royal Oak enacted an ordinance to regulate and license two recreational marijuana retail establishments. The ordinance established a competitive process to select applicants and granted the city manager the power to "implement and administer the municipal license application process." This included ranking applicants to determine who was "best suited to operate" and…
Held: The Michigan Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals, holding that the city manager was not a "public body" under the Open Meetings Act and therefore did not have to conduct the license-ranking process in public. The Court explained there are two ways an entity can be considered a "public body" subject to the OMA: by its own nature…
Background: Michael E. McLemore was convicted of first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon in 1999, receiving a life sentence. His initial convictions were affirmed on appeal. Over the years, McLemore pursued postconviction relief, filing multiple motions.
Held: The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the district court's dismissal of McLemore's fourth motion for postconviction relief. The Court held that the relief McLemore sought—a challenge to the constitutionality of the Postconviction Act itself as applied to him, or an evidentiary hearing on a recanted testimony claim (as reframed in his reply brief)—does not fall within the "very narrow category of…
Background: James Aren Duckett was convicted nearly forty years ago of the sexual battery and first-degree murder of eleven-year-old Teresa McAbee and was sentenced to death. After Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant in February 2026, Duckett sought postconviction relief and DNA testing of a small sample containing sperm heads that had been taken from…
Held: The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the new DNA-testing motion on both procedural and substantive grounds. The request was procedurally barred because Duckett knew about the additional items when he filed his earlier testing motion but gave no valid reason for waiting more than four months to request their testing. It also failed on the merits because prior…
Background: Connie Reguli, a Tennessee lawyer licensed since 1994, faced nine disciplinary complaints arising from conduct between 2014 and 2018 in matters in which she was participating as counsel. The complaints described an escalating pattern that included filing contempt petitions to coerce a CASA volunteer, communicating with represented parties, filing papers for a person represented by…
Held: The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the disciplinary rule violations and ordered Reguli permanently disbarred, effective upon entry of its opinion and judgment. It rejected her procedural and constitutional challenges, including her contention that the disciplinary process entitled her to a jury trial. The court also concluded that the panel’s and circuit court’s decisions were supported by substantial and material evidence…
Background: The Motor Industry Pension Plan, established in 1977, faced a long-standing issue concerning the equalisation of "Pensionable Age" for its male and female members. Prior to 1990, the plan defined Pensionable Age as 65 for males and 60 for females. Following the European Court of Justice's 1990 decision in *Barber v. Guardian Royal Exchange Group*,…
Held: The High Court approved a compromise settlement reached between the parties, resolving the dispute over the equalisation of Normal Retirement Age (NRA) in the Motor Industry Pension Plan. Mr. Justice Adam Johnson made representation orders, appointing Mr. Comron Rowe to represent those who would benefit from a later equalisation date (i.e., a longer period of more favourable NRA provisions) and…
Background: Arif Ahmed, a former employee, sued J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in the Delaware Court of Chancery, seeking advancement of his legal fees to defend himself in an underlying action. A Court of Chancery Magistrate granted Ahmed's request, finding him entitled to advancement. J.P. Morgan objected, but the Chancellor overruled the objections, adopted the Magistrate's…
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court refused to hear J.P. Morgan's interlocutory appeal. In a brief order, the court stated that it agreed with the Chancellor's analysis in its entirety. The court's decision to refuse the appeal was based on two independent grounds.
Background: A & P Ranch Ltd. and other entities owned agricultural properties in Cochise County containing orchard trees or vineyard vines. For tax year 2023, the county assessor valued the land at $1,800 per acre under Arizona’s statutory agricultural-income approach, then separately valued orchard trees at $12,000 per acre and vineyard vines at $8,000 per acre…
Held: The Arizona Supreme Court held that land with permanent crops qualifying as agricultural property under A.R.S. § 42-12151 must be valued exclusively under the income approach prescribed by A.R.S. § 42-13101. The land and permanent crops constitute a single taxable unit; county assessors therefore may not separately value orchard trees or vineyard vines at market value under A.R.S. § 42-11001(6).