If an unmarried couple has a child, which last name should the child get? That was the issue in a case decided recently by the Supreme Court of Ohio. The Ohio high court now requires the use of initials in all cases involving juveniles, so I will use only initials in this column, which will [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman Contributing Columnist Torts is the subject I teach at U.C. law school. Torts are personal injuries. If the injured person (the plaintiff) can prove the person (the defendant) that hurt him or her was negligent, the plaintiff can recover money damages. Negligent means careless or inattentive. There are lots of allegations of [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman Contributing Columnist The Ohio Supreme Court heard a case February 27 that should be of particular interest to readers of this column. A teacher in the Mt. Vernon School District, a public school district in Knox County, Ohio, was fired, he says for exercising his right to academic freedom; the school board [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman Contributing Columnist Because three justices left the Ohio Supreme Court at year’s end, the Court unleashed a torrent of decisions in December to start with a clean slate in January. Over the next several months, I’ll feature some of the most interesting ones. My first choice was a stirring affirmation of the [ Read More...]

Legally Speaking By Marianna Bettman Much has been written about how jurors in criminal cases now expect to be razzle dazzled by CSI kinds of evidence. Here’s a recent case from the Supreme Court of Ohio that would please CSI fans. The case is State v. Emerson. In 2005, Dajuan Emerson was tried for rape [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman Juveniles can be sent to adult court to be tried as adults. The hearing to determine whether to allow this is called an amenability hearing. There are a certain number of euphemisms in the juvenile justice system, and “amenability” is one of them. An amenability hearing is used to determine if a [ Read More...]

This month’s topic is eminent domain. That’s the right of the government to take your property for some public purpose, but if it does, it must pay you just compensation. The Supreme Court of Ohio has decided two interesting cases in this area of law recently. First, some background. In 2005, in the case of [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman Every now and again, a case argued at the Ohio Supreme Court is just plain fun to listen to. And so it was with Smith v. Landfair, argued just before the Court took a summer recess. 25-year-old Roshel Smith was employed as barn manager at her father Ernie’s horse stable, located on [ Read More...]

In light of all the hoopla over the health care law, less attention was paid to Justice Elana Kagan’s authoring of her first 5-4 decision for the U.S. Supreme Court, striking down mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles who commit homicide offenses. In this case, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the liberal wing; Chief Justice [ Read More...]

By Marianna Bettman It’s official — Tracie Hunter won the 2010 Hamilton County Juvenile Court election by 74 votes. Before the nearly 300 disputed provisional ballots were finally counted, Hunter was behind by 23 votes, so the protracted litigation paid off for her. But please don’t think the challenge to the counting of provisional ballots [ Read More...]