Nota Bene

The AP reports:

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a California law that sought to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2005 law violates minors’ rights under the Constitution’s First and 14th amendments. The three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling upholds an earlier ruling in U.S. District Court.

The law would have prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18. It also would have created strict labeling requirements for video game manufacturers.

In a written opinion, Judge Consuelo Callahan said there were less restrictive ways to protect children from “unquestionably violent” video games. For example, the justices said the industry has a voluntary rating system and that parents can block certain games on video consoles.

The law’s author, state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said he wanted Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

You can read the opinion here.

The LA Times reports:

The California Supreme Court voted 6 to 1 on Wednesday to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, the voter initiative that restored a ban on same-sex marriage, but refused to permit gay weddings to resume pending a final decision.

The court may hold a hearing on the lawsuits as early as March, a timetable that scholars said was swift considering the complexity and importance of the legal issues.

The court’s action, taken during a closed conference, suggested that the court wants to resolve all of the legal issues surrounding Proposition 8, including the fate of existing gay marriages, in a single ruling.

You can view the Supreme Court’s order here.

Findlaw has posted today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning Navy Exercises and the need for an EIR. The opinion opens as follows:

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” 1 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 57 (J. Richardson comp. 1897). So said George Washington in his first Annual Address to Congress, 218 years ago. One of the most important ways the Navy prepares for war is through integrated training exercises at sea. These exercises include training in the use of modern sonar to detect and track enemy submarines, something the Navy has done for the past 40 years. The plaintiffs complained that the Navy’s sonar training program harmed marine mammals, and that the Navy should have prepared an environmental impact statement before commencing its latest round of training exercises. The Court of Appeals upheld a preliminary injunction imposing restrictions on the Navy’s sonar training, even though that court acknowledged that “the record contains no evidence that marine mammals have been harmed” by the Navy’s exercises. 518 F. 3d 658, 696 (CA9 2008).

The Court of Appeals was wrong, and its decision is reversed.

The LA Times reports:

Over the objection of three justices, the Supreme Court turned down appeals today from two Los Angeles murderers who said it was unfair that a videotape of the victim’s life was played for jurors before they decided the killer should die.

Defense lawyers had argued that this “cinematic evidence . . . designed to play on the jury’s emotions” should be excluded from a sentencing hearing in a capital case.

Today’s action leaves intact a rule that allows the use of so-called “victim impact evidence” in death penalty cases.

In 1991, the high court upheld this rule and said prosecutors may tell the jury about the victim, her life and the effect of her loss on her family and friends. Its decision restored the use of this evidence, which had been ruled unconstitutional in an earlier decision.

Talkleft has more here.

The AP reports:

O.J. Simpson was denied a new trial Friday by the Nevada judge who presided over his conviction in the gunpoint robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room.

Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass said challenges raised by lawyers for Simpson and co-defendant Clarence “C.J.” Stewart did not rise to the level of granting another trial.

“All of the issues have been preserved for the Nevada Supreme Court,” Glass said, acknowledging her rulings could be appealed to the state’s only appellate court.

Simpson and Stewart, who were shackled and in jail garb, did not speak during the 20-minute hearing, at which the judge also denied requests to release them on bail pending sentencing Dec. 5.

The LA Times reports:

Reporting from Washington — The Supreme Court justices talked about indecency and foul language today, but they did so without using any of the actual words that federal regulators hope to ban from television and radio broadcasts.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia made clear that they strongly support the drive to keep the F-word and the S-word off broadcasts during the hours when children and families are likely to be watching.

But they may not speak for the majority.

The Daily Breeze reports:

Pressured by the city auditor and women’s groups, Los Angeles city officials pledged Tuesday to spend $2.5 million a year to clear up a backlog of more than 7,000 rape cases by hiring more technicians and outsourcing some work to private labs.

“All victims of rape deserve justice. All rapists deserve prison,” Police Chief William Bratton said at a City Hall news conference with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council members to announce the plan.

Villaraigosa, who has made public safety one of his top priorities, said he found extra money to hire the technicians, or criminalists, for the Los Angeles Police Department crime lab by working with unions to save money on health costs.

The City Council today is scheduled to consider the first part of the funding, a nearly $1 million program that will hire 10 technicians and six support staff and authorize $250,000 to pay for work by private labs.

Under the full program, 16 scientists and technicians will be hired every six months - as quickly as they can be trained - for the next 2-1/2 years.

The first work will be done on the oldest DNA rape kits to try to avoid any problems with the statute of limitations.

City Controller Laura Chick, in a scathing audit last week, said more than 200 cases had to be abandoned because of failure to process kits in a timely fashion. She has said she wants to see a three-year program to clear up the backlog.

The EFF reports:

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday signed Assembly Bill 2433 and filled a significant gap in protection for anonymous speech online. Authored by Assemblymember Paul Krekorian and co-sponsored by EFF, the California Anti-SLAPP Project and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the new law allows speakers who successfully oppose the use of bogus out-of-state litigation to obtain their identities to recover attorneys’ fees. Assemblymembers Sally Lieber and Anthony Portantino co-authored the bill.

The AP reports:

O.J. Simpson is being isolated from other prisoners for his own safety, and is focusing on a motion for new trial and a strong bid for appellate reversal of his conviction for kidnapping and robbery, his lawyer said Sunday.

Attorney Yale Galanter told The Associated Press he will continue to pursue a request for Simpson to be released on bond pending appeal.

Meanwhile, Galanter said Simpson will be living a lonely life, advised by his lawyers to do no media interviews and allowed to see only family members and a few friends placed on a special list at the jail.

The LA Times reports:

The phone rang at a rare moment between Angie Akins’ frantic drives from her home and her husband’s bedside in an intensive-care unit, between shuttling to her job and driving her 14-year-old daughter to after-school sports and ballet.

It was a lawyer who’d spotted her husband’s name among those badly injured in the Sept. 12 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth. An attorney she had never met was urging her to retain him and sue the government railroad for all it was worth. Only a week had passed since her comfortable suburban life had been upended by tragedy.

“I didn’t even write down the name, I was so upset at the time,” Akins recalled. “I said I couldn’t think about a lawsuit now when my husband might be dying!”