Last week, Biomet Inc. announced in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that instead of its 2012 deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) expiring this week, the company would be monitored under it for an additional year. While the announcement is getting attention for a variety of reasons, one of the most important lessons companies can take away from it is that distributor conduct appears to have triggered the additional scrutiny. According to news reports, DOJ and SEC may have renewed their scrutiny of Biomet based, at least in part, on a whistleblower allegation that distributors had paid kickbacks to government doctors in Brazil. FCPA liability based on the conduct of distributors is a concept companies often wrestle with when considering their anticorruption compliance risks. After all, unlike a broker, sales agent or other third party whose…
Biomet FCPA Announcement Highlights Distributor-Related Risks
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Fifth Circuit Rules Only a Seaman Can Commit Seaman’s Manslaughter
A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court serves as a good reminder that criminal statutes say only what they say, and that it is up to the legislature to revise statutes to expand their scope if the legislature cares to do so. The opinion, United States v. Kaluza, […] The post Fifth Circuit Rules Only a Seaman Can Commit Seaman’s Manslaughter appeared first on Crime In The Suites.
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THE END IS NEAR
The blog is doomed. From our friends at South Florida Lawyers comes this distressing news out of Tallahassee:A dangerously misguided Florida bill would forbid websites from operating anonymously just because they meet a vague definition of disseminating “commercial recordings”—and it's headed for a vote this weekWhat would we do?Putting aside for the moment the judges and lawyers we have unintentionally offended ("What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start." ) there would be the plethora of bar complaints and the resulting grudges from judges, prosecutors and even our brethren defense counsel, so that we could never be sure if the decision to seek life in prison on the resisting arrest without violence case was a reaction to our running a mirthless and destructive blog, or an informed legal decision. We couldn't risk it. We would have to shut the blog down. The great OZ cannot emerge from behind the…
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Is it constitutional to "offer" juve offenders the alternative sentence of writing a bible essay?
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Proposed Changes in Florida’s Direct File Law
Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, is sponsoring a bill that would limit the instances in which juveniles can be tried as adults in Florida. House Bill 783 would limit the use of “direct file,” or charging a juvenile as an adult. Currently, prosecutors may charge juveniles who are at least fourteen years old as adults, but only for certain crimes. Proponents of the bill say that prosecutors frequently threaten juveniles with being charged as adults to get them to accept plea bargains. The Bill Similarly to current law, HB 783 gives prosecutors discretion to try juveniles as adults in some cases, and makes direct file mandatory in others. However, it limits the instances in which direct file is permitted. Under the bill, prosecutors would be permitted to decide whether or not to charge a juvenile as an adult in certain circumstances: For a child aged 14 or 15, if charged for murder, manslaughter, or sexual battery. For a child aged 16 or 17, if charged…
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Idaho State Police Place Major on Administrative Leave
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE Teresa Baker Public Information Officer Headquarters 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 884-7122 Fax (208) 884-7087 For Immediate Release: 3/26/15 at 8:30 a.m. MERIDIAN - Idaho State Police have placed Major Clark Rollins on administrative leave following his arrest Wednesday evening for misdemeanor driving under the influence and misdemeanor unlawful transportation of an alcoholic beverage. The arrest was made by the Meridian Police Department after Rollins was pulled over for a traffic violation. In addition to criminal proceedings, Rollins is subject to an internal investigation regarding applicable polices of the Idaho State Police. The Idaho State Police demand the highest professional conduct from its officers both on and off duty. -----------
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The Fuel Efficiency of Law Enforcement Vehicles
I live in Durham, where the ELF is built. The ELF is a pedal-and-electric-powered reverse tricycle with an egg-shaped body and a solar panel roof. It is certainly unique. A 360-degree view is available here. Organic Transit, the company that builds the ELF, states that it “gets the equivalent of 1800 m.p.g.” What does this […]
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Will Amanda Knox Be Extradited to Italy?
There has been a lot of debate about whether Amanda Knox is guilty of murder. But that debate will soon turn to whether Knox will actually have to serve time if… read more → The post Will Amanda Knox Be Extradited to Italy? appeared first on .
