High court troubled by warrantless GPS tracking (Update)
The Supreme Court invoked visions of an all-seeing Big Brother and satellites watching us from above. Then things got personal Tuesday when the justices were told police could slap GPS devices on their...
View ArticleA wild online ride hits the digital piracy wall
On his way up, he fooled them all: judges, journalists, investors and companies. Then the man who renamed himself Kim Dotcom finally did it. With an outsized ego and an eye for get-rich schemes, he...
View ArticleNY judge wants to hear victims in cyberbully case
(AP) -- A judge delayed the sentencing of an eyewear website operator who intimidated customers, saying he first wants to hear testimony from dozens of victims who reported they were threatened with...
View ArticleJapan court rejects Apple patent claims against Samsung (Update)
A Japanese court Friday rejected Apple's claim that Samsung stole its technology, dealing a blow to the iPhone maker which last week won more than $1 billion in damages in the US from its bitter rival.
View ArticleItaly scientists sentenced to jail in quake trial (Update 2)
Six Italian scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in jail on Monday for multiple manslaughter in a watershed ruling that found them guilty of underestimating the risks of a...
View ArticleDifficult-to-read font reduces political polarity, study finds
(Phys.org)—Liberals and conservatives who are polarized on certain politically charged subjects become more moderate when reading political arguments in a difficult-to-read font, researchers report in...
View ArticleLoser-pays-all rule in criminal cases could work for wealthy defendants
Adopting a loser-pays-all rule for criminal litigation would likely be feasible only if the rule applied to defendants who are wealthy, says a study from a University of Illinois law professor.
View ArticlePenguin joins settlement in US e-books lawsuit
Penguin Group has agreed to join three other publishers in a settlement of a US government lawsuit alleging an e-book price-fixing conspiracy with Apple, officials said Tuesday.
View ArticleFeds dismiss charges against Swartz, cite suicide
Federal prosecutors in Boston have dismissed charges against Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz, who was found dead in his New York apartment last week.
View ArticleAnonymous hackers jailed over PayPal attack
Two computer hackers were jailed by a London court on Thursday for a series of cyber-attacks by the hacking group Anonymous that cost the US online payments giant PayPal millions of dollars.
View ArticleUS top court rejects appeal in $220,000 piracy case
The US Supreme Court refused Monday to take up the case of a woman ordered to pay a $220,000 fine for illegally downloading music off the internet.
View Article'Causal overdetermination' provides middle ground for courts
A disagreement among state courts on the subject of drunk-driving homicide can be resolved by requiring the prosecution to prove in these cases not that the driver's intoxication caused the fatal...
View ArticleCourt sides with US in cell-tracking records case (Update)
The Justice Department does not have to turn over information on cases involving warrantless cellphone tracking if the cases ended without a defendant's conviction, a divided U.S. appeals court ruled...
View ArticleFeds say third guilty plea entered in computer hacking case
Federal prosecutors have obtained a third guilty plea involving an international hacking ring that gained access to a U.S. Army computer network while targeting computer giant Microsoft and several...
View ArticleLawsuit slams 'apps' for mining smartphone contacts
A small group of US smartphone owners has filed a lawsuit demanding that Facebook, Twitter and other makers of smartphone "apps" pay dearly for mining people's contact lists.
View ArticleUS orders $163 mn fine for 'scareware'
A US federal court has ordered a $163 million fine against the operators of a "scareware" scheme which tricked computer users into thinking they were infected, and then sold them a "fix," officials...
View Article3Qs: The lasting impact of historic Gideon ruling
Monday marks the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, a landmark case in U.S. Supreme Court history, in which the court unanimously declared that indigent criminal defendants have a constitutional...
View ArticleEstonia to extradite cyber crime suspects to US (Update)
Estonia on Thursday said it would extradite three citizens to the United States over an alleged multi-million dollar cyber scam that targeted such websites as iTunes and Netflix and the US tax service.
View Article13 plead guilty to attacking Paypal servers (Update)
Thirteen people have pleaded guilty to helping briefly disable online payment service provider Paypal as part of a protest that authorities say was organized by the hacking group Anonymous.
View ArticleStudy examines racial bias in death-penalty decisions
A Latino defendant convicted of murder who is poor is more likely to be sentenced to death by white jurors, a new study shows.
View ArticleSilicon Valley firms ink settlement in non-poaching case (Update)
Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have inked a $415 million settlement over charges they colluded not to poach one another's employees, according to court documents.
View ArticleDOJ, FBI acknowledge flawed testimony from unit
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they...
View ArticleGenetic defense for violent crimes could backfire for defendants
Genetic explanations for violent crimes may encourage jurors to support an insanity defense, but jurors may also believe the defendant is a persistent threat who will commit more crimes in the future,...
View ArticleCourt sidesteps issue of social media account authentication
The Connecticut Supreme Court has sidestepped the issue of how social media accounts should be authenticated in criminal cases in a ruling upholding a murder conviction.
View ArticleCrime and virtual punishment
When it comes to crime and punishment, how judges dish out prison sentences is anything but a game.
View ArticleMan guilty of libel over Facebook 'likes': Swiss court
In a landmark ruling, a Swiss court has fined a man for "liking" comments on Facebook accusing an animal rights activist of being a "racist" and an "anti-Semite".
View ArticleExploring the use of algorithms in the criminal justice system
Courts nationwide are making greater use of computer algorithms to help determine whether defendants should be released into the community while they await trial. The idea is to accurately determine...
View ArticlePerpetrators of genocide say they're 'good people'
The men who were tried for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed up to 1 million people want you to know that they're actually very good people.
View ArticleSamsung worker killed by brain tumor wins compensation case
Overturning an appeals court's decision, South Korea's Supreme Court said Tuesday the family of a Samsung worker who died of a brain tumor should be eligible for state compensation for occupational...
View ArticleAI in the court: When algorithms rule on jail time
The centuries-old process of releasing defendants on bail, long the province of judicial discretion, is getting a major assist ... courtesy of artificial intelligence.
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