Texas’ revamped voter ID law is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. The judge, Nelva Gonzales Ramos, issued an injunction, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution. Gonzales Ramos also blocked another Texas voter ID law, which passed in 2011 and took effect in 2013. A number of subsequent legal challenges have largely blocked that law.

The protracted legal battle over Texas and its voter ID laws–among the toughest in the country–represents a larger voter fraud debate, playing out at both at the state and federal levels. Critics of voter ID laws say Republican-controlled states are deliberately stymying minorities from voting, because they are more likely to vote Democratic. Proponents of voter ID laws say voter fraud is rampant and must be kept in check with tougher voting standards.

Gonzales Ramos said Texas’ updated law, which was set to take effect in January, “remains discriminatory because it imposes burdens disproportionately on blacks and Latinos.” She added that the revisions made in the updated law, known as Senate Bill 5, do not “fully relieve minorities of the burden of discriminatory featured” of the 2011 law.

“The court thus issues injunctive relief to prevent ongoing violations of federal law and the recurrence of illegal behavior,” she wrote in the ruling.

Gonzales Ramos tossed the 2011 law, Senate Bill 14, in 2014. A circuit court affirmed the decision, but asked Ramos and the District Court for the Southern District of Texas to reexamine its discriminatory purpose. In April, Gonzales Ramos once again ruled that the law intentionally discriminated against minorities.

The original law required Texas voters to show one of seven forms of government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license or a passport. Critics contend minorities are less likely to have any of the seven ID options, and thus would be disproportionately barred from voting. The revamped law offered more options for identification, including utility bills or bank statements. Still, Gonzales Ramos found the law to be too restrictive.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has vigorously fought the legal challenges to the voter ID laws over the past few years. In a statement, he called Wednesday’s ruling “outrageous,” and vowed to appeal the decision. He also cited the Justice Department’s support of the law. Paxton added: “Safeguarding the integrity of elections in Texas is essential to preserving our democracy.”

Voting rights activists, civil rights groups, and a number of Democratic politicians cheered the decision. U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX), issued a statement saying, “Republican state leaders’ transparent efforts to make it harder and less likely that some Texans will vote are disgraceful.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of controversial alt-right writer Milo Yiannopoulos, a decision that surprised and upset many. The organization claims that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) violated Yiannopoulos’ right to free speech by removing ads for his new book from the transit system. The ads were not removed until after people had complained about them.

Yiannopoulos, the outspoken Breitbart editor, has made controversial comments about many groups, including feminists, women, trans people, and gay people. Ironically, he’s slammed the ACLU in the past.

The ACLU routinely defends the First Amendment rights of people not sharing its political views, which lean to the left. The organization has so far tended to be critical of the Trump Administration. But it also makes a point of defending the constitutional rights of everyone, regardless of ideology. “When we give government the power to regulate speakers based on their identity or their perceived level of offense, it reduces speech for all of us,” Lee Rowland, a staff attorney at the ACLU, pointed out.

But the decision to defend Milo–a man who has said that transgender people are mentally ill and that feminism is a cancer–was too much even for some people working at the ACLU. On Wednesday, attorney Chase Strangio posted a statement criticizing the decision on Twitter.

“Milo preys on the deep-seated hatred for Black people, other people of color, trans people, immigrants, Muslim people and women that is sadly a central tenet of our social fabric and political system,” Strangio wrote. “He is vile. And I am sorry for any platform and validation that he receives.”

Here is my personal statement on today’s ACLU lawsuit defending that horrible person. I speak only for myself. pic.twitter.com/4KzsoqnmUn

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) August 9, 2017

A lot of people seemed to agree with Strangio and many longtime supporters declared that they do not see the point in working with someone who is so hateful against so many.

You have literally no reason to include him in this case except to grab headlines and milk his fans for donation dollars.

— Lulu Diavolo (@SatansJacuzzi) August 9, 2017

As a long-time ACLU supporter, I could not possibly disagree more. What a wrong-headed position. https://t.co/j96WlB8gtN

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 10, 2017

But others saw the value in always standing up for First Amendment rights.

I cannot STAND this guy. But he has the right to speak, just like we all do.

— Deletrix (@DeletrixV) August 10, 2017

Arthur Spitzer, who is acting as lead counsel on the case, said that it is important to keep defending the constitutional rights of even those who are seen as the most despicable. “We always get some when we defend unpopular people. When we recently supported the Redskins’ right to keep their registered trademarks, we got similar reactions, internally and externally,” he said.

After Strangio’s statement went public, some questioned how it’s okay for him to express views that run counter to his employer’s. Spitzer said the ACLU has 1,000 employees and that it would be impossible for everyone to agree on every case they take. He said all employees and board members can always use their right to free speech to state their opinions, as long as they are clear that it’s their personal opinion and not that of the ACLU, which Strangio did.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Trump’s tweets get him in trouble all the time. But his recent tweets about banning trans individuals from serving in the military have now led to a lawsuit in federal court. The National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates filed a lawsuit on behalf of five active trans service members in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia on Wednesday.

The plaintiffs argue that Trump’s directive is unconstitutional, as it violates the due process clause and the equal protection clause. According to the lawsuit, the five servicemembers have all  “followed protocol in informing their chain of command that they are transgender. They did so in reliance on the United States’ express promises that it would permit them to continue to serve their country openly. These servicemembers, like many others, have built their lives around their military service.”

Trump’s tweets were muddled, and sudden. The three tweet chain didn’t provide any information for how exactly a ban would be implemented, or what it would mean for trans individuals already serving.

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

The announcement blindsided the Pentagon and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since that tweet storm, none of those questions appear to have been answered. The Department of Defense says it is still waiting for formal guidance. But the fear and panic that trans military members felt was real, and the lawsuit argues that the tweet-based directive “already resulted in immediate, concrete injury to Plaintiffs by unsettling and destabilizing plaintiffs’ reasonable expectation of continued service.”

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief stating that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect against employment discrimination based on sexuality.

The brief was in response to Donald Zarda’s lawsuit against his employer, a skydiving company called Altitude Express. Zarda believed that the company fired him in 2010 after he told a female customer that he was gay. According to trial documents, he did this so that the customer would not be uncomfortable that he was strapped so tightly to her.

Zarda died in 2014 in a skydiving accident. Two executors of his estate continued the lawsuit on his behalf. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is currently hearing the case.

The New York district court originally dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Zarda could not file under Title VII because the act does not cover sexual orientation. The Justice Department’s brief encouraged the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court’s ruling.

“The sole question here is whether, as a matter of law, Title VII reaches sexual orientation discrimination. It does not, as has been settled for decades. Any efforts to amend Title VII’s scope should be directed to Congress rather than the courts,” the brief says.

It goes on to add that since Congress never specified anything to do with sexual orientation in the act, the courts cannot act independently to change it.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The legislation does not specify the exact meaning of “sex.” However, “in common ordinary usage, the word means only ‘biologically male or female,'” the brief continues.

But the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that Title VII does protect sexuality. “It would require considerable calisthenics to remove the ‘sex’ from ‘sexual orientation,'” Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote.

James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project, said in a statement that he was relieved that the courts could interpret the Civil Rights Act, rather than Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the rest of the Trump Administration.

“We are confident that the courts will side with equality and the people,” he concluded.

The Justice Department filed the brief the same day that President Donald Trump tweeted his ban on transgender service people in the military.

Delaney Cruickshank

Delaney Cruickshank is a Staff Writer at Law Street Media and a Maryland native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in History with minors in Creative Writing and British Studies from the College of Charleston. Contact Delaney at DCruickshank@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Tuesday, a federal appeals court issued an injunction on a statute that would have severely limited gun rights in the District of Columbia. The 2-1 ruling represents a victory for Second Amendment advocates, and another setback in the effort to curb gun rights in the nation’s capital.

The D.C. measure in question is commonly referred to as a “good reason” clause. It directs the police chief to set guidelines to limit gun possession in the city, making an exception for those who could justify carrying a weapon. But a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Supreme Court’s guidance made clear that such a law would violate the Second Amendment.

Writing for the majority, Judge Thomas Griffith cited a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down D.C.’s 32-year ban on handguns.

The District of Columbia v. Heller ruling proved that “the Second Amendment erects some absolute barriers that no gun law may breach,” wrote Griffith.

He added, “At the Second Amendment’s core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions.”

Gun rights in D.C. have followed a pattern over the last decade: the city passes an ordinance to curb gun rights; the ordinance is blocked in court. From 1976 to 2008, handguns were banned in D.C.

With the Heller ruling, D.C. repealed its ban, and issued a new ordinance that made it impossible to obtain a permit to carry outside the home. In 2014, that measure was ruled unconstitutional. In response, D.C. amended the ordinance, making permits available to those who could show “good cause” to carry a handgun.

Unsurprisingly, gun advocates cheered the court’s decision. Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said in a statement that “the opinion makes it clear that the Second Amendment’s core generally covers carrying in public for self-defense.”

He added: “To read the majority opinion and not come away convinced that such ‘good reason’ or ‘good cause’ requirements are just clever ways to prevent honest citizens from exercising their rights is not possible.” 

But Judge Karen Henderson argued in her dissent that, “the sole Second Amendment ‘core’ right is the right to possess arms for self-defense in the home.”

