The Ohio Supreme Court overturned a gag order that prevented the Toledo media from reporting on one defendant's trial until the jury was impaneled on a second defendant's trial.

Jayme Schwenkmeyer and her boyfriend, David Knepley, were charged with child endangering and manslaughter in the death of Schwenkmeyer's child.

Henry County Court Judge Keith Muehlfeld ordered separate trials and imposed a gag order on the media from reporting on Schwenkmeyer's trial until the jury was seated for Knepley's trial, which began one week later.
Muehlfeld said he took this action to prevent the tainting of the jury pool in Knepley's trial.

The Ohio Supreme Court, in a per-curiam decision, granted the Toledo Blade a writ of prohibition to override the gag order.

"Judge Muehlfeld's analysis proceeded from the erroneous premise that a criminal defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial should be accorded priority over the media's constitutional rights of free speech and press," the justices wrote.

"The judge did not rely on any evidence that a continuance might minimize any prejudicial pretrial publicity resulting from press reports about the Schwenkmeyer trial," they added, lifting the gag order.

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP is pleased to announce that the firm's chairman of the executive committee, Guy N. Halgren, has been re-elected to a fourth consecutive, three-year term leading the firm.  Halgren was first elected to this management role in 2001.  Halgren is the first Sheppard Mullin chairman to hold this position for four terms.  

"Our partnership is very fortunate to have Guy at the helm for another term.  He's smart, fair and forward-thinking," said Benjamin R. Mulcahy, New York-based partner and member of the executive committee.  "Guy has been instrumental in growing the firm in terms of size, locations, and practice areas, while preserving Sheppard Mullin's tradition of collegiality and entrepreneurship."  

Sheppard Mullin has experienced significant growth in the past nine years.  The number of attorneys is now more than 500, which is more than 70% greater than the firm's attorney headcount in 2001.  During the same time period, the firm has geographically grown from a California firm, to a national firm with locations in New York and Washington, D.C., to an international firm with an office in Shanghai.  The firm currently has a total of eleven offices, having significantly expanded from four locations in 2001.

Comparing 2001 to 2009, gross revenue has climbed from $149 million to $361 million.  Practice area growth has occurred in a number of ways, including the establishment of an institutional entertainment and media practice in 2003, the significant growth of the firm's Intellectual Property practice group in recent years, and the strengthening of signature practices: Antitrust, Corporate, Finance & Bankruptcy, Government Contracts, Labor & Employment, Litigation, Real Estate/Land Use and Tax.  

Additionally, Sheppard Mullin's Business Trial practice group co-chair, Robert S. Beall, has been re-elected as the firm's managing partner for another three-year term.  He has held this firm management position since 2005.  Beall, based in the firm's Orange County office, has also been re-elected to the firm's executive committee for another three-year term. 

"I'm very pleased that Robert has agreed to serve as the firm's managing partner for another term.  Our talents complement each other.  The firm could not have made the tremendous progress it has without Robert's contributions,"  Halgren commented.

Partner Judy V. Davidoff has been elected to the executive committee for a three-year term.  Davidoff, based in the San Francisco office, has served as Real Estate/Land Use practice group co-chair and also as one of the firm's alternative fee czars.

About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with 550 attorneys in 11 offices located in the United States and Asia.  Since 1927, companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financial transactions.  In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com. 

A federal immigration officer who was recorded demanding sex from a woman in exchange for a green card has pleaded guilty.

Isaac Baichu pleaded guilty to all the charges against him Wednesday in Queens. The 48-year-old is expected to receive a prison sentence of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years.

The case involved a Colombian woman married to an American citizen. The woman said she gave in to one sex demand in December 2007 because she was afraid, but she used a mobile phone hidden in her purse to record the encounter.

She took the recording to The New York Times and to the Queens district attorney's office.

Baichu was arrested in March 2008 after meeting with the woman again, this time with prosecutors listening in.

Employers won a big victory Thursday in the ongoing fight over medical marijuana.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that employers no longer need to accommodate workers who legally use medical marijuana.

That means employers can terminate workers with medical marijuana cards who fail drug tests.

The ruling settled more than a decade of debate about the legal rights of employers when it comes to legal marijuana use.

“If a person shows a medical marijuana card, it’s no longer a get-out-of-jail-free card,” said Rich Meneghello, managing partner at the law firm Fisher & Phillips LLP, who represents employers.

Oregon voters legalized the use of medical marijuana in 1998. The law has been the subject of numerous legal challenges since then.

The New England Patriots could find themselves defending a lawsuit by NFL fans miffed about their secret videotaping of signals from New York Jets coaches.

The NFL bans such videotaping and issued $750,000 in fines against the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick after they were caught taping signals at the Jets' 2007 home opener in Giants Stadium.

Lawyer Carl Mayer, a Jets season ticket holder from Princeton, N.J., argued in a U.S. appeals court Wednesday that fans spent vast sums of money to see games that were essentially rigged. His suit, earlier dismissed by a lower court, seeks $185 million in damages for Jets fans alone.

Mayer, who asked the appeals court to revive the suit, said he hopes to learn the extent of the Patriots' taping, dubbed Spygate, through discovery.

"The game will become more and more corrupt if there is no remedy," said his lawyer, Bruce Afran. "The NFL will degenerate into the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)."

NFL lawyers insist the Patriots violated only league rules — not any civil or criminal laws. They fear that disappointed fans will sue over myriad game day complaints if the case is upheld.

A woman convicted of luring a Peruvian to the United States with promises of job then confiscating her travel documents and forcing her to work for no pay was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday.

Maribel de la Rosa Dann was found guilty of forced labor and related charges for keeping Zoraida Pena-Canal enslaved as a household servant from summer of 2006 to the spring of 2008. Dann, a real estate agent in the affluent suburb of Walnut Creek, was also ordered to serve three years of supervised released, and ordered to pay $123,740 in restitution for back wages not paid.

Pena-Canal has a civil case pending in which she is seeking to recover the costs of her labor, emotional distress and other damages.

The victim did not want to speak in court, but in a written statement she told others who might be enduring similar circumstances, "Do not be afraid and do not be ashamed. Seek help and fight for the justice you deserve."

Attorneys and advocates said that while the public may be more familiar with human trafficking victims who are forced into prostitution, cases of forced labor like Pena-Canal's are also widespread.

A U.S. district court ruled against specialty pharmaceutical company Santarus Inc in its patent suit against Par Pharmaceuticals, sending Santarus shares tumbling 48 percent after the bell.

The suit filed by Santarus and co-plaintiff University of Missouri relates to Par's application to market a generic version of Santarus' heartburn drug, Zegerid.

The court ruled that the patents-in-suit are invalid due to obviousness. It also concluded that certain asserted claims are invalid for lack of written description.

The case is Santarus Inc et al v. Par Pharmaceutical Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware. No. 07-551.