5 things to remember about the big breath-alcohol testing story
Last week, we discussed the New York Times’ major investigation into the reliability of breathalyzer tests around the country. This was a big story because the Times found that breathalyzers from various manufacturers used around the country suffer from the same technical difficulties. Thousands of DUI cases are already being reopened in at least two
Former executive: Juul knowingly sold contaminated vape pods
A former senior vice president for global finance at Juul, the nation’s most prominent maker of e-cigarettes, recently filed a whistleblower lawsuit. He claims he was fired in retaliation for objecting to illegal and unsafe conduct at the company. In particular, he claims that Juul shipped at least a million contaminated nicotine pods, along with others
The Fourth Amendment protects your cellphone
In this new age of technology, people share and store extremely personal information on their cellphones. And nearly every person in Tennessee and across the country has their cellphone on their person at all times. Storing personal information on our cellphones might be handy. However, it could be dangerous when individuals are facing criminal charges.
Did Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary market opioids deceptively?
In September, a judge in Oklahoma ruled that Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, caused a public nuisance with its two opioid medications, Duragesic and Nucynta. He also ruled that the company had marketed these drugs deceptively. The Judge ordered J&J and Janssen to pay $572 million in damages to the State. Since the Oklahoma
J&J challenges its own Baby Powder recall
In mid-October, Johnson & Johnson announced a voluntary recall of some 33,000 bottles of its Baby Powder after the FDA discovered trace amounts of asbestos in a bottle bought online. That was the first time J&J had recalled the product, despite thousands of legal claims that the company’s talc-based products have been tainted with asbestos
New York Times: DUI breath tests often inaccurate, exaggerated
In 2010, when a new person was brought in to run Washington, D.C.’s breath testing program, his first priority was to test the city’s Intoxilyzer machines for accuracy. He was astounded to discover that every machine was exaggerating the test results, entering numbers that were 20 to 40 percent higher than the actual result. This
Tennessee Innocence Project to help the wrongfully convicted
States with similar incarceration rates to that of Tennessee have far more exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations. For example, there have been 61 exonerations of North Carolina defendants, 57 of people convicted in Louisiana, and 96 exonerations from Michigan. Only 21 exonerations are listed from Tennessee It’s unlikely that our courts are
What are the early signs of a vaping-related illness?
For years, e-cigarette companies like Juul advertised their products as a safer alternative to smoking. However, that statement has been proven false in just the last few months. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vaping-related illnesses have been connected to over 1,200 injuries and 26 fatalities across the country. This is an
Update on the litigation surrounding Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson has been a household name for nearly 75 years, and for much of that time it enjoyed a good reputation. In the 1980s, J&J was applauded for its handling of the Tylenol crisis, when someone tampered with a small number of bottles of the pain killer and seven people were killed by
Soon all new cars could come with breathalyzers
If you’re convicted of driving drunk in Tennessee, the court is likely to order you to install an ignition interlock device (IID) on your car. Much like a roadside breathalyzer test, an IID requires you to breathe into the device to get a reading on how much alcohol is in your breath. This is then