If you have suffered a personal injury due to someone else’s negligence, you are probably considering the impact on your finances. You may already have fought for and won a fair amount of compensation. The facts of your case will determine how much of this money remains in your hands. Part of your award will go to your attorneys. Doctors, hospitals and other lienholders will also expect their fair share. After all the bills are paid, you will get the balance of whatever is left. Will you be able to keep it all? What portion of your personal injury settlement must go to Uncle Sam? The answer to this question hinges upon whether or not the amount received qualifies as gross income. Not everything does. While most of your personal injury award will always be tax-free, the status of the rest depends on the specifics of your particular disbursement. Breaking Down Your Personal Injury Settlement In the vast majority of personal injury cases, the greatest part of the award…
Are Personal Injury Claims Taxable?
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Trust your gut
A 50+ year-old single man living alone with 12 young girls who are rarely seen outside and don't attend school is odd. It's odd enough to raise the eyebrows of those in the neighborhood. And it did raise eyebrows. Several calls were made to law enforcement over a two-year period, but nothing was done because the community sense that "something was wrong" was not enough to justify a search warrant. Not until the police were informed that a teenage girl living in the house had given birth twice while living there was a search warrant finally obtained. The police searched the home of Lee Kaplan and discovered the unimaginable - the Amish teen's parents, Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus, had supposedly "gifted" her to Kaplan a few years earlier to thank him for saving them from "financial ruin." The Stoltzfus' are also the suspected parents of nine of the other young girls and the grandparents of the…
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Bipartisan Medical Marijuana Research Act of 2016 gets support from most vocal opponents and supporters of reform
As reported in this WonkBlog posting via the Washington Post, two members of Congress known to marijuana reformers for different reasons are now teaming up to support new federal laws to advance marijuana research. The piece is headlined "Marijuana’s biggest adversary on Capitol Hill is sponsoring a bill to research...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/ykXGAAoixjI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
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Connecting the Good Faith Exception and the Attenuation Doctrine
As noted briefly this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case on the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, Utah v. Strieff, No. 14-1373. The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule is the rule that an item of evidence -- regardless of how reliable it may be and much value it may have in guiding the trier of fact to the truth of the matter to be decided in the criminal case -- must be excluded if it is found that the police violated the complex rules governing search and seizures under that Amendment.The exclusionary rule has no basis in the text of the Fourth Amendment. It was unknown to American law at the time the Amendment was adopted and for a century thereafter. It was unknown to the pre-Independence law of England, from which our legal tradition was derived. The rule was created by the Supreme Court out of whole cloth in the twentieth century and the tail end of the nineteenth, a century after Amendment was adopted. The question appears in…
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** Update** Crash Northbound I15 Blocking Northbound Lanes
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idaho State Police District 5 5205 South 5th Ave. Pocatello, Idaho 83204-2299 (208) 236-6466 FAX: (208) 236-6068 For Immediate Release: 06/20/2016 3:37 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office *** Update *** All lanes of travel are currently open. NEH/SC ***End of Update*** ***Update*** At this time the left lane is open for travel. Motorist can expect delays. NEH/SC ***End of Update*** The Idaho State Police are currently investigating a crash northbound on Interstate 15 at milepost 73. All northbound lanes are blocked at this time. Traffic is being diverted. NEH/SC -------------
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"Martin Winterkorn, Ex-C.E.O. of Volkswagen, Is Under Investigation"
From The New York Times: FRANKFURT — The investigation into Volkswagen’s vast emissions scandalreached the top echelon of management for the first time after German prosecutors said on Monday that they were looking into the carmaker’s former chief executive and...
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"New York senate passes bill to legalize fantasy sports"
From Jurist: The New York Senate[official website] on Saturday passed a bill [S6305] to legalize fantasy sports amid national concerns that the activity qualifies as illegal gambling. The bill would require [NYT report] frequent and highly-skilled players to sufficiently identify...
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Trump Fires Campaign Manager
Donald Trump has fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. It's not clear why and Lewandowski says he doesn't have an answer. Will he get a new campaign manager? Does he need one? Maybe not. Reports are that campaign chairman Paul... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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"Former Vanderbilt Football Player Found Guilty in Campus Rape"
From The New York Times: Questioned by the police four days later, Mr. Vandenburg acknowledged that he had watched the attack. “She got sexually assaulted right in front of me. And I didn’t do anything,” he said during the interrogation,...
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One Vehicle Fatality Crash on US93 North of Carmen, Idaho.
