Ninth Circuit says district court overstated risk of mad cow disease from Canada beef News
Ninth Circuit says district court overstated risk of mad cow disease from Canada beef

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] released an opinion [PDF] Monday explaining its July 14 reversal [JURIST report] of a ban on importing Canadian cattle enacted two years ago after Canada discovered its first domestic case of mad cow disease [Wikipedia backgrounder]. The court found that Montana District Court Judge Richard Cebull's March ruling [JURIST report] barring the resumed importation of Canadian cattle erred in declaring [Bloomberg report] that reversing the ban would cause "irreparable economic harm'' and called the original ruling "alarmist" and "overstated". Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.