Following revelations that the NSA has been secretly tracking the phone and internet records of American citizens, former Justice Department prosecutor Larry Klayman has filed a class action suit against a wide range of different parties, alleging a violation of the three named litigants’ basic constitutional rights. The suit seeks damages of $20 billion, as well as an injunction to end the program.

Named in the suit, in addition to the NSA, the Department of Justice, and Obama administration officials Eric Holder and Barack Obama himself, are nine companies who are alleged to have participated in the NSA’s PRISM program, including AOL, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Skype, as well as the CEOs of each of these companies.

All nine of the companies named in the suit deny knowledge of and involvement with the program.

Subaru has announced that they will recall 5,379 vehicles from their 2013 Outback and Legacy lines because of concerns over a defect with the vehicles’ steering. Specifically, the company is concerned that in some vehicles, two components in the steering  shaft do not meet, resulting in drivers’ losing the ability to steer their vehicles.

This defect was actually discovered in June of last year in an Indiana assembly plant. The company stopped selling the vehicles while they attempted to identify and address the defect, but earlier this year, they received a complaint from a Subaru owner that he was unable to steer his vehicle. The company is currently informing dealerships about the potential defect and the subsequent recall, and expects that dealerships will begin to notify owners within 30 days.

Subaru is the most recent auto manufacturers to issue a recall of their vehicles in recent weeks. Recently, Chrysler recalled nearly 500,000 Jeep models over concerns of a transmission defect. Sources within Subaru have said that they are not aware of any injuries resulting from this defect, and this voluntary recall is likely intended to help prevent any future injuries from occurring and avoid subsequent legal liability. You can read more about the Subaru recall by clicking here.

MacBook Pro owner Beau Hodges has filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Apple over complaints of ghosting in the computer’s retina display. The case is expected to turn into a class action lawsuit against the company, as there have been numerous complaints about this problem since MacBook Pros with retina displays became available in the summer of 2012.

At the core of this lawsuit is a difference between MacBook Pros sold with panels made by LG, and other panels made by Samsung. The lawsuit claims that Apple was not forthright with consumers by not disclosing which computers came with which panels. As a result, some consumers who received the panels made by LG experienced problems with “ghosting,” or an image being burned into the screen of the laptop and remaining once the image has been changed.

According to the lawsuit, Apple did nothing to help users avoid this problem, save publishing a support document about the issue, nor has it taken the LG-produced panels off the market.

In the United States, the recent passage of laws legalizing the recreational sale and use of marijuana in the states of Washington and Colorado has highlighted the natural tension between state and federal legal authority. Marijuana has been illegal under federal law for decades, and most states have similarly criminalized the substance throughout this time. However, with the new laws, it is unclear what actions, if any, will be taken by federal authorities.

Some states have already dabbled with legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and in some instances, particularly in California, the federal government has ignored state prerogatives in these cases in favor of enforcing federal statutes. The new laws, however, represent a far greater challenge to federal authority than that posed by medical marijuana laws, calling into question whether the federal government will even be able to pursue this same strategy, or whether enforcement will necessarily become more enhanced or ignored altogether.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation’s highest-ranking lawyer, has recently acknowledged the difficulty of this problem, and provided assurances that the Administration’s position will be clarified relatively soon in the future.

Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $8.3 million to a 65 year old man who claimed that the DePuy ASR hip implant he received was defective. This case was the first of over 10,000 lawsuits filed against Johnson & Johnson to be brought to court.

In the jury ruling, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay over $300,000 to cover the plaintiff’s medical expenses, and another $8 million for pain and suffering resulting from the defective hip implant. Johnson & Johnson issued a recall of 93,000 implants back in 2010 after announcing that 12% of the devices failed after just five years.

Experts agree that the cost of resolving the over 10,000 suits against the company could cost Johnson & Johnson billions of dollars.

The Chicago Tribune, one of the largest newspapers in the United States, has recently agreed to settle a class action lawsuit filed by 46 reporters who worked for its Trib Local services over allegations of unpaid overtime wages. The settlement, which is reported to be in the amount of $660,000, will be distributed to employees based on the amount of work for which they were denied overtime payment.

