Secret Dockets: Federal Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith says most court orders allowing law enforcement surveillance on phone and email records are so secret that they might as well be “written in invisible ink,” The New York Times reports. Smith, who works in the district court in Houston, wrote a "provocative new article" for the Harvard Law and Policy Review that "chronicles the rise of a secret docket on a scale that has no parallels in American history," the newspaper reports.
Named after Juneau Who: The House passed legislation renaming Juneau, Alaska’s federal courthouse after the late Judge Robert Boochever, the KTOO Public Radio at 104.3 reports. Boochever was appointed to the Alaska Supreme Court in 1972, serving three years as Chief Justice. In 1980, he became the first Alaskan to be appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Making it Clear: U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan gave a 14-month prison sentence to an owner of Absolute Poker, one of the three largest Internet poker companies, because "the sentence has to make clear that the government of the United States means business in these types of cases," The Chicago Tribune reports. The owner's attorneys argued he surrendered and cooperated with prosecutors, and admitted to deceiving banks over the processing of gambling proceeds.
Bigger SEC Hammer?: A Senate bill introduced Monday would allow the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose bigger sanctions as a tool to deter financial fraud, Bloomberg reports. The bill is titled the "Stronger Enforcement of Civil Penalties Act of 2012."
Racy Photos: The Vancouver Sun describes it this way: "Slowly, deliberately, and with a pained expression on his face, Jack King testified Monday about how he liked to take sexually explicit photos of his wife, who is now a Manitoba judge at risk of losing her job." An inquiry panel could recommend that the judge be removed from the bench after King uploaded photos of her, some of which show her in bondage gear or performing sex acts, in 2003, the newspaper reports.
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