Attorney Jacalyn Crecelius is the new leader of the Veterans Legal Services Unit at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.

The program began in 2019 in connection with the Florida Veterans Legal Helpline funded through the state Department of Veterans Affairs.

“My goal is to further develop the unit into one that veterans and those advocating for them know they can trust for honest, strong and compassionate support,” said Crecelius.

Prior to joining JALA, Crecelius practiced family law, security clearance defense and insurance and health care law with Florida Women’s Law Group and The Edmunds Law Firm.

She graduated from Otterbein University

Brian McIntyre’s future as Cochise County’s top prosecutor was thrown into question after Sierra Vista police arrested the county attorney on suspicion of DUI in the early morning of Jan. 28.

Officers arrested and cited McIntyre for “super extreme” DUI after he was found to have a blood-alcohol concentration of .21% — more than twice the legal limit, according to a police report.

McIntyre provided a written statement through the Sierra Vista Police Department where he lamented his actions.

“For 18 years I have done my best to ensure that choices have consequences,” McIntyre wrote. “My choices will also have

Israel’s attorney general has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he must avoid being involved in an overhaul to the country’s judicial system proposed by his government, saying in a letter made public Thursday that he risks a conflict of interest in his ongoing corruption trial.

Netanyahu’s new far-right government has made changing the legal system a centerpiece of its legislative agenda and despite mounting public criticism, has charged ahead with steps to weaken the Supreme Court and grants politicians less judicial oversight in their policymaking.

Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting

This post was originally published on the RLUIPA Defense blog by Evan Seeman, Esq. of Robinson & Cole, and is reposted with permission.

A district court has ruled that the City of Meriden, Connecticut (the City) discriminated against Omar Islamic Center Inc. following the City’s denial of the Islamic Center’s application to move its mosque to another location. The Islamic Center (the Center) outgrew its prior location – a 1,200 square foot space above a pizza restaurant in a neighboring city – and was unable to accommodate the members of the assembly, the number of students interested in its Quran

This post was originally published on the RLUIPA Defense blog by Evan Seeman, Esq. and Madeleine Laffitte, Esq. of Robinson Cole and is reposted with permission.

On December 30, 2022, a district court dismissed a Catholic high school’s RLUIPA challenge, granting summary judgment on all claims in favor of the City of Madison, Wisconsin and various other city officials (the City). As ruled by the court, the City did not discriminate against Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart, Inc. on the basis of religion when it was denied Edgewood’s latest conditional use permit application for outdoor lighting at the

This post was originally published in Municipal Minute by Julie Tappendorf, Esq. of Ancel Glink and is reposted with permission

In Xochi, LLC v. City of Galena, the Illinois Appellate Court found the City immune from liability under the Tort Immunity Act for claims relating to a zoning approval relating to a cannabis dispensary and upheld the dismissal of the case against the City.

Xochi owned a building in the City of Galena which it agreed to lease to Veriflife, who intended to operate a cannabis dispensary. Verilife asked the City to complete a zoning form to certify that local

Attorney General Keith Ellison is on the verge of what he calls a huge, early victory in his second term, with the DFL-majority Legislature pushing to give him money he’s long sought to hire more lawyers for criminal prosecutions.

“We’re hitting in a new gear,” Ellison said in a recent interview. “We’re going in the same direction, but we’re going there faster and more efficiently.”

So far, he’s on a smoother path than his first term, which was shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and a GOP-controlled Senate that rebuffed his requests

This post originally appeared in Municipal Minute by Julie Tappendorf, Esq. of Ancel Glink and is reposted with permission.

We have written a number of posts on Municipal Minute discussing the US Supreme Court’s rulings in cases challenging municipal sign codes under the First Amendment. In 2015, we reported on the Court’s decision in Reed v. Gilbert that struck down the Town of Gilbert, Arizona’s temporary sign regulations. The Reed case had afterward been applied by a number of courts across the country in challenges to municipal sign regulations where sign companies and others made an argument that the challenged