In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Sunday January 29, 2023

First, from techcrunch.com: How US police use digital data to prosecute abortions
Police in several states have used digital data to prosecute women for abortions in recent years. In some cases, police have obtained warrants to search digital devices to uncover conversations and evidence of abortion pills purchased online. In other cases, family members, friends or medical staff have notified authorities of suspected abortions. Despite a US Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade last summer, efforts to combat police use of digital data for abortion prosecutions are underway.

Next, from www.nytimes.com: How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System
AbbVie has been exploiting the US patent system to keep generic versions of its blockbuster drug, Humira, off the market, allowing it to charge high prices and generating $114 billion in revenue since 2016. Next week, the monopoly is expected to end and prices are likely to drop. Patients have had to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for the medication while AbbVie has profited and other pharmaceutical companies have followed its lead.

Finally, from sherrilyn.substack.com: When White America Offloads its Failures on to Civil Rights Movements
Sherrilyn Ifill has written a response to the recent Atlantic newsletter from Conor Friedersdorf in which he claimed that “the Black Lives Matter approach” to ending police violence against Black people “has largely failed.” Ifill argues that it is wrong to blame the civil rights movement for the failure of white people to effectively confront and contain the manifestations of violent white supremacy. She notes that Black Lives Matter was first a call to action, a statement of demand for respect for Black people's humanity, and has since become the rallying cry and social media hashtag for Black people protesting police brutality. She further details the progress that has been made in terms of reforms to policing, and the broader movement to end police violence, and argues that the failure of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was not the fault of the Black Lives Matter movement, but rather the lack of support from Republican Senators. Finally, she argues that the current system cannot be reformed and must be made over, and that the recent police response in Uvalde and lack of support for Capitol Police officers assaulted on January 6th has been a huge blow to law enforcement.

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Today's paper of the day is Pop & Perjury: The IRS Valuation War with the Estate of Michael Jackson by Beckett Cantley and Geoffrey Dietrich. This paper discusses Michael Jackson's unexpected death and the valuation battle between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Jackson's estate over various intellectual property rights. The IRS's sole expert witness perjured himself in court, which the court took into consideration in its opinion.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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