Atlanta Braves 7, Philadelphia Phillies 5: Adam Eaton tonight continued his efforts to remain in contention for the notable distinction of worst starting pitcher for the Phillies in the 2007 season. The six runs that Eaton surrendered in three plus innings of work proved insurmountable to the Phillies, although the team came close to clawing back into the game several times. You can access the box score at this link, while wraps from MLB.com are available here and here.

Although the loss drops the Phillies into third place in the National League East standings, a half-game behind the Braves, losses by both the New York Mets and the San Diego Padres mean that the Phillies did not lose any ground to the leaders in the division or wild card races. Sunday’s series finale is the ESPN Sunday night game, meaning that my summary of that game may not appear here until early Monday morning.

“Judge Tries to Avoid Paying Legal Bills Of Cleaners He Sued Over Missing Pants”: The Washington Post contains this article today.

“Reported Decline in Surveillance Spurred Quick Law”: This article appears today in The New York Times.

Available online from law.com: An article reports that “Judges on ABA Panel Describe Living in Fear, Years After Unpopular Rulings; Speaking at annual conference, four judges discuss the disruptions and death threats that followed high-profile rulings.”

In other news, “Cruise Owners Ride ‘Hog’ Case Back to Trial Court; Attorneys representing Harley-Davidson say a Virginia couple infringed on the motorcycle company’s HOG copyright.” My earlier coverage of last week’s Seventh Circuit ruling appears at this link.

Pamela A. MacLean reports that “4th Circuit Lifts Sanction Against Lawyers Who Peeked at Juror Notes.” You can access Tuesday’s Fourth Circuit ruling at this link.

In news from Florida, “Federal Judge Accused of Religious Bias.”

And the brand new installment of my “On Appeal” column is headlined “Needed: More Online Access to Federal Court Rulings.”

Philadelphia Phillies 5, Atlanta Braves 4: My son and I were at Citizens Bank Park this evening to see the first of a three game series between the Braves and the Phillies.

Each team scored four runs on five hits in the first inning, with each sending nine men to the plate in that inning. Yet from that point forward, each team’s starting pitcher held the other team hitless and scoreless until departing from the game. Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels stayed in the game one inning longer than the Braves starting pitcher, and that enabled Hamels to earn his thirteenth victory of the season as the Phillies rallied for an unearned run off of Braves reliever Peter Moylan in the bottom of the seventh inning. Despite some tense moments, the Phillies bullpen managed to keep the Braves off the board for the final two innings to notch the victory. You can access the box score at this link, while wraps from MLB.com are available here and here.

With the win, the Phillies move into second place in the National League East, just three games behind the New York Mets. And the Phillies remain one game out of the lead for the National League Wild Card spot, behind the San Diego Padres. My son and I also have tickets to the remaining two games in this series, so stay tuned for additional updates.

“Supreme Court Allows Detainee Transfer”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “The Supreme Court said Friday it would not prevent the U.S. from transferring an Algerian army veteran from Guantanamo Bay to his home country.”

“To the extent our cases have predicated the reasonableness of an airport screening search upon either ongoing consent or irrevocable implied consent, they are overruled.” So holds a fifteen-judge en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a decision issued today.

I too have criticized the implied consent approach to determining whether a search preceding entry into a place of public accommodation is reasonable.

Let’s hope in something other than the stock market given its performance over the past few days: The Public Information Office of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a news release entitled “Judge N. Randy Smith Invested.”

Fancy new stadiums for professional sports teams are expensive: That’s one lesson to be learned from this decision that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued today, involving the Des Moines Menace Soccer Club.

“New Right to Life”: Today in The Wall Street Journal, Roger Pilon has an op-ed that begins, “The wheels of justice turn slowly, especially for the dying. On Tuesday the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed a 15-month-old decision by a panel of the court that had recognized a constitutional right of terminally ill patients to access potentially life-saving drugs not yet finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration.” The text of the op-ed is also available, subscription-free, at this link.