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How to Be a Defensive Driver
Don’t assume that driving defensively only entails following the rules of the road yourself. While that’s an important part of safe driving, being a defensive driver is more than that. The following are some tips that can help you learn how to be a defensive driver. But first, it’s helpful to point out why defensive driving is so important.The Importance of Defensive DrivingThere were 124,149 reportable crashes in the state of Pennsylvania in 2013, reports the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The majority of those accidents were the result of driver error.Following the rules of the road to avoid making an error yourself is key to preventing accidents. But don’t assume that others will drive safely too. That’s what defensive driving is all about. Make sure you are aware of your surroundings, including road hazards and other drivers. Attempt to anticipate other drivers’ actions, but never assume that a driver will do what you think he…
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Nudity, Privacy and the Prostitute
After a jury convicted Charles Adams “of capturing a representation that depicts nudity without the knowledge or consent of the person who is depicted nude in violation of Wisconsin Statutes § 942.09(am)1,” he appealed. State v. Adams, 2015 WL 1034741 (Wisconsin Court of Appeals 2005). More precisely, Adams was convicted of “videotaping his sexual activity with a prostitute.” State v. Adams, supra. The Court of Appeals begins its opinion by explaining how, and why, Adams came to be charged with this offense:Adams relies on the facts set forth in the amended criminal complaint. Police executed a search warrant of Adams's truck and found numerous electronic video recordings of Adams engaging in sexual activity with various women. In the video that is the subject of Adams's conviction, police recognized the location as a hotel at which Adams had stayed between October 26, 2010, and November 25, 2010. Police had a tip…
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Theorising Global Justice
Frank J. Garcia, Global Justice and International Economic Law: Three Takes, Cambridge University Press (2013). Sean Coyle In a letter to the semi-pagan Nectarius (Epistle 91, §4), Saint Augustine sets forth one of the most fundamental problems of political life: political philosophers who have sought and ‘indeed described’ justice in private discussion have utterly failed to secure justice for the earthly city. The problem could not be clearer: true justice is not an utter mystery to human beings. It can be made present to thought and speech. But even amongst those who have bothered to obtain a rational image of it, this justice is absent from their activities and their communities. Justice in the earthly community is only ever a relative and internal justice, an ‘ordered agreement of mind with mind’ (De Citivate Dei XIX.13) that is limited to ‘the establishment of a kind of compromise between human wills…’ (IV.4)…
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News Roundup
195 new bills were filed in the North Carolina Senate yesterday, the deadline for filing new bills in that chamber this session. I haven’t reviewed all the new bills – or all the bills filed before yesterday, for that matter. But a few items of interest include: SB 520, which would expand the state’s indecent […]
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San Angelo Bail Bondsman, Defense Attorney Accused of Forging Will of Alleged Pedophile
3-27-15 California: A San Angelo bail bondsman and a high-power defense attorney have both been indicted on multiple felonies that center on the will of an alleged pedophile that died of natural causes last year. Ray Zapata, 63, of Zapata Bail Bonds, was booked into the county jail this morning after being picked up by a sheriff’s deputy at the law offices of Melvin Gray and Fred Brigman around
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Half of state's sex offenders will be allowed to live near schools, parks
3-27-15 California: State parole officials will circumvent Jessica's Law, overwhelmingly approved by voters eight years ago, and no longer enforce its controversial 2,000-foot residency restrictions for sex offenders who target adults, the department announced Thursday. The decision will allow about half of the state's 6,000 sex offender parolees to live close to schools and parks, avoiding a
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Crisis Averted
Whew, that was close!Poor Texas, down to it's last shot. One left for Number 1.We're talking penobarbital, the drug of choice for state-performed murder. And after Texas killed Manuel Vasquez earlier this month, they were about done. The shortage of killin' drugs is, of course, hardly news. Pharmaceutical companies don't want to be in the business of providing drugs to help states kill their people. (It's not all noble sentiment - they're in the money-making business as much as the drug business, and there's a lot of blowback. Bad PR. Worldwide problems. So states scramble.The old 3-drug sequence (thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride) gave way to single doses of pentobarbital and then odd mixes with midazolam and then obviously-fucked-up killings. So new plans. Unregulated compounding pharmacies, secretly chosen, passing drugs under highway overpasses late at night and then…
