COMMENTARY

• To see what really matters in people, develop double vision 

  If you had to identify some of life’s greatest gifts, other than your faith, what would they be? Two different stories, with two different people, and two very different circumstances, give us a big clue. One of the organizations in our area which deals with the aging population does so with kindness and special insight. It deals with seniors suffering through the ravages of dementia in all of its forms. But it sees past the loss of a mind that once was to what remains in the core of us all. It’s a sort of double vision which sees the character of every life.

• Appeals court had the chance to do right by a wife and children – but declined it 
• Top 10 ways to increase law firm revenue 
• It’s not how you start, but how you finish  
• Are you the lawyer you wanted to be wanted to be?

Most Important Opinions

1. Labor & Employment – Civil Rights — Race Discrimination Claim – Federal Jurisdiction – State Court — Removal 

   Bullock v. Napolitano The 4th Circuit upholds dismissal of this Title VII race discrimination suit filed by an African-American who was dismissed from the federal air marshal training program; the U.S. did not consent to be sued in North Carolina state court and removal of the suit to federal court, under the doctrine of derivative jurisdiction, did not cure that jurisdictional defect.

2. Criminal Practice – Constitutional – Second Amendment – Marijuana User — Dangerous Neighborhood – Firearms Conviction Vacated 

   U.S. v. Carter A marijuana user who asserts his Second Amendment right to possess firearms for his own protection in a dangerous neighborhood has his firearms conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) vacated by the 4th Circuit; Congress might have reasonably concluded that disarming drug users could reduce gun violence, and the government gets another chance to make a sufficient record to uphold the statute

3. Criminal Practice – Child Pornography – Sentencing – Dual Enhancement 

   U.S. v. Strieper A U.S. Navy information systems technician who was convicted for various crimes related to his collection of child pornography and plot with an undercover agent to kidnap, rape and murder a very young child, cannot overturn his 4