She added: “By characterizing the Second Amendment right as most notable and most acute in the home, the Supreme Court necessarily implied that that right is less notable and less acute outside the home.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on Monday that state law enforcement cannot hold undocumented immigrants just to buy time for federal authorities to take them into custody.

The ruling–seen as a victory for immigration advocates–is believed to be the first court decision in the country to forbid local authorities from enforcing federal immigration laws. The court ruled that such enforcement would result in a second detainment that state law does not authorize.

“Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from state custody,” the court wrote in its decision.

A “federal civil immigration detainer” is a written request from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to a local jail or law enforcement agency to hold an arrested undocumented immigrant for up to 48 hours, until federal agents can retrieve the detainee. Police departments and court officers are usually given guidance by state officials on how to respond to these requests. Some end up complying. In Massachusetts, for example, state police have held 27 people on detainers as of June 2016.

Other departments, on the other hand, will ignore these requests and release undocumented immigrants before ICE can detain them. Some localities–commonly known as “sanctuary cities”–have faced scrutiny from the Trump Administration, which has threatened to block federal funding. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has claimed sanctuary cities make the country less safe. But now sanctuary cities have a legal basis for their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration officials, as a result of this ruling.

The Massachusetts case revolved around Sreynuon Lunn, an immigrant from Cambodia. Boston Police arrested Lunn last year on larceny charges, and detained him until his trial. The case was dismissed in February after prosecutors were unable to get the alleged victim to come to court.

Lunn should have been freed, but was held for hours after his case was dismissed because of an ICE detainer issued against him. He was taken into custody by immigration authorities, but has since been released without being deported. Though Monday’s decision does not directly affect Lunn, the case persisted because prosecutors and the court knew it would set guidelines for similar situations in the future.

“This court decision sets an important precedent that we are a country that upholds the Constitution and the rule of law,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. “At a time when the Trump Administration is pushing aggressive and discriminatory enforcement policies, Massachusetts is leading nationwide efforts by limiting how state and local law enforcement assist with federal immigration enforcement.”

Naturally, ICE was quick to speak out against the court’s decision. “While ICE is currently reviewing this decision to determine next steps, this ruling weakens local law enforcement agencies’ ability to protect their communities,” C.M. Cronen, the field office director for ICE in Boston, said in a statement.

Massachusetts is not the first state court system to rule on ICE detainers. Both California and Connecticut have statewide laws that limit who can be held at ICE’s request. Those laws also state that detainer requests are not binding for state and local officials. Boston and Cambridge each have similar citywide laws as well.

However, the state legislature could still undo this ruling if they choose to pass a law allowing Massachusetts state police to honor ICE detainers. Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County–an outspoken critic of undocumented immigrants–is currently working on legislation with three Republican state lawmakers.

“It will make the Commonwealth safer if we can get this bill passed by the legislature, which authorizes court officers and law enforcement officers to honor ICE detainers,” Sheriff Hodgson said.

As comments on immigration policy begin to focus on safety, it should be worth noting the Cato Institute found in 2015 that immigrants as a whole–both legal and undocumented–commit less crimes than native-born Americans. Additionally, a University of California analysis of federal data found that sanctuary cities are often safer than non-sanctuary cities.

Gabe Fernandez

Gabe is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a Peruvian-American Senior at the University of Maryland pursuing a double degree in Multiplatform Journalism and Marketing. In his free time, he can be found photographing concerts, running around the city, and supporting Manchester United. Contact Gabe at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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When Pokémon Go debuted last summer, the mobile game spread across the world–as of April 2017, more than 65 million people were playing, according to Business Insider. The game got people to exercise outside as they pursued Pokémon, but there were also some safety issues because of its augmented reality style.

Milwaukee County enacted an ordinance in February to curb the presence of Pokémon Go-style games in the city. According to the ordinance, game developers would be required to apply for a permit for augmented reality games, like Pokémon Go, to be played in parks.

But last week, U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller halted the ordinance because he said it may violate the First Amendment. Stadtmueller issued a preliminary injunction that the county cannot enforce the measure until a lawsuit between the county and Candy Lab Inc., which develops augmented reality games, is finished.

Candy Lab Inc. filed the lawsuit in response to the county’s ordinance, according to a local Fox affiliate. Under the county’s order, companies must also obtain a “certificate of insurance” worth $1 million of “general liability coverage,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Milwaukee County board supervisor Sheldon Wasserman filed the ordinance because the county was struggling to police activity in parks that doubled as “Pokémon centers” or “Pokémon gyms” for the game. The main issues included “traffic congestion, parking issues, littering, damaged turf, risks to natural habitats, lack of restrooms, and noncompliance with park system operational hours,” according to a report by Milwaukee County Parks. 

Milwaukee County is by far the largest in Wisconsin, home to over 16 percent of the state’s population. Other areas of the country have also experienced safety issues stemming from the game, which can distract people as they walk at night. Last year, three University of Maryland students were robbed at gun point on campus in a one-hour span while playing the game, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The federal judge wasn’t swayed by the public safety issues, however. Instead, Stadtmueller recommends that the county allocate resources to remedying the issue instead of putting the pressure on the companies:

Rather than prohibit publication of the game itself, the County could address its concerns by directly regulating the objectionable downstream conduct. … This might include aggressively penalizing gamers who violate park rules or limiting gamers to certain areas of the park. Such measures would assuage the alleged evils visited upon the parks by gamers while stifling less expression than the Ordinance does.

One issue Stadtmueller brought up in his decision was how broad the restrictions were. For a law such as this to be constitutional, he said, it must be narrowly-tailored to the specific issue and content neutral. The judge didn’t feel that was the case. Stadtmueller believes the current restrictions are too “vague” and provide too much censorship power to government officials, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The county claims that the games can’t be considered speech, according to a local Fox affiliate. But Stadtmueller said the plot, characters, and dialogue make the game an expression of free speech.

Despite the decision, Wasserman is still committed to fighting for the ordinance. He said he is particularly intrigued by the groundbreaking nature of the case and the potential ramifications.

“I’ve also been told by the lawyers that this case is getting so hot, and that it brings up so many constitutional questions, that this has the potential to go all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Wasserman said.

Only 10 years ago it would have seemed impossible that people would walk around with their phones catching virtual Pokémon and visiting parks or buildings to battle other gamers. But now that is a reality local governments are facing.

Whichever direction the court proceeds, it will have a ripple effect across the gaming and mobile application industry. Because of the initial injunction, though, Pokémon Go fans can rejoice and continue to enjoy the application wherever, and whenever, they want.

Josh Schmidt

Josh Schmidt is an editorial intern and is a native of the Washington D.C Metropolitan area. He is working towards a degree in multi-platform journalism with a minor in history at nearby University of Maryland. Contact Josh at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A federal district court judge in Texas upheld a state law allowing residents to carry concealed handguns on university campuses on July 7, after three University of Texas at Austin professors sought to ban guns from their classrooms.

The plaintiffs, Professors Jennifer Glass, Lisa Moore, and Mia Carter, argued that “classroom discussion will be narrowed, truncated, cut back, cut off” if guns are allowed in classrooms. The defendants, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves, and the university’s Board of Regents, defended the law’s implementation at UT-Austin.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel said the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they had suffered an “injury in fact” and had not established that there was a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of” that could be traced to the defendants.

In other words, the plaintiffs failed to show beyond speculation that they would be harmed by the concealed carry of handguns, or that concealed carry could be connected to having a “chilling effect” on classroom discussions. Therefore, Yeakel ruled that the “plaintiffs present no concrete evidence to substantiate their fears” and that they did not have standing to sue the defendants.

“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said in a statement. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”

Texas passed a law in 2015 allowing licensed concealed handgun owners who are at least 21 years old to carry a concealed handgun on campus. The law prohibits institutions from creating rules that restrict gun owners’ right to carry a concealed handgun on campus, except for rules pertaining to the storage of handguns in dorms and residence halls.

The controversial bill was met with opposition from gun control advocates, but gun rights supporters won out in the end when Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in June 2015. Still, the fight against the “campus carry” law continued. UT-Austin students protested the law in August 2016 by organizing a “Cocks Not Glocks” demonstration during which they handed out more than 4,500 donated dildos, according to the Texas Tribune.

“We want these dildos on backpacks as long as there are concealed handguns in backpacks,” UT-Austin student Ana López, who helped organized the protest, told the Texas Tribune at the time.

Under UT policies, the concealed carry of handguns is permitted on campus and in university buildings, but is prohibited in all on-campus residence halls, with some exceptions: staff members and visiting family members may carry a concealed handgun, and concealed carry of handguns is permitted in common areas. Unless the plaintiffs appeal the ruling, concealed carry will remain at UT-Austin and other Texas universities.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A Miami judge ruled on Monday that new revisions to Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law are unconstitutional. Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the amended “Stand Your Ground” law on June 9,  requiring prosecutors to prove a defendant wasn’t acting in self-defense at pretrial hearings.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Milton Hirsch held that the legislative changes altered the burden of proof in “Stand Your Ground” cases, raising the threshold “from mere preponderance of the evidence to clear and convincing evidence.” Per Florida’s Constitution, such changes could only be made by the Florida Supreme Court, not the state legislature, and were therefore unconstitutional, Hirsch said. In outlining the necessity for a separation of powers among the three branches of government, Hirsch even referenced a paper about the Ministry of Magic’s judicial overreach in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

Hirsch’s ruling comes as the result of two “Stand Your Ground” cases in his court. Liletha Rutherford was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and grand theft for pulling a gun on a couple during an argument. Omar Rodriguez was charged with first-degree murder for shooting and killing Jose Rey over an argument about Rey’s dog. Rodriguez claimed Rey charged at him with a knife. Police recovered a knife at the crime scene, but discovered Rodriguez’s DNA on the knife, not Rey’s.