“The Greenhouse Effect: Hurricane Linda blows C-SPAN cameras away.” Gal Beckerman has this report today at the web site of the Columbia Journalism Review. More information about the program in question can be accessed on page 9 of this PDF document.

The weight of precedent: We admire appellate judges who are phat, but what about appellate judges who are merely fat?

In his blog post titled “Social Obesity” this week at “The Becker-Posner Blog,” Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner writes, “In my own ingroup of 16 judges (11 active members of my court, 4 senior members, and 1 nominee, who will replace an active member who will be taking senior status), only 2 are overweight (12.5 percent).”

“Prepping the Court on the Second Amendment”: Lyle Denniston has this post today at “SCOTUSblog.”

Sixth Circuit refuses to allow officials to pursue an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity where the denial occurred in the context of a ruling on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment: For whatever reason, the defendant-officials had failed to file their own motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity. You can access today’s ruling at this link.

Sixth Circuit holds that district court permissibly refused to reopen time to file appeal for clients of lawyer who sought speedy district court ruling but then failed to monitor the district court’s electronic docket to see whether the ruling had issued: Electronic case filing in the federal trial courts not only offers advantages, but also disadvantages, as this ruling that a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued today demonstrates.

“Cop writes a ticket for giant sausage”: The Chicago Tribune today contains an article that begins, “A massive hot dog clogged Chicago’s main artery Thursday morning. In a rare occurrence of an encased-meat vehicle committing a traffic violation, Chicago police ticketed the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for illegal parking on the Magnificent Mile.”

And in other coverage, The Chicago Sun-Times today contains an article that begins, “This hot dog had everything on it — including a parking ticket.”

“Deported Canadian Was No Threat, Report Shows”: The New York Times today contains an article that begins, “Canadian intelligence officials anticipated that the United States would ship Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, to a third country to be tortured, declassified information released on Thursday shows. Mr. Arar was sent by American intelligence officials in October 2002 to Syria, where he was tortured and jailed for a almost a year. Last September, an extensive Canadian inquiry concluded that the terrorism accusations against him were groundless.”

Today in The New York Sun, Joseph Goldstein has an article headlined “Documents: CIA Involved In a Deportation to Syria.”

And The Toronto Globe and Mail contains articles headlined “Arar tortured after RCMP handed files over to CIA“; “Tories take heat for trying to keep lid on facts; Government officials won’t name cabinet ministers responsible for decision to cite national security, but say Harper was not involved“; “RCMP misled court in seeking phone warrant, judge found; Case naming El Maati lacked full context, O’Connor wrote in censored section“; “Unclear who in government knew about CSIS torture concerns“; “In intelligence work, foreign spies are kept under cover“; and “Iacobucci inquiry faces challenge; Three men imprisoned in Middle East question secretive process of probe.” In addition, John Ibbitson has an essay entitled “Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with U.S., Syria.”

Last night, I linked here to various portions of the report.

“Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees challenge warrantless wiretap law”: Bob Egelko has this article today in The San Francisco Chronicle.

“Rep. Jefferson’s Papers: A court’s sensible compromise on the searching congressional offices.” The Washington Post contains this editorial today.

“Detainees Ruled Enemy Combatants”: This article appears today in The Washington Post.

“Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results”: Neil A. Lewis has this article today in The New York Times.

“Time Warner Wins Advertising Decision Vs. DirecTV”: This article appears today in The New York Sun.

And Reuters reports that “U.S. court upholds ban on some DirecTV ads.”

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s Second Circuit ruling appears at this link.

On this date in 1993: According to the popular “Today in History” feature from The Associated Press, on this date in 1993, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the second female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“High Court Reins in Class-Action Suits”: Pete Yost of The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “A business-friendly Supreme Court, with encouragement from the Bush administration, has strengthened the hand of companies wanting to turn away lawsuits by investors who claim they lost money because of corporate misconduct.”

