Legal Briefs: This Week in Law

October 7, 2013

Second phase of the BP civil trial begins, with each side arguing how much oil was spilled.  (NY Times)

All you ever wanted to know about the Antideficiency Act, a law enacted in the late 1800s that addresses government shutdowns.  (The Atlantic)

Legal team that challenged California’s Proposition 8 eyes Virginia next.  (Washington Post)

New academic paper questions whether triers of fact can really be impartial.  (National Geographic)

Conviction in UK terrorist trial raises question of whether the defendant’s house, in which he allegedly held meetings to recruit radicals, may be seized.  (BBC News)

NJ Attorney Journal informs the state’s supreme court that it will appeal a judge’s recent ruling that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry.  (Bloomberg)

First Circuit rules that ordinances enacted by the city of Providence, Rhode Island that restrict cigarette retailers from reducing prices do not violate the First Amendment.  (United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit)

Judge denies request for temporary restraining order in lawsuit challenging Maryland’s new gun law.  (Baltimore Sun)

According to a recent study, only two percent of the counties in the United States have executed the majority of death row inmates since 1976.  (CBS News)

Could Greenpeace activists be convicted of piracy?  (Slate)