Florida lawmakers reacted to the ruling on social media. State Senator Rob Bradley, who sponsored one of the amendments to the “Stand Your Ground” law, said in a tweet that the court’s ruling “attacks the Legislature’s role in defining and protecting our individual rights.”

Today’s Miami trial court ruling attacks the Legislature’s role in defining and protecting our individual rights. /1

— Rob Bradley (@Rob_Bradley) July 3, 2017

Following Hirsch’s ruling, Rutherford and Rodriguez will now each have to prove they acted in self-defense. Currently, the ruling only applies to those two cases. However, appeals are likely to make their way to appellate courts and the Florida Supreme Court.

The effectiveness of “Stand Your Ground” laws hasn’t exactly been clear. In March, Florida State Senator Dennis Baxley claimed that since Florida’s 2005 “Stand Your Ground” law, “we’ve seen violent crime continuously go down.”

PolitiFact pointed out some flaws in that statement. While violent crime in Florida has dropped a cumulative 34.9 percent from 2005 to 2015, that decrease is not “continuous” as Baxley contends. Data show occasional increases in Florida’s violent crime rate during that 10-year period, however not enough to really counteract that overall decline in violent crime.

That said, PolitiFact also highlighted the fact that national violent crime rates have also been decreasing since the 1990s. It has yet to be proven whether Florida’s decrease in violent crime has been due to its “Stand Your Ground” laws, considering several states with similar drops do not have “Stand Your Ground” laws.

Critics of “Stand Your Ground” say the laws disproportionately benefit defendants who kill black victims compared to those who kill white victims, and often allow defendants to avoid murder charges.

The Tampa Bay Times identified nearly 200 “Stand You Ground” cases. Of those cases, 70 percent of defendants who invoked a “Stand Your Ground” defense were acquitted. Seventy-three percent of defendants who killed a black person faced no penalty, while 59 percent of defendants who killed a white person faced no penalty.

One of the most high-profile “Stand Your Ground” cases involved George Zimmerman, the “neighborhood watchman” who shot and killed 17-year-old black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. Zimmerman did not invoke the “Stand Your Ground” law in his trial, but the judge issued instructions to the jury along the same lines as the law’s language, saying Zimmerman “had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another.” Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in Martin’s death.

“Stand Your Ground” may stay in place in Florida for now, but Hirsch’s ruling could limit the extent to which the law is allowed to reach. The question has the potential to make it to higher courts and get decided once and for all.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A lawsuit challenging Texas’ controversial immigration law made its way to a federal court in San Antonio on Monday.

SB4, which Governor Greg Abbott signed into law on May 7, essentially bans “sanctuary cities” in Texas. While the law does not specifically mention the phrase “sanctuary city,” it does punish local governments, officials, and police who adopt, enforce, or endorse a policy that “prohibits or materially limits the enforcement of immigration laws.” The law is slated to go into effect on September 1.

According to the law, those entities and individuals may not prohibit “peace officers” from asking a person who is lawfully detained or under arrest about their immigration status or place of birth. They also may not impede peace officers from cooperating with a federal immigration officer, or permitting a federal immigration officer to enter a jail to conduct enforcement activities. If they fail to comply with immigration laws, local governments can face fines of up to $25,500 per day of non-compliance, officials may be forced to give up their positions, and police chiefs can be charged with misdemeanors.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the City of El Cenizo, Texas; Mayor Raúl L. Reyes of City of El Cenizo; Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber; Maverick County Constable Pct. 3-1 Mario A. Hernandez; and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). They filed a lawsuit against the defendants–the state of Texas, Abbott, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton–one day after the governor signed SB4.

The lawsuit claims that SB4 puts Texas and its local government officials and entities “at the complete mercy of federal officials,” and violates the Tenth Amendment and due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The lawsuit asserts that Texas “may choose to voluntarily relinquish its retained sovereignty entirely to the federal government,” but cannot force local governments to do so.

The lawsuit also asserted that SB4 threatens community members’ trust in local government and law enforcement officials.

Plaintiffs are safer when all people, including undocumented immigrants, feel safe when their local law enforcement officers can be trusted for reporting crimes or just speaking with them about issues in the community. Plaintiff’s communities are healthier when all residents including undocumented immigrants, access public health programs,  unafraid to seek health care. And Plaintiffs’ communities are economically and socially stronger when all children, including undocumented immigrants, attend school.

The Department of Justice filed a statement of interest on June 23 supporting Texas in the litigation. According to a press release from the DOJ that same day, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained that the DOJ is participating in the lawsuit to facilitate state and local cooperation with national immigration laws.

“President Trump has made a commitment to keep America safe and to ensure cooperation with federal immigration laws,” Sessions wrote in the press release. “Texas has admirably followed his lead by mandating state-wide cooperation with federal immigration laws that require the removal of illegal aliens who have committed crimes.”

In a CNBC commentary piece about SB4, author Julissa Arce expressed her opposition to the law. “SB4 is essentially a ‘show me your papers’ law that is set to create an environment for racial profiling in a state where 10.4 million Hispanic Americans live,” wrote Arce, who is also the co-founder of Ascend Educational Fund, a nonprofit in New York City that provides scholarships to students regardless of their ethnicity, national origin, or immigration status.

Arce expressed hope that the court will rule in favor of the plaintiffs and protect immigrants regardless of their immigration status.

“I believe the Texas that led the country in giving undocumented students an opportunity at higher education, my home state, is the state that will ultimately prevail,” she wrote.

SB4 opponents spoke out against the law at a protest in San Antonio on Monday.

Undocumented youth have come from all over Texas to stand up for communities of color and against SB4. #HereToStay #SB4isHate pic.twitter.com/ut41Wtn8rz

— Yunuen Alvarado (@ysalvarado5) June 26, 2017

On 2nd anniversary of #MarriageEquality I’m proud to be #undocumented & #queer fighting racist laws like #SB4 in TX! #Pride2017#HereToStay pic.twitter.com/PaMnvq4Fry

— Sheridan (@SirSheri) June 26, 2017

Among the crowd were Austin Mayor Steve Adler, and members of the San Antonio and Austin city councils.

LIVE elected officials address crowd #SB4isHate #HeretoStay https://t.co/DbAoIgxEnJ

— Yunuen Alvarado (@ysalvarado5) June 26, 2017

Austin Councilman @GregCasar speaks to protestors against #SB4 this morning before federal judge hears both sides. “Alright let’s do this.” pic.twitter.com/5rrkRtFXoi

— Nick Wagner (@WagsPhoto) June 26, 2017

SA Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Sillar gives an impassioned plea and prayer against #SB4 outside federal courthouse. pic.twitter.com/HNMZXVEoVZ

— Joey Palacios (@Joeycules) June 26, 2017

“We will not accept overt racism embedded in #SB4. Not today not ever.” @LUPE_rgv outside of the courthouse to #BlockSB4#SB4isHatepic.twitter.com/iAYPoHMKPI

— ACLU of Texas (@ACLUTx) June 26, 2017

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, who heard the case, declined to make a decision on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. It is not yet clear when a decision will be handed down.

That same morning, Reverend Jim Rigby, a pastor at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Austin, was charged with a criminal trespassing misdemeanor after he was arrested on May 1 for protesting SB4 in a state office building. Rigby was among about 20 protesters, including immigrants, students, and Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, who were arrested in May for protesting the law.

On May 8, the day after Abbott signed SB4 into law, Paxton filed a lawsuit to uphold the constitutionality of the law. That case will be heard Thursday. These lawsuits could have a huge impact on undocumented immigrants in Texas and set a precedent for other areas that have designated themselves as “sanctuaries.”

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Texas Municipalities Challenge State’s “Sanctuary Cities” Law appeared first on Law Street.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear President Donald Trump’s travel ban case. The hearing will be in October, and until then, the court said parts of the ban will be allowed to go into effect. Trump issued a revised executive order in March, blocking travel from six countries. Two federal courts have since ruled that the ban is unconstitutional and a breach of executive power. The Supreme Court agreed to examine both courts’ decisions.

For the time being, the ban will be reinstated “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” the justices said. A bona fide relationship includes “a close familial relationship” for individuals. For entities, “the relationship must be formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading [the order].”

“The students from the designated countries who have been admitted to the University of Hawaii have such a relationship with an American entity,” the court added.

Trump’s second attempt at stemming travel from a handful of Muslim-majority countries reined in a few of the tenets of his first order, which was originally issued in January. For one, the revised order dropped Iraq from the list of affected countries–Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria.

The order stipulates that residents of the six countries are barred from traveling to the U.S. for 90 days, until stricter vetting procedures are in place. The refugee program will be halted for 120 days, and the number of admitted refugees will drop to 50,000 from about 110,000.

This is Trump’s first travel ban-related victory since he issued the updated order in March. Both orders faced a torrent of opposition–thousands of people hit the streets and packed airports across the country in protest. Trump’s directive fared no better in the courts.

