Another pitch for cameras

David Ovalle has taken up using Periscope in state court, posting short video clips of court proceedings on Twitter. It's actually a great service to court watchers and it's very interesting. Of course the feds are way too crusty to allow anything like that, which is a shame. Just to get into the federal courthouse has become a burden, with people being turned away for random reasons. Instead of a courthouse, it's beginning to feel like a fortress.

Some news from the 6th, 7th & 8th Circuits:

Add the 6th Circuit to the list of courts getting the cell-site data case wrong.

The 7th Circuit addresses strip club ordinances: "This case requires us to visit the world of strip clubs—establishments that no one seems to want, officially, but that are somehow quite lucrative."

And the 8th Circuit discusses Halliburton and securities laws.  It's a pretty interesting read.  Here's the Reuters analysis:

After several years of litigation, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank of St. Paul, Minnesota, certified a class of Best Buy shareholders. Investors could not bring fraud claims based on the Sept. 14 press release, the judge said, because it was a forward-looking statement covered by the safe-harbor provision in securities laws. But he ruled statements during the analyst call about the company’s present performance were not protected by the safe-harbor provision. Judge Donovan found that lead counsel from Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd had established the price impact of the alleged misrepresentations by showing the sharp drop in Best Buy’s stock price when the supposed fraud was revealed in December.
On Tuesday, a divided three-judge panel at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that class certification decision. The court’s opinion is the first federal circuit court analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund – and it’s quite a boon for defendants in securities class actions. Best Buy’s lead counsel, Joseph McLaughlin ofSimpson Thacher & Bartlett, called the decision “a blueprint” for securities defendants hoping to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s decision.