The Constitution and Direct Wine Shipments
    There are many constitutional issues kicking around the court systems these days. One such issue involves the constitutionality of preventing out-of-state wineries from shipping directly to a consumer. That sale invariably is the result of an internet transaction. Many states have continued to contest the principle of direct sales notwithstanding the number of courts seemingly endorsing the practice on Constitutional grounds. We now have the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to strike down a Massachusetts law allowing only small wineries producing no more than 30,000 gallons of wine to ship directly to the state's consumers. The case is Family Wineries of California v. Jenkins. The decision holds that the state law violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it discriminates against large wineries in favor of smaller Massachusetts wineries.

Deferred Prosecution Agreements Questioned
    In order to fight corporate crime the Department of Justice has a number of options at its disposal. Those options include the use of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements. As a result of such agreements DOJ will generally require a company to follow strict ethical guidelines to reform in lieu of prosecution, a win-win situation for all concerned. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is now questioning whether the use of such agreements are working and has recommended that DOJ develop performance measures to assess the effectiveness of the agreements. While DOJ will go along with the recommendation DOJ continues to believe that, along with prosecution, these agreements are invaluable tools in achieving its strategic objective to combat public and corporate corruption, fraud, economic crime, and cybercrime.

Business Email - Expectation of Privacy
    Most business organizations have either a written email policy or a tacit understanding with its employees that the employer has the right to review company emails but the employee can reasonably use such email for personal use. A recent decision by a federal district court in the District of Columbia has ruled that the employee had a reasonable expectation that emails sent to the employee's lawyer were privileged and were not subject to subpoena by a third party. In short the employee won the right to conceal the emails he sent to his attorney on his employer's computers. The ruling goes against the popular belief that employees have no expectation of privacy on work computers. When an issue of email privacy arises, it is important to analyze the company policy before probing into the "expectation of privacy" considerations. We expect more cases like the DC one to work its way through the courts.