Last month, a federal appeals court, the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, issued an injunction on parts of the travel ban, arguing that it “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination” and violated the First Amendment.

A few weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the ban violated the president’s authority as granted by Congress. The court said Trump “did not meet the essential precondition in exercising his delegated authority,” which requires “a sufficient finding that the entry of these classes of people would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.'”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Thursday, the Supreme Court made it more difficult for the government to strip a naturalized American’s citizenship simply because he or she lied during the naturalization proceedings. The case, Maslenjak v. United States, concerns an ethnic Serbian woman who, fleeing war and prosecution from Bosnia in the 1990s, was granted refugee status in the U.S. in 1999. In 2007, she became a citizen, despite lying about her husband’s service in the Bosnian Serb military.

The court’s unanimous decision largely hinged on the standard on which the case was argued and ruled on by the lower courts. Namely, that any sort of lie, no matter its causal link or lack there of to the granting of citizenship, is enough to revoke a naturalized American’s citizenship. That is how the Justice Department’s lawyer, Robert Parker, argued the case. Those were the grounds on which a district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled. Both sided with the government.

But the Supreme Court fundamentally disagreed that a naturalized citizen’s rights could be revoked based on an immaterial falsehood. It sent the case back to the Sixth Circuit, allowing it to be reviewed on a different standard.

“We hold that the government must establish that an illegal act by the defendant played some role in her acquisition of citizenship,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the unanimous opinion. She continued:

When the illegal act is a false statement, that means demonstrating that the defendant lied about facts that would have mattered to an immigration official, because they would have justified denying naturalization or would predictably have led to other facts warranting that result.

The story begins in 1999, when Divna Maslenjak was granted refugee status. An ethnic Serb fleeing what was then known as Bosnia, Maslenjak said Muslims would mistreat her and her husband because of their ethnicity. At the same time Serbs would punish them because her husband, she claimed, evaded military service. In 2007, Maslenjak and her husband were granted citizenship.

It turns out, however, that Maslenjak did indeed lie about her husband’s circumstances; he served in a Bosnian Serb military unit–one that was accused of committing war crimes. A district court judge ruled that Maslenjak’s falsehood warranted a revocation of her and her husband’s citizenships. The Sixth Circuit, in April 2016, agreed. Their citizenship was revoked, and both Maslenjak and her husband were deported to Serbia.

The Supreme Court’s decision vacates the lower courts’ rulings. In unanimously rejecting the government’s assertion that any lie, regardless of its relevance to citizenship, could lead to revocation, the court strengthened protections for naturalized Americans.

In April, during the arguments for the case, the justices seemed perplexed at the government’s position. In fact, Chief Justice John Roberts confessed to a past misdeed to make a point. “Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” he said.

If on the citizenship form he answered “no” to the question of whether he had ever committed an offense, Roberts asked Parker, “20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, ‘Guess what, you’re not an American citizen after all?” Parker continued to baffle the justices, saying, “If we can prove that you deliberately lied in answering that question, then yes.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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As incidents of police-related violence have become more widely publicized over the past several years, the public’s interest in police accountability has increased alongside it. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recognized this trend on Tuesday and ruled that the public should have access to police dashcam video unless the footage is proven to be related to an ongoing investigation.

A 5-2 majority in the state’s highest court pointed out that there is no blanket rule against these recordings being released. Instead, release decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis where the videos are each analyzed to determine their relationship with any ongoing investigation. However, police have the burden to show why a video is exempt from release.

The case revolved around Michelle Grove, a Pennsylvania woman who requested a copy of a police report as well as any video or audio recordings pertaining to a 2014 car accident she was involved in. She believed at the time that she would receive these documents because of the state’s Right-to-Know Law, which states that commonwealth agencies must provide copies of all public records upon request. Instead, she was denied.

Prior to this ruling, Pennsylvania police officers were denying public access requests that asked for dashcam footage, arguing that anything captured on those cameras were criminal investigative records, which made them exempt under the Right-to-Know Law and the Criminal History Information and Records Act. But the court found in favor of Grove because the video in question only showed state troopers investigating the scene and talking to the drivers and witnesses.

“[Pennsylvania State Police] simply does not explain how the video portion of the [recordings] captured any criminal investigation,” Justice Kevin Dougherty wrote in his majority opinion.

The court did give some leeway to the state police. While the video was released to the public, the court agreed that the audio from the police interviews with the drivers and witnesses did contain investigative information. As a result, the court ruled that any audio of interviews had to be edited out.

Grove’s lawyer, Helen Stolinas, told the AP that the decision is “a decisive victory for the citizens of Pennsylvania and the press to remain aware of the activities of state and local officials and be able to scrutinize how public servants are performing their duties.”

But the ruling comes at the same time that state lawmakers are planning to vote on a bill that creates a blanket exemption from the Right-to-Know Law for police video and audio recordings. Senate Bill 560 passed the state House on Tuesday and now only needs to have its changes approved by the Senate before it is passed to Governor Tom Wolf who believes it is “a step in the right direction,” according to a spokesman. The bill would require anyone who was denied access to police recordings to petition the court for a hearing to appeal to the police directly. The move would cost $125 to initiate and a judge would then have to determine if the requested video’s release outweighed the nondisclosure interest of an individual, law enforcement, or the Commonwealth.

This bill has been met with pushback from the American Civil Liberties Union. Reggie Shuford, director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said the legislation would hide police camera footage from the public, effectively making it just a tool for surveillance.

“If the public cannot obtain video produced by police cameras, they shouldn’t be used at all,” Shuford said in a press release. “While body cameras may be valuable to officers in carrying out their daily duties, the idea of using these cameras came to prominence because people were demanding that police operate with transparency, fairness, and accountability.”

Lawmakers expect SB 560 to be put to vote sometime next week, according to the AP.

Pennsylvania’s relationship with releasing documents from public servants has been complicated, to say the least. Prior to its rewrite in 2009, the state’s Right-to-Know Law had ranked among the worst public information law in the country when it came to giving people access to government records and information because it presumed government records were not public, unless someone who wanted the record could establish otherwise.

Gabe Fernandez

Gabe is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a Peruvian-American Senior at the University of Maryland pursuing a double degree in Multiplatform Journalism and Marketing. In his free time, he can be found photographing concerts, running around the city, and supporting Manchester United. Contact Gabe at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that a law banning the registration of offensive trademarks was unconstitutional. The decision was a victory for the Asian-American dance rock band The Slants–and potentially the Washington Redskins.

Simon Tam, the band’s frontman, filed a lawsuit after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied his application for a trademark for the name “The Slants.” The agency cited the Lanham Act, which prohibits trademarks “which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”

The court ruled in an 8-0 decision that the “disparagement clause” of the Lanham Act violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Justice Samuel Alito, who delivered the majority opinion of the court, said Tam chose the name of the band “to ‘reclaim’ the term and drain its denigrating force.” According to Alito, the ban on offensive trademarks “offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”

The federal government had argued that trademarks are government speech, but Alito wrote to the contrary, saying “trademarks are private, not government speech.” Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer were in agreement on the majority opinion.

While the justices reached a unanimous judgement, they were split on why they believed it violated the first amendment. In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, wrote that the measure in question constitutes “viewpoint discrimination.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not contribute because he had not yet been confirmed as a justice in January when the court heard the case.

The Slants celebrated the victory with a lengthy statement following the ruling. “The Supreme Court has vindicated First Amendment rights not only for our The Slants, but all Americans who are fighting against paternal government policies that ultimately lead to viewpoint discrimination,” wrote Tam.

Tam said the band never considered itself a political group, but that “the establishment of an Asian American band was a political act in of itself.” As a result, the band has integrated activism into their work by raising awareness and funds for issues affecting Asian Americans.

“Music is the best way we know how to drive social change: it overcomes social barriers in  a way that mob-mentality and fear-based political rhetoric never can,” Tam said.

The Slants’ trademark case could also impact other controversially named groups like the Washington Redskins, which has been in jeopardy of losing its team name for being racially offensive.

In 2014, the Patent and Trademark Office canceled the team’s trademark because the team’s name is a derogatory term for Native Americans. The Redskins appealed the case, but the federal appeals court had delayed hearing it until the Supreme Court ruled in Tam’s case.

Redskins attorney Lisa Blatt said the Supreme Court’s decision “resolves the Redskins’ long-standing dispute with the government.”

“The Supreme Court vindicated the team’s position that the First Amendment blocks the government from denying or cancelling a trademark registration based on the government’s opinion,” said Blatt.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Monday, the Supreme Court announced it will hear an appeal regarding political gerrymandering, in what legal experts say could be the most consequential such case in decades. It could alter the tradition of political parties redrawing voting districts for their political advantage. The case, Gill v. Whitford, concerns Wisconsin’s legislature and its gerrymandering efforts in 2011.

In 2010, Republicans gained control of Wisconsin’s legislature for the first time in four decades. After the census, they redrew the state’s voting districts, and in 2012, despite winning less than 50 percent of the vote, Republicans captured 60 of the legislature’s 99 seats. In 2014, Republicans won 52 percent of the vote and increased their state assembly majority to 63 seats.

It is a common practice for state legislatures to redraw voting districts to confer an advantage on the governing party. Redistricting commonly takes place after the once-a-decade census is conducted. The Supreme Court has never struck down districts because of partisan advantage. However, it has, as recently as this year, nixed districts that were devised in order to dilute the vote of minority populations.

