ABA announces 2013 award winners
The American Bar Association has announced its selections for the 2013 Silver Gavel Awards for Media and the Arts, which recognize outstanding work that fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system.
This is the ABA’s highest honor in recognition of this purpose and no more than one Silver Gavel is presented in each category.
A book about the laws of war in American history, a documentary telling the story of five Harlem teenagers falsely convicted of rape, a newspaper series about lax oversight of Michigan probationers and parolees, and a television program on voting in America all received the top honor.
The awards presentation will be held July 23 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
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State attorney named TLA president-elect
Dirk Beckwith, shareholder at the law firm of Foster Swift Collins & Smith PC, has been named as the President-Elect of the Transportation Lawyers Association (TLA).
The TLA is an independent, international bar association comprised of more than 1,000 attorneys, whose members assist providers and/or commercial users of logistics and transportation services, regardless of mode.
Beckwith will begin serving his presidential term in May of 2013.
Beckwith is a graduate of the University of Michigan and earned his law degree from the Wayne State University Law School.
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Monsanto wins patent case over seeds
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has sustained Monsanto Co.’s claim that an Indiana farmer violated the company’s patents on soybean seeds that are resistant to its weed-killer.
The justices, in a recent unanimous vote, rejected the farmer’s argument that cheap soybeans he bought from a grain elevator are not covered by the Monsanto patents, even though most of them also were genetically modified to resist the company’s Roundup herbicide.
Justice Elena Kagan says a farmer who buys patented seeds must have the patent holder’s permission.
More than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.
Monsanto has a policy to protect its investment in seed development that prohibits farmers from saving or reusing the seeds once the crop is grown.
Farmers must buy new seeds every year.
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State told to explain redacting of info
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A judge has given a state agency until June 10 to explain why it has redacted information in records two newspapers have requested on child deaths and near deaths.
Media reported Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd told attorneys for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services that the issue should have already been taken care, and he ordered the agency’s secretary to have a “high-level” official ensure it gets done.
The ruling came during a hearing on the 140 files that The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader have asked the cabinet to turn over.
The files detail child deaths and near deaths from 2009 to 2010.
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