The Growing Deficit: Obama administration officials are projecting the federal deficit will increase to $1.65 trillion in the current fiscal year, The Wall Street Journal reports. The administration's fiscal year 2012 budget becomes public later this morning. Obama is proposing $3.73 trillion in government spending in the next fiscal year. The proposal would trim or cut more than 200 federal programs.
Conflicting Laws: The U.S. Supreme Court will again weigh legal questions concerning post-conviction DNA testing, The Washington Post reports. Lawyers for a death row inmate in Texas, Henry Skinner, argue DNA evidence could settle the question of whether he murdered his girlfriend and her two developmentally disabled adult sons.
Judicial Campaigns: A new rule that will be announced Tuesday in New York state bars the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, The New York Times reports. The rule is believed to be the most restrictive in the country.
Faster Access: A state judicial panel in Pennsylvania has stepped into a long-running dispute over the issue of how soon defense lawyers should receive copies of arrest reports, The Legal Intelligencer reports. The panel said the best policy may be for the district attorney to allow defendants to obtain copies before preliminary arraignment.
Digital Sequestration: The prosecution of Barry Bonds in San Francisco may test the need to prohibit jurors from using the Internet and social media applications to conduct research, The Recorder reports. Lawyers in the Bonds case want a stronger-than-usual warning to jurors to avoid Internet research.
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