In May, the Supreme Court struck down two districts in North Carolina, affirming a lower court’s decision that the Republican-controlled legislature drew the map to dilute the influence of African-American voters.

Last November, a federal district court ruled that Republicans’ 2011 gerrymandering effort in Wisconsin crossed a line and was unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, the court found that the districts were drawn in order to minimize the influence of Democratic votes, and were “designed to make it more difficult for Democrats, compared to Republicans, to translate their votes into seats,” the majority opinion concluded.

“Although a majority of the [Supreme Court] has suggested that states can violate the Constitution if they draw legislative districts primarily to benefit one political party, the justices have never been able to identify the specific point at which states cross the constitutional line,” Steve Vladeck, a Supreme Court analyst and law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, told CNN. “In this case, a lower court held that Wisconsin had indeed crossed that line.”

According to the plaintiffs in Gill v. Whitford, Republicans in Wisconsin accomplished their politically-motivated gerrymandering via two techniques: packing and cracking. Packing is fairly self-explanatory: the state legislature stuffs the opposition party’s voters into a single district, thus diluting each individual vote. Cracking is the practice of spreading opposition votes in districts where the governing party enjoys a majority, keeping those votes out of districts that could swing either way.

In a statement released Monday, Wisconsin’s Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel said the state’s redistricting was constitutional. He said: “I am thrilled the Supreme Court has granted our request to review the redistricting decision and that Wisconsin will have an opportunity to defend its redistricting process.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a federal immigration law that made it easier for children of U.S. citizen mothers to obtain citizenship than children of U.S. citizen fathers.

Per the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the citizenship of children born outside of the United States to one U.S. citizen parent and one parent who is a citizen of another nation is decided differently depending on whether the U.S. citizen parent is the child’s mother or father. A child of a U.S. citizen mother would automatically become a U.S. citizen as long as the mother had lived in the U.S. for one year. However, a child of a U.S. citizen father would only automatically become a U.S. citizen if the father had lived in the U.S. for five years before the child was born, and if at least two of those years had occurred after the father had turned 14.

In an 8-0 decision in Sessions v. Morales-Santana, the Court held that such a “gender line” was “incompatible” with the Equal Protections Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and was therefore unconstitutional. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not contribute because he had not yet been confirmed as a justice in November 2016 when the court heard the case.

Luis Ramón Morales-Santana has lived in the U.S. since he was 13. When Morales-Santana was born, the requirement was that fathers needed to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before the child was born, five of which had to be after the age of 14–as opposed to the current requirement of five years in the U.S., including two after age 14.

His father, José Morales, moved to the Dominican Republic just 20 days before turning 19 and, therefore, did not meet the earlier requirement of living in the U.S. for at least five years after turning 14. Without his father satisfying that requirement, Morales-Santana was not considered a U.S. citizen. The U.S. government attempted to remove Morales-Santana from the country in 2000 based on several criminal convictions.

Morales-Santana asserted that the U.S. government’s refusal to grant him citizenship violated the Equal Protections Clause because it hinged on gender based classification of his parentage. Had Morales-Santana’s mother been a U.S. citizen and lived in the country for one year, he would have already been considered a citizen.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion of the court in which she explained that laws granting or denying benefits based on the sex of a parent are subject to “heightened scrutiny.”

Before 1940, Ginsburg said, standards for citizenship of children born abroad were rooted in two gender based assumptions. “In marriage, husband is dominant, wife subordinate; unwed mother is the natural and sole guardian of a nonmarital child,” Ginsburg wrote, describing those assumptions. Children of married parents derived their citizenship status from their fathers, while children of unwed parents derived their citizenship status from their mothers.

The Nationality Act of 1940 eliminated fathers’ sole control over children’s citizenship, instead allowing either married U.S. citizen mothers or fathers to pass citizenship on to their child. The Act also codified unwed mothers’ ability to pass citizenship on to their child, but did not do so for unwed fathers since mothers were regarded as children’s sole guardians in cases in which the parents were not married.

The U.S. government argued that when a child is born to unwed parents, the mother is the only legally recognized parent at the child’s birth; the father is acknowledged after the fact. Ginsburg explained that, according to the U.S. government’s argument, the lengthier residency requirement for U.S. citizen fathers is warranted due to the “‘competing national influence’ of the alien mother.”

However, Ginsburg wrote that the assumption is based on “the long-held view that unwed fathers care little about, indeed are strangers to, their children.” Such a characterization, she says, “no longer passes equal protection inspection.”

The Court held that the gender-based distinction violated the equal protection clause, but did not decide whether the requirement for U.S. citizen mothers should be applied equally to fathers.

Ginsburg said Congress had made an exception for unwed mothers, but not for unwed fathers. Therefore, it is up to Congress, not the Court, to decide whether the standard for unwed mothers should be extended to unwed fathers.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A Milo Yiannopoulos supporter filed a lawsuit on Monday against regents of the University of California, Berkeley for $23 million. Kiara Robles, the plaintiff, says the school infringed on her First Amendment rights when a protest erupted on campus last February.

The protest, which drew over 1,500 students, was a response to the controversial invitation the Berkeley College Republicans student group sent to Yiannopoulos, asking him to speak at the campus. Yiannopoulos, a long-standing fan of President Donald Trump and a self-described cultural libertarian, is a former senior editor of alt-right media source Breitbart.

He gained prominence because of his highly controversial comments on women, Islam, homosexuality, and religion. He once said “gay rights have made us dumber” and called transgender people mentally ill.

Robles was pepper-sprayed during the Berkeley protest and says she and her friends were targeted during the clash because they hold and express conservative views. She was planning on attending Yiannopoulos’ talk before the Berkeley police department canceled the event citing security concerns.

More peaceful protests mad at capitalism. #miloatcal pic.twitter.com/1qrdJ5zeJ8

— Kiara Robles ಠ_ಠ (@kiarafrobles) February 2, 2017

https://twitter.com/kiarafrobles/status/827418775230099456

The lawsuit states that the defendants, which includes local law enforcement, billionaire George Soros, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for allegedly institutionalizing Robles’ concerns, have subjected “students and invitees who do not subscribe to the radical, left wing philosophies … to severe violence and bodily harm for merely expressing a differing viewpoint.”

“She was assaulted,” Robles’ lawyer told The San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday. “The California university system, and in part, Berkeley, is out of control, and they’re facilitating, if not inciting, violence, and the campus police sit around twiddling their thumbs.”

The university said in a statement that it will mount a strong defense “contesting this collection of false claims.”

This lawsuit comes at a time when freedom of speech debates are increasingly common on college campuses and the media. Liberal students’ requests for “safe spaces” and outright bans on perceived hate speech have raised questions regarding whether or not other students’ freedom of expression rights are being curtailed.

Hitting at the heart of the debate and opposing Robles, Jonathan Gow, a UC Berkeley sophomore, said “when it’s hate speech, our free speech is to shut him down,” about the Yiannopoulos protests at Berkeley.

Last Friday, late-night talk show host Bill Maher, who said he would soon invite Yiannopoulos back on his show, was caught up in a similar controversy when he said the N-word on live television. Many outraged viewers called for his show to be canceled or for him to step down, while others said self-censorship of this word placed a limitation on individual freedom of speech.

Yiannopoulos has often found himself at the center of these debates, on and off campuses. Recently, he announced he would resort to self-publishing his new book “Dangerous” after the provocateur lost his controversial Simon and Schuster book deal when videos surfaced of him seemingly defending pedophilia. On Tuesday, the book was at the top of Amazon’s best-seller list in the humor category.

Celia Heudebourg

Celia Heudebourg is an editorial intern for Law Street Media. She is from Paris, France and is entering her senior year at Macalester College in Minnesota where she studies international relations and political science. When she’s not reading or watching the news, she can be found planning a trip abroad or binge-watching a good Netflix show. Contact Celia at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Supreme Court will hear a case concerning cellphone privacy rights, and whether the government must secure a warrant to obtain a private individual’s location tracking data from that person’s cellphone company.

In Carpenter v. United States, the case the Supreme Court will be hearing, Timothy Ivory Carpenter argues that prosecutors in his criminal trial violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they obtained location data from his cellphone company, MetroPCS.

Prosecutors obtained data not just from the days of the crime, but from a range of dates totaling 127 days. Carpenter was convicted in 2013 for his role in a series of cellphone store robberies and sentenced to 116 years in prison in 2014.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that government officials must obtain a warrant to search an individual’s cellphone. However, whether that restriction extends to requesting individuals’ location data from their cellphone providers is murkier territory.

In an age when we are constantly plugged in to technology, some people fear that the electronic devices we use on a daily basis could know more about us than they’re letting on. As the companies in charge of those devices and services store customer data, the dilemma arises of protecting customers’ information versus abiding by federal law.

After two men shot and killed 14 people in San Bernardino in 2015, Apple refused to help the FBI gain access to an iPhone that belonged to one of the attackers, Syed Farook. Apple CEO Tim Cook explained at the time that bypassing the security of Farook’s phone could create a backdoor for any hacker to access anyone else’s iPhone in the future. The FBI eventually accessed Farook’s phone without Apple’s assistance.

