Background: David Henry Serges was convicted of first-degree murder after an elderly woman for whom he had performed odd jobs was found beaten to death in her home. No evidence recovered from the crime scene initially identified Serges as a suspect, although witnesses reported seeing him in the neighborhood during the possible time of death. His…
Held: In lieu of granting leave to appeal, the Michigan Supreme Court held that forensic DNA testing of Serges’s pants was a search under the property-based trespass approach and was unreasonable under Article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution. Serges’s clothing was a constitutionally protected possession, and police physically examined it to obtain information. Because that analysis established a search,…
Background: Mr Peart, a sheep farmer and holder of grazing stints on Burnhope Moor in County Durham, sought judicial review of a ministerial decision rejecting his appeal over payments under the former Single Payment Scheme. He contends that stint holders own the Moor’s vegetation and herbage proportionately and should receive payments attributable to structural surplus grazing.…
Held: Mrs Justice O’Farrell granted both parties retrospective procedural relief, allowing Mr Peart’s late financial schedule and permitting the Secretary of State to amend her acknowledgment of service to contest Aarhus status. Applying the Court of Appeal’s approach in HM Treasury v Global Feedback Ltd, the court nevertheless held that the claim fell within Article 9(3) of the Aarhus Convention. The…
Background: Salam Abu Alyon pleaded guilty under a plea agreement to jointly stealing a motorcycle, obstructing a police officer, driving while disqualified, reckless driving, and violating a lawful order. The amended indictment alleged that he drove a commercial vehicle carrying the stolen motorcycle, drove “wildly,” and moved from the driver’s seat to the rear seat during…
Held: Justice Daphne Barak-Erez dismissed the appeal from the denial of a stay. She acknowledged that the length of the prison term might ordinarily lend some force to the concern that immediate imprisonment would undermine a sentencing appeal seeking community service. But the circumstances had materially changed since sentencing: Abu Alyon was detained in another criminal case, a fact that could…
Background: X1 and X2, the joint inventors of inventions concerning quantum-dot technology, sought declarations that each retained a one-half share of the rights to obtain patents for three groups of claimed inventions. The patent applications had been filed in the name of zSustainergy Co., Ltd., formerly QD Japan Co., Ltd., a company established by X2 to…
Held: The Intellectual Property High Court dismissed both appeals and affirmed the judgment for zSustainergy. Adopting the district court’s reasoning with modifications, it held that the inventors had transferred their shares in the rights to obtain the patents to the company by the time the applications were filed. Although the inventors reviewed application materials and requested changes to the named inventors…
Background: At around midnight on 15–16 August 2023, Mark Peckham and Daniel Fitton entered the Dubbo home of Tammy Antaw, where Antaw and her partner, George Kirk, were in bed. The men had returned seeking drugs and confronted Kirk angrily. A physical altercation followed, during which Kirk suffered two incised wounds and a penetrating stab wound…
Held: Chen J found beyond reasonable doubt that Peckham inflicted the fatal stab wound. The Court accepted Antaw’s account that she saw Peckham use a blade against Kirk, together with evidence that Peckham subsequently told others that he had stabbed or killed someone. Blood-pattern evidence did not create a reasonable doubt because it did not identify where any particular wound was…
Background: Attorney Ian G. Gottlieb and GLG Law, LLC, filed applications for public interest appeals and subsequent briefs in TOV Realty, LLC v. Suarez and a companion case. Gottlieb initially researched the matters through LexisNexis and verified the citations in his rough drafts, but then used ChatGPT to improve the drafts’ organization and writing. ChatGPT added…
Held: In a per curiam order, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed that filing court documents containing erroneous and unverified AI-generated citations violated Rule 1.1. The court found no intent to deceive, but emphasized that lawyers remain personally responsible for the accuracy of their filings and that negligent reliance on generative AI threatens the integrity of the adversarial process. The firm shared…
Background: Joshua Starling, who had prior felony convictions, borrowed a coworker’s gun while delivering a mattress in a neighborhood where he feared being robbed. Police officers who were following the delivery van to execute an unrelated arrest warrant searched Starling and found the firearm. After a bench trial, the district court convicted him of being a…
Held: The Sixth Circuit held that Starling’s Tennessee cocaine convictions qualified as “serious drug offenses” under ACCA. Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-417 is divisible because its provisions establish distinct crimes based on the prohibited conduct, controlled substance, quantity, and penalty. The court therefore applied the modified categorical approach and consulted permissible state-court records, which showed that Starling was convicted under §…
Background: Pecos Housing Finance Corporation, a housing finance corporation organized under the Texas Housing Finance Corporations Act, acquired or sought to acquire properties outside its sponsoring municipality, including in Arlington, Fort Worth, and Haltom City. The cities alleged that Pecos's efforts to obtain tax exemptions for those properties violated the Act and deprived them of tax…
Held: The Fort Worth Court of Appeals held that the trial court had subject-matter jurisdiction. Housing finance corporations are not protected by governmental immunity because the Act expressly provides that an HFC is not a municipality, county, or other political subdivision. The cities also did not have to exhaust appraisal-review-board remedies before suing: their claims included prospective relief and alleged violations…
Background: United Health Services Corporation (UHSC) appealed reassessments for its 2020 and 2021 taxation years, maintaining that it qualified as a non-profit organization exempt from tax under paragraph 149(1)(l) of the Income Tax Act. UHSC alleged that the pandemic years were anomalous because its revenues remained constant while costs and services declined.
Held: The Tax Court dismissed the Crown’s motion in full. Applying the stringent “plain and obvious” standard, Justice Bodie held that the power to strike pleadings must be exercised carefully and generously, without allowing a preliminary motion to become an editing exercise or to displace the trial judge’s role in assessing relevance after hearing the evidence.
Background: Donyelle Michael Black was convicted after a 1988 bench trial of first-degree felony murder, armed robbery, and felony-firearm for crimes committed when he was 15. He received life imprisonment without parole for felony murder. After the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited mandatory juvenile life-without-parole sentences and made that rule retroactive, prosecutors sought to reimpose Black’s sentence…
Held: The Michigan Supreme Court unanimously held that when a defendant indicates an intent to introduce expert psychological evidence based on an examination at a Miller hearing, the trial court may require the defendant to undergo a similar examination by a prosecution expert. That condition does not violate the federal or Michigan constitutional protections against self-incrimination because the prosecution may use…
Background: Rose Island Properties Limited obtained a possession order against Paul Harforth in the Southend County Court on 21 January 2026, relying on statutory rent-arrears grounds. Harforth had sought to advance a counterclaim and an equitable set-off concerning the property’s condition, but those contentions were unsupported by expert evidence. On 12 March 2026, HHJ Duddridge refused…
Held: Fordham J did not decide whether to vary Turner J’s order, whether to continue the interim stay, or whether to grant permission to appeal. Nor did he express any view on the merits. Because Harforth was absent and the respondent ultimately did not press for substantive determination that day, the court instead prescribed how and when the three linked questions…
Background: Ghazi Farhat and Tamer Farhat were indicted in the Jerusalem District Court on July 31, 2025, for allegedly committing firearms trafficking, carrying, possession, and shooting offenses together. The prosecution’s case rests primarily on their dealings with an undercover police agent, the principal prosecution witness, as well as several additional witnesses, some of whom provide technical…
Held: Justice Daphne Barak-Erez granted the State’s application and extended Farhat’s detention for 90 days beginning July 29, 2026, or until judgment in Jerusalem District Court Criminal Case 86457-07-25, whichever occurs first. The Court considered Farhat’s alleged dangerousness and the expected progress of the trial during the extension period.