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Ban on Daydreaming would save more lives than texting-while-driving ban, just as enforceable
Eric Nicholson at the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park blog rehearsed the arguments against the ban on texting-while-driving passed in the Texas House, with a particularly good discussion of the disingenuous numbers used to hype the policy and the inevitable difficulties enforcing it:When pushing the bill, proponents tend to conflate distracted driving with cell phone use, perhaps because the numbers are more impressive. Every year there 3,300 fatalities nationwide linked to distracted driving. In Texas, one in five crashes -- or maybe it's one in four -- involve driver distraction. Texting may well be the "king of distraction," as an insurance-industry lobbyist recently told the Texas legislature, but if so it's a monarch in a multipolar world. Data on whether and how a cell phone was being used in the lead-up to a car crash are shaky, since that generally requires a person to detail their phone use to a cop investigating the crash, but the best federal…
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Green v. Florida - Officer Testimony in Drug Case Challenged
In the recent case of Green v. Florida, a man convicted of trafficking cocaine appealed on several grounds, most notably for the fact the court allowed officers to testify he was arrested in a high-crime neighborhood. Although the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld conviction, it wrote to address this particular issue (rejecting without comment claims of entrapment and improper admission of hearsay evidence). According to court records in the case, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms established an undercover operation an economically depressed neighborhood which authorities had designated as "high crime." An undercover agent worked as manager of the store. The operation was reportedly established to address violent crime, with a focus on drug crimes and firearms violations. A multi-agency task force identified this neighborhood as a target for enforcement using crime mapping statistics.
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Bill to criminalize filming police pulled down before hearing
State Rep. Jason Villaba's controversial bill criminalizing filming police officers within 25 feet - and forcing concealed handgun licensees with cameras to stay 100 feet back (astonishingly) - was scheduled to be heard yesterday in the House Select Committee on Emerging Law Enforcement Issues. Hours before the meeting, though, he pulled the bill down.It's hard to blame him. As it turned out, they announced on the House floor, yesterday was Villaba's birthday. Who wants to show up in committee on your birthday to have people hate on you for two hours on a bill that's already DOA? What's the point, really? There were a few grumpy people who'd come in from out of town to castigate Villaba and his bill. Some left frustrated that they didn't get their say. But they got the outcome they wanted, which is all that matters in this stage of the legislative process.
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CFPB Launches Inquiry into the Credit Card Industry
Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it is seeking public comment from consumers on how the credit card market is functioning following several initiatives imposed by the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, H.R. 627 (CARD Act), which amended various provisions of the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C § 1601, et. seq. The passage of the CARD Act was intended to “establish fair and transparent practices related to the extension of credit” in the credit card market. The CARD Act requires credit card issuers to assess a consumer’s ability to pay prior to extending credit, limits the types of fees credit card companies could charge consumers and restricts certain marketing efforts. Section 502(a) of the CARD Act requires the CFPB to conduct a review of the consumer credit card market every two years. In addition to seeking information from consumers, the request for public comment invites credit…
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Am I eligible for an expungement in Louisiana?
Were you convicted of a crime several years ago and are now interested in having that crime removed from your record? Maybe your criminal record is getting in the way of qualifying for a job or housing, or maybe you are just ready for a clean slate. Either way, our firm may be able to help you. Louisiana statutes allow for criminal records to be “expunged” or “sealed” under certain circumstances. However, the process is very complex and although it is not required to have a lawyer help you, it definitely improves your chances of being successful. Generally speaking, expungements are sometimes available for people who: accepted pleas to certain misdemeanor or felony charges; were acquitted; or whose cases involve other very specific circumstances. In order to ask the court to expunge your criminal record you must follow a very specific procedure, including: gathering all of your records; filling out several forms properly and completely; filing…
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