While Farook’s and Carpenter’s situations share some parallels regarding cellphone privacy, there is a notable difference between them. Bypassing the San Bernardino attacker’s phone security required the creation of a software that had not existed at the time, software that Cook believed had the potential of exposing other iPhone users to cyber attacks.

Obtaining Carpenter’s location data, on the other hand, merely required information that the phone provider already has available. Still, the issue remains of whether it is constitutional to request that data from cellphone providers.

The Stored Communications Act, enacted as Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, requires prosecutors to go to court to acquire an individual’s tracking data. However, the prosecutor does not have to show probable cause, but must just demonstrate that there are “specific and articulable facts” showing that the contents “are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

A federal appeals court ruled that Carpenter’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated. If the Supreme Court upholds that decision, the government will not require a warrant to obtain cellphone users’ location data from their providers, thus limiting individuals’ cellphone privacy during criminal investigations.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Trump Administration is taking its fight to implement a controversial executive order halting travel from six largely Muslim countries for 120 days to the highest judicial level: the Supreme Court. Lower courts have blocked parts of President Donald Trump’s revised order–he scrapped a first attempt earlier this year after courts stopped it–over the past few weeks.

Trump’s harsh campaign rhetoric regarding Muslims, critics argued, revealed that his true motivation for instituting the ban was to stop Muslims from coming to the country. Trump has said the order–which blocked travel from Syria, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia–is grounded in national security concerns.

In its brief, the administration argued:

The stakes are indisputably high: The court of appeals concluded that the president acted in bad faith with religious animus when, after consulting with three members of his cabinet, he placed a brief pause on entry from six countries that present heightened risks of terrorism. The court did not dispute that the president acted at the height of his powers in instituting [the order’s] temporary pause on entry by nationals from certain countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism.

The road to the Supreme Court has been seemingly inevitable. Trump crumpled up his first order, issued on January 27, after a federal appeals court in San Francisco blocked it in February.

The president issued a revised ban in March, which dropped the number of affected countries from seven to six (Iraq was removed), removed specific references to protecting Christian minorities, and allowed for a more case-by-case approach to determine which travelers are allowed into the country. Like the first order, it froze the refugee program for 120 days, and dropped the threshold of admitted refugees each year from 110,000 to 50,000.

If the High Court decides to take up the case, it will be an early test for Neil Gorsuch, the court’s newest justice. In his Senate confirmation hearing in March, Gorsuch barely budged when asked about his views on the travel ban. Referring to a previous comment from a senator that Gorsuch would likely preserve the ban, Gorsuch said: “He has no idea how I would rule in that case. And senator, I am not going to say anything here that would gave anybody any idea how I would rule.” When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked Gorsuch what he thought of banning other religions or citizens of entire countries, like Jews from Israel, Gorsuch replied:

We have a Constitution. And it does guarantee freedom to exercise. It also guarantees equal protection of the laws and a whole lot else besides, and the Supreme Court has held that due process rights extend even to undocumented persons in this country. I will apply the law faithfully and fearlessly and without regard to persons.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Tuesday scrapped a ruling by a lower federal court that deemed otherwise reasonable force by a police officer unreasonable if the officer “intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation.” The justices sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, leaving open a victory for the plaintiffs if the court can find wrongdoing on charges other than excessive force.

The case, County of Los Angeles vs. Mendez, involves an incident that took place in October 2010. Los Angeles County police officers were searching a residence for a parole violator who was at-large and apparently armed. A number of officers searched the main area while two deputies, Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson, burst into a shack in the back of the residence.

In the shack, a homeless couple, Angel Mendez and Jennifer Garcia, who was pregnant, were taking a nap underneath a heap of blankets. Mendez reached for a gun (later discovered to be a BB gun). Conley yelled “Gun!” and the deputies sprayed the couple with bullets.

Both lived, but Mendez had to get part of his leg amputated. Meanwhile, the parolee the officers were seeking was not found on the property. Mendez and Garcia sued the deputies and Los Angeles County on three Fourth Amendment claims: warrantless entry, knock-and-announce, and excessive force. The lower courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on all three counts, awarding the couple $4 million.

But the Supreme Court, in a 8-0 vote–Justice Neil Gorsuch had not been confirmed when the case was argued in March–vacated the lower courts’ excessive force ruling. In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit argued the officers’ use of force was reasonable, but because the two deputies provoked the situation, their actions were ultimately unreasonable. The justices disagreed with that outlook, halting the $4 million recovery for the plaintiffs.

“The basic problem with the provocation rule,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote, is that it “provides a novel and unsupported path to liability in cases in which the use of force was reasonable.” He said the Fourth Amendment “provides no basis for such a rule,” adding: “A different Fourth Amendment violation cannot transform a later, reasonable use of force into an unreasonable seizure.”

In a statement, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs cheered the decision: “This invented rule put the lives of deputies into danger by causing them to hesitate in using reasonable force to defend themselves for fear of later civil liability,” it said.

Alito did allow, however, that the Ninth Circuit could still find reason to award damages to the plaintiffs. He wrote: “For example, if the plaintiffs in this case cannot recover on their excessive force claim, that will not foreclose recovery for injuries proximately caused by the warrantless entry.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Monday, in a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down two mapped congressional districts in North Carolina on the grounds that Republican lawmakers drew them with the intention of diluting the African-American vote. In affirming a lower court’s decision, the justices found a narrow–and contentious–distinction between redistricting for political benefit, and redistricting with the intent to harm a certain slice of the electorate based on race.

The case, Cooper v. Harris, was the latest involving racially-motivated gerrymandering to reach the Supreme Court. According to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, state legislatures can redraw congressional districts based on a number of factors, partisanship being the most common. But although race can be one of a smattering of factors when redrawing a state’s districts, it can not be the predominant one.

“The sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including political) characteristics,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority opinion. She was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

The North Carolina districts in question include one of the state’s largest, District 1, and one of its smallest, District 12. Both are currently held by black Democrats, G.K. Butterfield and Alma Adams, respectively. According to Kagan, the Republican-held General Assembly fashioned the new congressional map after the 2010 census to devalue the black vote.

In District 1, after the census, black people of voting age rose from 48.6 percent to 52.7 percent. In District 12, the percentage of voting-age black residents hit 50.7 from 43.8. Republicans argue that tilting the districts majority-black is within their legal limits, because distinguishing the black vote from the Democratic vote–a vast majority of black voters support Democratic candidates–is almost impossible.

Justice Samuel Alito argued that same point in his dissenting opinion: “If around 90 percent of African-American voters cast their ballots for the Democratic candidate, as they have in recent elections, a plan that packs Democratic voters will look very much like a plan that packs African-American voters.”

He added: “If the majority party draws districts to favor itself, the minority party can deny the majority its political victory by prevailing on a racial gerrymandering claim.” Alito was joined in dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court’s newest member, did not participate, because the case was argued on December 5, months before he was confirmed.

The court’s decision was welcome news for Butterfield and Adams. Butterfield said the decision “clearly reaffirms my position that the Republican-controlled state legislature unlawfully used race as the predominant factor” in gerrymandering. And Adams called for an independent redistricting commission in North Carolina, saying, “we should be working together to make access to the ballot box easier and more fair.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The U.S. Supreme Court delivered the final knockout blow to North Carolina’s restrictive voter ID law Monday, declining once again to hear an appeal from state Republicans to reinstate it. The move thereby upholds a lower court’s ruling that found the law had intentionally been designed to restrict black voters.

The law, which was enacted in 2013 by a Republican-controlled legislature, was struck down last year after a federal appeals court found that key parts of the law were to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

Chief Justice John Roberts cited a “blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law” as the Court’s reasoning for refusing to weigh in on North Carolina, et al. v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, et al. Roberts, however, was careful to note that the court’s refusal did not constitute an opinion on the “merits of the case.”

North Carolina’s law had required voters to present a government-issued photo identification at the polls, but excluded forms of identification that happened to be used disproportionately by African Americans. For example, driver’s licenses, passports, and military identification cards were permitted, but not public assistance cards. It also shortened the early voting period and did away with same-day voter registration, among other things.

North Carolina, along with a string of other states, enacted voting restrictions like these shortly after a Supreme Court decision effectively struck down an integral part of the Voting Rights Act, diminishing federal oversight of voting rights. In late August, a deadlocked Supreme Court declined to reinstate North Carolina’s voting restrictions. The court was divided 4 to 4, with the court’s more conservative judges voting to revive parts of the law.

Proponents of these kinds of measures avow that they are intended purely to prevent voter fraud, not act as discrimination. However, a study of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases in 50 states between 2000 and 2012 found the level of fraud was “infinitesimal compared with the 146 million registered voters in that 12-year span.” The analysis found only 10 cases of voter impersonation, the only kind of fraud that could be prevented by voter ID at the polls.

In lieu of the Supreme Court’s decision, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are now eager to enact new voter restrictions. In other words, the battle over voter ID laws is hardly over.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A lesbian couple from Knoxville, Tennessee, has officially gotten divorced–but it wasn’t without a hard-fought legal battle that ended up involving the state legislature. In a first for the conservative southern state, a woman has been designated as the “husband” in a custody case. Knox County 4th Circuit Court Judge Greg McMillan’s ruling, which was anticipated, came as the Tennessee legislature was attempting to file a bill that would preclude gay and lesbian couples from being covered under gender-specific words in custody cases.