“Barney Frank’s Muse”: The Wall Street Journal today contains an editorial that begins, “Barney Frank is a busy guy, so we suppose it’s no great surprise that he used a ghost writer for his recent Supreme Court amicus brief in a big securities tort case. Imagine our surprise, however, to learn that the ghost is none other than tort kingpin Bill Lerach’s favorite lobbying outfit.”

“The So-Called Protect America Act: Why Its Sweeping Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Pose Not Only a Civil Liberties Threat, But a Greater Danger As Well.” John W. Dean has this essay online at FindLaw.

“Eavesdropping Law Illegal, Lawyers Say”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge Thursday to invalidate a days-old law that lets government agents eavesdrop on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants.”

“2nd Circuit Sorts Out ‘Truth’ From ‘Puffery’ in Advertising Dispute; Decision provides ‘clarifications’ to federal appeals court’s ‘false advertising doctrine'”: law.com provides this report.

My earlier coverage of today’s Second Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“Court lifts lid on secret Arar details”: The Toronto Globe and Mail provides a news update that begins, “Newly declassified information shows that that Canadian agencies worked directly with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and also received information known to be likely derived from Syrian torture during a post-9/11 investigation that culminated in the Maher Arar scandal.”

The newspaper has posted the report online in four parts: here; here; here; and here.

“Pentagon Calls Suspects Enemy Combatants”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “The 14 so-called ‘high-value’ detainees who were transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year have all been declared enemy combatants and are subject to trial. The Pentagon announced the declarations Thursday.”

And CNN.com reports that “Alleged 9/11 mastermind, 13 others closer to U.S. military trial.”

You can access today’s Pentagon news release at this link.

“This case presents a question of first impression in this circuit: is it a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures to require an individual on supervised release to provide a blood sample for purposes of creating a DNA profile and entering it into a centralized database?” The majority on a divided three-judge First Circuit panel today joins with eleven other circuits in rejecting a Fourth Amendment challenge to the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000. You can access today’s ruling, and the dissent therefrom, at this link.

“We write in the hope of heading off what is assuming the proportions of an avalanche of utterly groundless sentencing appeals.” So writes Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner today in this opinion issued on behalf of a unanimous three-judge Seventh Circuit panel.

“Petition for Rehearing En Banc in Warshak v. United States”: Orin Kerr has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy” linking to the federal government’s petition for rehearing en banc.

My initial coverage of the Sixth Circuit’s ruling in this case can be accessed here.

Second Circuit decides appeal in Lanham Act false advertising lawsuit initiated by Time Warner Cable against DIRECTV challenging DIRECTV’s suggestion that its high-definition television transmissions were superior in quality to HDTV transmitted by a cable provider: The second paragraph of today’s ruling states:

This appeal requires us to clarify certain aspects of our false advertising doctrine. We make three clarifications in particular. First, we hold that an advertisement can be literally false even though it does not explicitly make a false assertion, if the words or images, considered in context, necessarily and unambiguously imply a false message. Second, we decide that the category of non-actionable “puffery” encompasses visual depictions that, while factually inaccurate, are so grossly exaggerated that no reasonable consumer would rely on them in navigating the marketplace. Third, we conclude that the likelihood of irreparable harm may be presumed where the plaintiff demonstrates a likelihood of success in showing that the defendant’s comparative advertisement is literally false and that given the nature of the market, it would be obvious to the viewing audience that the advertisement is targeted at the plaintiff, even though the plaintiff is not identified by name. Reviewing the District Court’s decision under these principles, we affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Among the advertisements challenged as false are two television spots, one featuring Jessica Simpson, and the other featuring William Shatner.

May a defendant’s prior conviction for possession of a sawed-off shotgun serve as a predicate “violent felony” for purposes of a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act? Today, the majority on a divided three-judge Sixth Circuit panel answers “no” in a decision that you can access here.