394 results for author: James R. Marsh

Kansas Passes State “Masha’s Law”

Almost 5 years ago, the Marsh Law Firm was instrumental in enhancing the federal civil legal rights of children who are victims of child pornography. Borrowing from intellectual property law, our firm helped draft, introduce and pass—in just seven months—a comprehensive update to a long-forgotten federal law which gives victims the right to sue anyone who produces, distributes or possess their child sex abuse images. Masha’s Law provides statutory damages of $150,000 for each violation of federal child pornography provisions and was incorporated into the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act signed by President Bush on July 27, ...

Improving the Legal Representation of Children

In October 2009, the U.S. Children’s Bureau named University of Michigan Law School the National Quality Improvement Center on the Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System (QIC-ChildRep). The QIC-ChildRep, is a five-year, $5 million dollar project to gather, develop and communicate knowledge on child representation, promote consensus on the role of the child’s legal representative, and provide one of the first empirically-based analyses of how legal representation for the child might best be delivered. The Center, which is run by the legendary child advocate Don Duquette, has a great website and promises to answer the ...

Current Restitution Law is Failing Child Pornography Victims

Legislators and courts have long recognized what common sense makes clear - children depicted in child abuse images[1] are harmed not only by the sexual abuse captured by the images, but also by the subsequent distribution, possession, and viewing of the images of their abuse.[2] Legislators and courts have similarly recognized the importance of awarding restitution to victims who are harmed by crime to help make them whole, and to aid in their recovery.[3] Thus, it seems a straightforward proposition that children depicted in child abuse images should be awarded restitution from their offenders, including those offenders who possess and view their ...

Investigation Confirms Wikipedia-Pedophile Connection

According to a FOXNews.com exclusive investigation, inspired in part by this blog's April 20th post Wikipedophilia: Wikipedia has become home base for a loose worldwide network of pedophiles who are campaigning to spin the popular online encyclopedia in their favor and are trying to lure more people into their world, an investigation by FoxNews.com confirms. Chat room posts show a clear effort by pedophiles to use Wikipedia, which can be accessed unfiltered in public schools across the country, to further their agenda. Message board posts often include links to specific Wikipedia articles that the participants say need to be edited to "normalize" ...

Masha Allen’s Long-Running Lawsuit Dismissed

Almost two years after a federal lawsuit was filed to secure the civil legal justice demanded by Congress in 2006, Masha Allen's federal lawsuit was dismissed today--incredibly--for "failure to properly plead a basis for federal jurisdiction." Despite the trenchant involvement of a reconstructed legal team consisting of much-sought after guardian ad litem Cambria County bankruptcy attorney Timothy J. Sloan (who replaced Masha's former mother Faith Allen as lead plaintiff), Georgia attorneys David S. Bills (who blogs anonymously about Masha's case at poundpuplegacy.org), William Q. Bird and Darren Summerville (who were originally hired by Faith Allen ...

Sexting Student Sues School

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit today against Pennsylvania school district for searching a student's confiscated cell phone without probable cause and punishing her for storing semi-nude pictures of herself on the device. The school subsequently turned her phone over to George Skumanick Jr., at the time the Wyoming County district attorney, who threatened to file felony child pornography charges against the girl unless she took a class on sexual violence. The Third Circuit recently threw out the prosecutor's case. "Students do not lose their privacy rights at the schoolhouse door," said Witold Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania's Legal Director and ...

International Adoption Law Update: L.M.B. v. E.R.J.

This unusual international adoption case, which was recently decided by New York's highest court, has far-reaching implications for current and future best-practices as well as important policy implications. In L.M.B. v. E.R.J., 2010 NY Slip Op 1345; 14 N.Y.3d 100 (February 16, 2010), the New York Court of Appeals was called upon to untangle a New York adoption by ERJ (mother) and a Cambodian adoption by LMB (father). Each adoptive parent, who were never married to one another, claimed to be the child's only legal parent. The child, Doe, was found abandoned in Cambodia and brought to New York by ERJ for medical treatment. Subsequently ERJ and her ...