The overtime lawsuit was filed by Carolyn Rusin, and in addition to her share of the settlement, she will also receive $10,000 for bringing the case and $2000 for her individual claim. A court hearing for final approval on the settlement is scheduled for June. Approval is expected. Individuals engaged in an overtime lawsuit may find themselves facing incredible difficulty, especially if they are going against a large company with extensive legal resources. In cases like this, the assistance of an overtime lawyer is almost always necessary to give plaintiffs a shot at  securing the verdit they want.

Indigent residents of states across the U.S. are facing a loss of the legal assistance they need as a result of funding shortfalls at both the state and federal level. While constitutional guarantees of access to criminal defense representation for criminal defendants remains an important bulwark of protection for criminal suspects accused of committing a crime, those in other situations who may require legal assistance but who cannot afford an attorney on their own are now facing the possibility that they will not be able to obtain representation.

In Texas, for instance, where nearly six million of the state’s residents have incomes which would qualify them for legal aid in normal circumstances, some individuals have been turned away because of shortfalls in the state’s fund for legal aid. According to some estimates, the state only has enough resources to provide legal assistance to 100,000 individuals in the year.

The problem is part of a national trend, with states struggling to balance their budgets being forced to make tough spending decisions and, in many cases, having to reduce funding for legal aid services. On the national level, the Legal Services Corporation, the federal organization which provides much of the funding for legal aid agencies across the country, has seen its own budget reduced by Congress. As a result, the availability of lawyers for indigent citizens has been dramatically reduced in scope.

A case soon to come before the Supreme Court has far-reaching consequences for civil liberties and law enforcement methods in the United States. At issue is whether law enforcement agencies can legally require individuals who have been arrested, but not convicted, for a criminal offense to submit a DNA sample for testing. These samples would not necessarily be used for the case being investigated, but rather to check against databases of other crime scene investigations and determine whether the suspect had been involved in separate offenses.

Proponents of the law point to its effectiveness in the case which has come to the courts. In Maryland, Alonzo King was arrested for attempted assault, and when police checked his DNA profile against their database of crime scene evidence, they found that his DNA matched that found at the scene of a serious sexual assault. King was, therefore, convicted for this crime, as well as the more minor assault charge.

Opponents of the practice, including King’s lawyers, have argued that DNA testing of arrest suspects is a violation of the 4th Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches. Furthermore, some claim that this overzealous DNA collection practice adds to evidence backlogs and impedes the ability of law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate criminal offenses in a timely manner.

The Supreme Court’s decision will have far-reaching ramifications on defendants and criminal defense lawyers, regardless of how it is decided, as dozens of states have already put in place these types of laws and many more are considering them.

For the second time, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) has vetoed a bill that would legalize internet gambling in the state. Had the bill been successful, it would have made New Jersey the third state in the country, along with Delaware and Nevada, to legalize internet gambling.

Governor Christie did say, however, that he would be supportive of an internet gambling law that was on a provisional, 10-year basis. Additionally, he would like to see the Casino tax rate on internet gambling winnings raised to 15% from 10%.

Proponents of this bill argue that legalizing internet gambling in the state would have a number of benefits, including boosting the revenue of gambling halls and also benefitting the state in terms of tax revenue. Additionally, it would save criminal lawyers and U.S. prosecutors valuable time, as recent crack downs on internet gambling over the past few years have increased the number of cases brought against online gambling sites and those in charge of running these operations.

The first civil charges have been filed over a controversy that unfolded last year regarding drug samples at a Massachusetts drug lab. Chemist Annie Dookhan, a former employee of the state drug lab, has been accused of tampering with evidence and compromising as many as tens of thousands of drug samples submitted as evidence for criminal proceedings in drug crimes cases. Dookhan was arraigned in her sixth and final arraignment and pleaded “not guilty” to the charges against her.

Because of the invalidity of evidence used in so many MA criminal cases that were affected by Dookhan’s alleged actions, many criminal defense lawyers have been able to have the charges, convictions, and penalties against their clients overturned or dramatically reduced in severity.

Now the first charges have been filed against Dookhan and other authorities for charges and convictions based on faulty evidence. Jeffrey Solomon has named Dookhan, the state, District Attorneys from both Suffolk and Norfolk counties, and one police officer in his lawsuit. Solomon is seeking damages for drug charges and for a mandatory prison sentence that accompanied them.