donal brown

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional for Florida to bar a candidate for a judge seat from sending out a mailing soliciting contributions and from asking for donations on her website. The candidate claimed the restriction violated her free speech rights. “The State may conclude that judges, charged with exercising strict neutrality and independence, cannot supplicate campaign donors without diminishing public confidence in judicial integrity,” wrote Chief

The Law firm of  San Diego environmental attorney Cory Briggs subpoenaed inewsource’s Lorie Hearn seeking information on a story about a conflict-of -interest investigation of Briggs. Last week a non-profit associated with Briggs filed a lawsuits against Hearn and inewsource over the lease for office space inewsource has with San Diego State. (inewsource, Alpril 14, 2015, by Brad Racino) Hearn thinks the legal actions are in retaliation over inewsource investigations of alleged conflict of interest

The Tampa Bay Times has come under fire for valuing a scoop more than federal government security when it failed to notify the Secret Service with sufficiently in advance that a Florida man planned to land his one-man gyrocopter to land on the Capitol lawn on Wednesday. (The Washington Post, April 15, 2015, by Paul Farhi with Marc Fisher) Postal employee Doug Hughes told the Times last week he was going to fly from Gettysburg

The City of Newport Beach failed to keep the Orange County Register from publishing a story about alleged corruption involving spending by an assistant city manager. The city claimed a Register reporter had obtained a closed session memorandum from the city attorney for a March 17 meeting that was privileged attorney-client communication and successfully petitioned the Superior Court for a restraining order. The Register said they did not hear about the order until after their

Burbank teachers are protesting what they claim is a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, during the process of hiring a new district superintendent. The teachers are asking the District Attorney to investigate a failure of the board of trustees to report out of closed session. (The Burbank Leader, April 16, 2015, by Dan Evans) A Marin County non-profit concerned with development issues filed a lawsuit that alleges that the county board