Sabrina and Erica Witt were married in 2014 in Washington D.C., where gay marriage was legal. At that point, gay marriage wasn’t legal in Tennessee, so when they had a child via artificial insemination, carried by Sabrina, Erica wasn’t included on the birth certificate. McMillan initially ruled that because the language in the Tennessee custody law was specific, and referred to “husband” and “wife,” only Sabrina could have custody. However, more recently, he ruled that the law could be applied to their case.

McMillan’s decision granted both Sabrina and Erica custody. Erica is viewed as the “father” in this situation, and has the right to see her child. Moreover, she is on the hook for child support payments.

But, while the Witts’ case was making it way through the courts, local legislators took notice. A few days after the ruling, the state legislature passed a bill that requires judges in McMillan’s situation to give “natural meaning” to words that are gendered. Governor Bill Haslam signed the bill. However, the legislature was prevented from intervening in this particular case, by McMillan’s decision. The lawmakers are appealing that decision.

LGBTQ rights groups in the state and nationally reacted with outrage that the state legislature was inserting itself into an individual family’s custody battle.

However, that new law is already wrapped up in a lawsuit. Four married lesbian couples, each of whom are pregnant, are suing the state over the law, claiming that it clearly was enacted with the intention to discriminate against gay couples. There are also concerns that this law could conflict with the decision that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Over a two-hour period on Monday, a federal appeals court in Richmond heard arguments on a case concerning President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, issued via executive order in March. The 13-judge panel was split between those who argued that Trump’s order should be examined on its merits and text, and others who contended that the directive should be viewed in the context of the president’s past statements on Muslim immigration.

The hearing, which was the first test for Trump’s contentious executive order in a federal appellate court, saw arguments from Jeffrey Wall, the acting solicitor general of the U.S. who defended the government’s position, and Omar Jadwat, a lawyer from the ACLU representing the plaintiffs. The fact that 13 judges heard arguments–in a court that usually consists of a three-judge panel–indicates the weight that this case holds.

Questions over how the travel ban should be viewed–either by its merits or in light of Trump’s public statements–were generally split between the Democratic-appointed judges and the Republican-appointed ones. Judge Robert King, appointed by President Bill Clinton, said Trump has “never repudiated what he said about the Muslim ban,” alluding to Trump’s calls for a freeze on Muslim immigration during the campaign.

Judge Pamela Harris, appointed by President Barack Obama, likewise read the travel ban as an anti-Muslim missive. The ban “has a disparate impact on Muslims,” she said. But Judge Paul Niemeyer, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, questioned the wisdom of reading too much into past statements. “Can we look at his college speeches?” he asked. “How about his speeches to businessmen 20 years ago?” He added: “I just don’t know where this stops.”

Wall, representing the Trump Administration in the hearing, said Trump’s past statements do not indicate any motives beyond the text of the order. That is, that it’s a national security measure. “Candidates talk about things on the campaign trail all the time,” he said. Wall also denied the charge that the ban is effectively a Muslim ban. “This is not a Muslim ban” he said. “It has nothing to do with religion. Its operation has nothing to do with religion.” 

Trump’s revised March order banned travel for 90 days from six countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Somalia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen. It also froze admittance of refugees for 120 days, and dropped the number of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. from 120,000 to 50,000. Two federal judges, one in Maryland and one in Hawaii, blocked parts of Trump’s order in March.

Monday’s hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is an appeal of the Maryland ruling. Next Monday, a federal appeals court in Seattle will review an appeal of the Hawaii ruling. Ultimately, regardless of how the judges in Richmond rule, the case is likely to end up at the Supreme Court.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Albany Unified School District in California was just hit with a lawsuit over its officials’ choice to suspend students who interacted with racist images on social media. More than a dozen students at Albany High School, near San Francisco, allegedly liked and posted racist images on Instagram. In response, some were suspended. Now, four of the students have filed a lawsuit against the school district, claiming that their suspensions are a violation of their First Amendment rights.

The images in question included photoshopped pictures of some of the black female students at the school, posted on Instagram. The photos were photoshopped to include nooses and other racist symbols. At least a dozen students liked or commented positively on the posts. The four students who are suing fell into that category–the kid who originally created the posts is not party to the lawsuit.

The lawyers of the four students who filed the federal lawsuit claim that in addition to violating the students’ freedom of speech, what the students did outside of school was none of the school’s business. The lawsuit reads:

This action arises out of a private online discussion between friends that the Albany School system has pried into without authority. All conduct at issue in this matter occurred off school property, were conducted off school hours, and were otherwise completely unrelated to school activity.

The plaintiffs also claim that the school officials made a spectacle out of them by bringing them through the hallways and allowing them to be berated by other students.

The parents of the students who were the victims of the photoshopping disagree with the First Amendment claims, pointing out that the images constitute hate crimes. One of the fathers of the girls told a local outlet: “This is a hate crime. You don’t have a First Amendment right to promote a hate crime against a group of people based on their skin color.”

The students are suing for damages, but they haven’t specified how much they’re asking for. They’re also asking to have the incident removed from their records. The school has said that it will be reviewing the lawsuit, but it’s unclear what move it will make from here.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Monday was supposed to be the first day in a string of executions in Arkansas, as the state’s supply of the sedative midazolam, which is used in the lethal injection, expires at the end of the month. That is why Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson ordered eight executions to take place over 11 days, before the current stash of midazolam expires. But a succession of lawsuits has stopped the executions from happening.

This is the latest development in a messy legal fight as Arkansas is pushing to execute eight prisoners in almost as many days. Last month, the eight prisoners filed a lawsuit in which they called the state’s rush to kill them “reckless and unconstitutional.” They also cited the use of midazolam as a problem, as many other states have stopped using the drug after a couple of botched executions that led to slow and painful deaths.

At the end of last week, pharmaceutical companies Fresenius Kabi USA and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp. filed a friend of the court brief in the prisoners’ lawsuit. Fresenius Kabi said it believes that the state of Arkansas acquired potassium chloride, the second ingredient in the three-drug lethal injection, from the company, and that it did so under false pretenses.

Arkansas fights in multiple courts to carry out two of eight planned executions Monday. https://t.co/ueFxXfktba

— AP Central U.S. (@APCentralRegion) April 17, 2017

On Friday, Arkansas Judge Wendell Griffen halted the use of the third of the three execution drugs, vecuronium bromide. The manufacturer of this drug, McKesson Corporation, also claimed that the state bought it under false pretenses, by using the medical license of an Arkansas physician. Although Griffen’s ruling was not based on the executions legality, it made the carrying out of the executions impossible. And then over the weekend, federal Judge Kristine Baker halted all of the executions, citing the prisoners’ lawsuit.

“The threat of irreparable harm to the plaintiffs is significant: If midazolam does not adequately anesthetize plaintiffs, or if their executions are ‘botched,’ they will suffer severe pain before they die,” she wrote. But on Monday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her ruling, saying the evidence that the executions would “cause severe pain and needless suffering” was insufficient.

To complicate matters, Judge Griffen was barred on Monday from hearing any death penalty cases in the state as it was revealed that he attended an anti-death penalty rally right after issuing the halt of the lethal injection on Friday. Griffen not only attended the demonstration, he also lay down on a cot and bound himself with a rope, making it look like he was a death row inmate on a gurney, awaiting execution. The protest took place outside Gov. Hutchinson’s house. Death penalty advocates were outraged and many Republican lawmakers called it judicial misconduct.

Judge rules against #Arkansas #executions. Judge attends anti-#deathpenalty rally. Judge barred from such cases. https://t.co/SodtMofgaj pic.twitter.com/hDLKFp553A

— AP Central U.S. (@APCentralRegion) April 17, 2017

The hurried pace of carrying out eight executions over 11 days is unprecedented in modern times, and Arkansas hasn’t performed an execution since 2005. But Hutchinson has been eager to get going, citing justice for the families of the victims the inmates have killed. And after all the legal back and forth, it looked like the state could go on with the plans. But then in a last minute development, the Arkansas Supreme Court granted a delay in the execution of one of the prisoners, Don Davis, after his attorney sought a stay on Monday. The court also stayed the execution of Bruce Ward.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday evening to overrule that decision. The court declined to hear the case. However, late Monday the Arkansas Supreme Court also overruled the restraining order by Griffen on the use of vecuronium bromide, which means the lethal injections are free to use again. But the state is also facing a different problem: it can’t seem to find enough witnesses for the executions. The law requires at least six civilian witnesses at each execution.

So for now, all the prisoners are still alive. But since Baker’s stay of the executions was overruled, there is nothing that stops the state from going through with the executions, as long as there are enough witnesses. On Thursday, two inmates, Ledell Lee and Stacey Johnson, are scheduled for execution.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The battle between church and state is moving from the playground to the Supreme Court. Five years ago, Trinity Lutheran Church in Missouri applied for money from the state so that it could repair a playground used by students in the church’s learning center. Because children had been scraping their knees and elbows on the gravel, Trinity wanted to cover the area with a rubber surface.

Because Missouri’s constitution does not allow public funds to support religious organizations, it rejected the church’s application for a grant. The church sued in response, insisting that it should have been eligible to receive the grant because the playground upgrade did not serve any religious purposes. After losing in federal district court and appellate court, Trinity’s case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which plans to hear arguments starting on Wednesday, April 19.

