Restitution Returns to the United States Supreme Court (again)
Today, James R. Marsh of the Marsh Law Firm and Paul G. Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law Appellate Legal Clinic, filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court in their latest effort to convince the Court to consider the critical issue of criminal restitution for victims of child pornography.
The case, Doyle Randall Paroline v. Amy Unknown, arises out of a long-fought extensively litigated restitution action which started almost four years ago before Judge Leonard Davis in the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division.
In January, the defendant filed a ...
The Adoption Industry’s Ugly Side
In a commentary in Politico, John Echohawk, Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund; Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians; and Terry Cross, Executive Director, National Indian Child Welfare Association, discuss today's oral argument in the Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl:
All across this country - but especially in states that are home to multiple Native American Tribes - unethical adoption attorneys are purposely circumventing the federal law that is meant to protect Native American children. Even worse are ...
Supreme Court – Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
Oral Argument: April 16, 2013
Court Below: South Carolina Supreme Court
Petitioners, Adoptive Couple, decided to adopt a baby girl from a single mother. After Baby Girl's birth, Adoptive Couple began the official adoption process and Birth Father, a member of the Cherokee Nation, signed a form relinquishing his rights to Baby Girl. Later, however, Birth Father claimed that he did not intend to relinquish his rights and sought to invoke the Indian Child Welfare Act ("ICWA") because Baby Girl is of Indian heritage.Both the Charleston County Family Court and the Supreme ...
Amicus Support Victim Restitution – Brief Filed in Supreme Court
Today, the National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI) moved for leave to file, as amicus curiae, this brief in support of the Marsh Law Firm's recent Petition for a Writ of Certiorari concerning whether the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2259, excuses a defendant from paying restitution for the itemized loss categories unless there is proof that the victim’s losses were the proximate result of an individual defendant’s child pornography crime.
NCVLI is a nonprofit educational and advocacy organization located ...
Restitution for Child Victims Returns to the Supreme Court
Last week, the Marsh Law Firm, along with co-counsel Paul G. Cassell and Carol L. Hepburn, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court.
Almost 20 years ago, Congress enacted the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2259, to benefit victims of federal child pornography
crimes, including petitioners like Amy and Vicky, whose child sex abuse images are traded and collected over the internet by countless individuals worldwide.
The statute provides in part that a court “shall order restitution...