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Idaho State Police District 6 1540 Foote Dr. Idaho Falls, Idaho 83402-1828 (208) 525-7377 FAX: (208) 525-7294 For Immediate Release: 6/20/16 5:45 p.m. Please direct questions to the District Office On Monday, June 20, 2016, at approximately 12:09 p.m., Idaho State Police investigated a one vehicle fatality crash southbound on US-93 near milepost 119, ten miles north of Carmen, in Lemhi County, Idaho. Gary L. Davis, 68, of Salmon, ID, was driving a 1934 Ford pickup pulling a homemade camp trailer southbound on US-93. Davis' vehicle went off the right shoulder. Davis overcorrected, bringing the vehicle back onto the roadway and off the left shoulder, where the vehicle rolled. Davis succumbed to his injuries at the scene. The pickup was not equipped with seat belts. The crash is under investigation by the…
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Supreme Court Weakens Protection Against Illegal Searches
All hail the mighty police. Thanks to the Supreme Court today, your protection against a warrantless search following an illegal stop by police just diminished. In a 5-3 ruling, the justices relaxed the so-called exclusionary rule and upheld... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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UTAH v. STRIEFF
UTAH v. STRIEFF The Supreme Court decided an interesting Fourth Amendment issue this morning: Supreme CourtWhat to do when the only way police learn that a suspect has a valid arrest warrant and is in possession of narcotics is by first violating that suspect’s right to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. A. IN PLAIN ENGLISH The fact pattern in Strieff is pretty common. Police temporarily detain and question a defendant without a valid legal reason—that is, there is no reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop and question someone, and then during that questioning, discover that the person has an active and unrelated arrest warrant for something minor like unpaid traffic tickets. Police then arrest that person and search him or her incident to arrest (SITA). During the search, police find contraband such as pot, coke, meth, or heroin on the arrested person. The question then becomes—should…
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Davies on Ex Parte Quirin
Ross E. Davies (George Mason University School of Law) has posted Some Clerical Contributions to Ex Parte Quirin (Green Bag 2d, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 283-325 (2016)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article introduces some documents relating...
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Mayor Cobb's Editorial
Mayor Cobb's editorial in the Sunday edition of the Hobbs News Sun knocked it out of the park.Focused on the housing issue in Lea County, his words were both fiscally sound for our city and historically correct as well.Look, the city of Hobbs has a lot to groan about presently, but where there used to be a housing issue, that issue isn't nearly as bad today.Simply put, the number of new housing that have gone up has been astounding. Granted, most have been single family apartments, but that has helped a great deal.No, we haven't fully answered the problem, especially if the oil industry gets kicking again.However, Hobbs has at least dampened the ill effects of a poor housing market by inviting new construction at a substantial rate.Nobody can deny that.Looking at the growth of housing over the past few years, I'm willing to listen to what the Mayor says and give him the benefit of the doubt in whatever path he chooses in dealing with the city's…
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Senate Rejects Gun Control Measures
The Senate today failed to pass amendments to appropriation bills funding background checks on guns and sharing state mental health records with the feds. Senators voted 53-47 on a proposal from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would reauthorize... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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DOJ and FBI Release Full Transcript of Orlando 911 Call
The Department of Justice and FBI reversed themselves today and released the full transcript of Omar Mateen's 911 call. The partial transcript released hours earlier omitted any reference to ISIS. Why the change? From DOJ's statement:... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Michigan Driver’s License Restoration – Avoid the Four Corners of Failure
There are lots of reasons why a person can lose a Michigan driver’s license restoration or clearance case, but there are 4 very common reasons that I’d like to explore in this article. These things most often happen when someone hires the wrong lawyer, or, worse yet, tried a “do-it-yourself” license appeal. Precisely because these are the most common reasons license appeals wind up getting denied, they are also the very things I avoid doing when I handle a license case, and I say this with some authority, because when I represent someone in a license reinstatement appeal, I guarantee to win it. In other words, my clients don’t have to worry about getting denied for any reason, much less the four we’ll explore below. This can provide some much needed reassurance to someone hiring me after a prior, unsuccessful case handled either by some other lawyer, or by the person him or herself. (1). I’ll start with…
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Bradford et al. on Public Acceptance of Police Violence
Ben Bradford , Jenna Milani and Jonathan Jackson (University of Oxford - Centre for Criminology , University of Oxford - Centre for Criminology and London School of Economics & Political Science - Department of Methodology) have posted Identity, Legitimacy and...
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Schedule
Readers, you have been so kind. My subscriptions have gone way past 1,500. And there were 613 views alone today. And yes, I got all of your emails. kirkchavez@yahoo.com. You reach out, I'll reach back.Anyway, I want you to know that I appreciate it.So I am going to give you a bounty of gifts.On Friday, when you wake up, you will have the following presents awaiting you.My Number One Most Beautiful Individual.My Number One Thought on the Hobbs News Sun.But you are going to get big, big extras:You will also have the beginning of a new list: My Top Ten New Mexico Villains (Trust Me, It's My Best List Yet).That list will be all through during the weekend.You will also have on Friday: The Number One Lawyer in New Mexico. And, she (or he) has never been mentioned by me before on this site. (After you read my reasoning, every one of you will want to visit hers (or his) office to introduce yourself.) That's just…
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Crash in Jerome County
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 4 Patrol 218 West Yakima, Jerome, ID 83338-5904 (208) 324-6000 Fax (208) 324-7897 For Immediate Release: 06/20/16 9:06 P.M. Please direct questions to the District Office Idaho State Police is currently investigating a serious injury crash at 200 N and 300 W in Jerome County. The roads are completely blocked while the crash is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available. JW / LN -------------
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