The highest court in Massachusetts has rejected an appeal by a former high school student who was convicted of planning a Columbine-style attack at his high school in Marshfield.

Joseph Nee was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and served nine months in prison.

Nee appealed his conviction based on the legal defense of “renunciation,” arguing that he had abandoned the plan by a group of teens in 2004 to blow up Marshfield High School and shoot everyone on a hit list of students, teachers and emergency workers.

In its ruling yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court said Nee was not entitled to a renunciation defense because he did not acknowledge that he conspired with other students to commit a crime.

The court said Nee failed to reveal and renounce his own crime.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld a judge's order invalidating traffic tickets issued through New Orleans' red-light and speed-enforcement camera system

The court's 6-0 vote on Wednesday could create a budget problem for the city, which collected $9.4 million from the tickets through August and expected another $5 million through the end of the year.

On Oct. 1, a state judge tossed out the tickets, saying the camera system violated a city charter provision giving the police department sole authority to enforce traffic regulations. The program had been administered by the Public Works Department.

The Times-Picayune reports an ordinance has been introduced before the city council to transfer the program's authority to police.

Tully Rinckey PLLC is pleased to announce the addition of attorney J.E. Yancey Ellis as an Associate in its Washington, D.C. law office. Ellis joins Tully Rinckey PLLC after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps for over four years, including a year long deployment in Iraq. Ellis will provide representation to military servicemembers in all aspects of military criminal and administrative law.

As a former Marine Corps Judge Advocate and assistant advisor to a Commanding Officer in Iraq, Ellis earned a reputation as an aggressive, thorough, and highly admired attorney familiar with the legal complexities under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At Tully Rinckey PLLC, Ellis will specialize in providing all members of the military with high quality legal services including officer misconduct, Non-Judicial Punishment proceedings, Article 32 investigations, desertion and AWOL instances, as well as violent crimes. He will also focus on handling administrative matters relating to the correction of military records.

While on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, Ellis served as both a military prosecutor and defender at Camp Pendleton in California as well as a Deputy Legal Advisor while stationed in Iraq. During his time as a military prosecutor, Ellis prosecuted over 100 Marines accused of violating federal or military law, or state law under the Federal Assimilative Crimes Act. In his role as defender, Ellis represented Marines accused under federal and military law of felony and misdemeanor crimes earning Defense Counsel of the Year for the Western United States in 2009.

Ellis earned his Juris Doctorate from George Mason University School of Law, graduating Cum Laude, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from West Virginia University, graduating Magna Cum Laude.

For more information about J.E. Yancey Ellis’ addition to Tully Rinckey PLLC or the firm’s military and national security practice, please contact Ali Skinner at (202) 787-1900 or at askinner@fedattorney.com

The Federal Reserve has decided not to join major banks in asking the US Supreme Court to let the central bank keep secret the details of its emergency lending programs during the financial crisis.

A group representing US and European commercial banks on Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court asking it not to force the Fed to disclose details of its bailouts, as a federal appeals court in New York had ordered in March.

The group said forcing disclosure could lead markets and customers to worry about banks' health, jeopardizing their business prospects.

The Fed did not explain why it chose not to join the banks' appeal. In a statement, it said it "will await a determination from the courts and will comply fully with any final order. The Federal Reserve remains committed to timely and responsible transparency of its operations."

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, and News Corp's Fox News Network had sought bailout details under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which requires government agencies to make documents public.

The Supreme Court is expected in coming weeks to consider whether to review the unanimous March ruling by the second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ordering the Fed to release details of programs it adopted starting in late 2007 to shore up the financial system.

These programs, along with other measures to support the economy, more than doubled the central bank's balance sheet to well over USD 2 trillion, a process that accelerated after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's September 2008 collapse.

"The Fed has historically argued that you could have bank runs if you had disclosure, and that it did not want to enable these by having super-timely disclosure of problems," said William Ford, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and former president of the Federal Reserve bank in Atlanta. "But we're already moving in the direction of full and immediate disclosure, quite aside from the legal battles."

Walker Todd, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a former Fed legal officer in Cleveland and New York, said the banks group  the Clearing House Association LLC  might be more likely to have its appeal heard without the Fed's involvement.

An advocate for chronic pain patients who is under investigation for obstruction of justice has challenged grand jury subpoenas in a rare case that climbed secretly through the judicial system to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network, has asked the nation's highest court to quash subpoenas issued to her and her nonprofit group and make public the proceedings against her. The usually public court docket - which includes court documents, hearing dates and other case information - has been sealed in her case in a federal district court in Kansas and 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Even at the U.S. Supreme Court, there was scant public record showing her case existed until last week, when the court agreed to make a redacted version of her appeal available while it decides whether to take the case.

Reynolds' attorney, Robert Corn-Revere of Washington, D.C., said the case is unusual because most secret proceedings involve some kind of national security and this one does not. Federal prosecutors have declined to talk about their reasons for pursuing the case in secret.

A federal judge in New York issued an injunction yesterday that will essentially shut down LimeWire, the big music file-sharing service that has been mired in a four-year legal struggle with the music industry. The case has already resulted in the company and its founder, Mark Gorton, being found liable for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Although the file-sharing service is on the verge of vanishing in its current form, the company will continue negotiations with the major music companies about a deal to offer music for sale legally.

In her ruling, Judge Kimba M. Wood of US District Court in Manhattan forced the company to disable “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality’’ of the company’s file-sharing software.

The court is scheduled to decide early next year the amount the company and Gorton will be forced to pay.
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