What the case boils down to is whether or not the provision in Missouri’s constitution violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits the government from encroaching on the free exercise of religion.

Now, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has announced his plans to undo the state’s policy that prohibits tax dollars from going toward religious groups. Jeffrey Mittman, the director of Missouri’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, is among Greitens’ critics who said that his move violates the state’s constitution.

Greitens’ new policy will not reverse the state’s refusal to give Trinity the grant. However, because it settles future issues involving religious institutions applying for grants, it could mean that the Supreme Court will no longer see the need to hear the Trinity case.

But one of the church’s attorneys, David Cortman, insisted that the case is still relevant because Greitens’ move does not “resolve the discriminatory actions that were taken” by the state.

Having the recently confirmed Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch weigh in on the matter could benefit the church. While a judge for a U.S. appeals court in Colorado, Gorsuch argued that religious freedom protected the store chain Hobby Lobby from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that it would have to offer its employees free birth control coverage.

And, depending on how narrowly the Supreme Court rules, the outcome of the case could have implications in other parts of the country as well–particularly in the 38 states that currently uphold Blaine Amendments, laws that prevent their governments from giving any financial aid to religiously-affiliated institutions.

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

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As of April 11, Alabama no longer grants state judges the authority to override jury recommendations in capital cases. As one of her first acts as governor, Kay Ivey signed the SB16 bill into law and put an end to judicial override in capital cases in Alabama. The move was likely a preemptive response to shifting legal tides. Had Alabama not revised its laws, it would likely have faced fierce and ongoing battles in court.

Alabama, Florida, and Delaware are the only states to have ever allowed judicial override in capital cases. In the 2016 case Hurst v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s sentencing scheme in violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. In response to the high court’s ruling, Delaware’s Supreme Court ruled its state’s sentencing scheme unconstitutional a few months later.

In the wake of Hurst v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by an Alabama death row inmate who claimed he was sentenced under a scheme similar to Florida’s. Alabama’s Supreme Court upheld judicial override nine months later. In spite of these victories, it seems that Alabama was no longer willing to put resources toward defending judicial override in court.

Following Hurst v. Florida, the Florida legislature amended its sentencing practices to reinstate capital punishment. However, Delaware’s General Assembly has yet to pass any such legislation, meaning there is an effective halt on the death penalty in the state. By amending its sentencing laws, Alabama has put an end to a recurrent legal battle and ensured the perpetuity of capital punishment in the state.

While Alabama has removed judicial override, its new sentencing practices could still face legal challenges. Following the chain of events set in motion by Hurst v. Florida, Alabama is now the only state that allows a jury to non-unanimously recommend the death penalty.

Before the Hurst v. Florida ruling, Alabama, Florida, and Delaware allowed a jury to recommend the death penalty with 10 of 12 votes. In the same ruling that banned judicial override, Delaware’s Supreme Court deemed non-unanimous recommendations unconstitutional. While Florida’s initial legislation preserved the practice, the Florida Supreme Court later found non-unanimous recommendations constitutional.

Alabama’s Supreme Court would almost certainly uphold non-unanimous death penalty recommendations, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not explicitly ruled on the matter. The overwhelming consensus against the practice suggests Alabama could once again find itself in court.

Callum Cleary

Callum is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is from Portland OR by way of the United Kingdom. He is a senior at American University double majoring in International Studies and Philosophy with a focus on social justice in Latin America. Contact Callum at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas just ruled that Texas’ voter ID law intentionally discriminates against minority voters and violates the federal Voting Rights Act. The 2011 law has been thrown out as unconstitutional, and there’s the chance that Texas’ voting laws could once again be put under the purview of the federal government.

The law was passed by the Texas legislature in 2011 but didn’t go into effect until 2013. It required that all voters show some sort of government-issued photo ID before casting a vote, such as a driver’s license or passport. Since its inception, it has been controversial, sparking a drawn out legal battle. Critics point out that black and Hispanic voters are less likely to have those forms of identification. Judge Ramos ruled that the law was enacted with the intent to discriminate against minority voters.

The suit was brought by a number of plaintiffs, including the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives, La Union del Pueblo Entero and League of United Latin American Citizens, several individual voters, and Dallas County.

If you’re feeling a bit of Texas voter ID law deja vu, you’re not wrong. This is actually the second time that Ramos has ruled on this law. She ruled on it in 2014 as well, and then the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, located in New Orleans, sent it back to her. That court “found that Judge Ramos had relied too heavily on Texas’ history of discriminatory voting measures and other evidence it labeled ‘infirm’ and asked her to reweigh the question of discriminatory intent.” She once again found that the law is discriminatory.

The state of Texas is expected to appeal her decision again, but this could set Texas up for federal monitoring of its voting laws. The Voting Rights Act used to require that certain states–Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia–that had a history of passing discriminatory voting laws had to get federal approval before changing their voting laws. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the provision that required such “preclearance” but if a state is found to have passed a law that is intentionally discriminatory, it could be subject to that oversight once again.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Federal Judge Rules that Texas’ Voter ID Law is Discriminatory appeared first on Law Street.

A federal appeals court in Chicago on Tuesday ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 8-3 decision is unprecedented, as all other federal appeals court rulings have sided with employers. The Supreme Court has never heard a case on the issue.

Chief Judge Diane Wood, writing for the majority opinion, said “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination,” and that “it would require considerable calisthenics to remove the ‘sex’ from ‘sexual orientation.'” Wood, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, added that her ruling was based on the “common-sense reality that it is actually impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation without discriminating on the basis of sex.”

The case, Kimberly Hively vs. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, centers around a professor in South Bend, Indiana. Openly lesbian, Kimberley Hively had been working as a part-time professor at Ivy Tech’s South Bend campus from 2000 to 2014. Six times between 2009 to 2014, Hively applied to full-time positions at the college. She was denied an interview all six times and, in July 2014, the college did not renew her part-time contract.

Hively sued the college, but a federal district court ruled in favor of Ivy Tech. Tuesday’s decision vacates the lower court’s decision. Federal law, under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Discrimination based on sexual orientation, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday, is also protected by federal law.

Writing for the dissenting opinion, Judge Diane Sykes said the ruling was “momentous,” and amounted to “the circumvention of the legislative process by which the people govern themselves.” Sykes, who President Donald Trump reportedly considered nominating to the Supreme Court, continued: “We are not authorized to infuse the text with a new or unconventional meaning or to update it to respond to changed social, economic, or political conditions.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Public school districts are obligated to provide students with disabilities a chance to make “appropriately ambitious” progress, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday. The case, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, could have widespread implications when it comes to how educators treat special education students moving forward–as children with the right to advance in the classroom.

“It cannot be right that the IDEA generally contemplates grade-level advancement for children with disabilities who are fully integrated in the regular classroom, but is satisfied with barely more than de minimis progress for children who are not,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a unanimous opinion, using the acronym for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees free public education for students with disabilities.

The plaintiff, Endrew F., has autism. In 2010, his parents determined that his public school was not providing him with a sufficiently rigorous education. They removed Endrew from public school and enrolled him in a private school, Firefly Autism House. After spending two years at the private school, Endrew’s parents sought reimbursement for his private school tuition with the Colorado Department of Education. That request was denied by an Administrative Law Judge, but the case moved forward.

A Federal District Court later ruled in favor of the school district; the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. Wednesday’s decision vacates the lower court’s ruling. According to the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, which filed a brief for Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, “public school educators across the nation have regularly set high expectations for and provided meaningful educational benefits to students with disabilities.”

The brief continued: “Decades of research and experience establish that the education of children with disabilities is enhanced by placing high expectations on these children – tailored to their individual abilities and potential – in order to prepare them to be college- and career- ready and to lead productive and independent adult lives.”

The 8-0 decision came as Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, is on the third day of his confirmation hearings. Gorsuch has been involved in over ten cases involving students with disabilities. In eight he sided with the school district. In today’s hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), asked Gorsuch about his pro-school district record on cases like the Endrew. “I was wrong, Senator, because I was bound by circuit precedent, and I’m sorry,” he said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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This post is part of Law Street’s continuing analysis of the recent Supreme Court rulings. To read the rest of the coverage click here.

Abortion Restrictions: Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt

The decision: In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Texas’s restrictive regulations on abortion clinics. Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy joined Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan to provide the majority necessary to overturn Texas’s House Bill 2. The ruling concluded that the restrictions placed an undue burden on women seeking an abortion.

History of the law:

In 2013, Texas legislators passed HB2, which placed many restrictions on abortion clinics, such as:

• Requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital that is no more than 30 miles away.
• Requiring that an abortion facility meets the same minimum standards as ambulatory surgical centers.

HB2 has caused roughly half of the abortion clinics in Texas to close, leaving many women, especially in rural areas of the state, without reasonable access to an abortion.

Whole Woman’s Health, a private abortion provider, sued the state of Texas over these restrictions. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously upheld the law.

What were the arguments?

Texas legislators argued that these regulations were added to make women safer when getting an abortion. They also argued that these restrictions did not impose a burden on women seeking an abortion.

However, opponents of the legislation argued there is no evidence that these regulations will lead to increased safety without imposing serious consequences on women. In addition, opponents argued that an abortion is no more dangerous than many other medical procedures that are not subject to such strict regulations.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and American Osteopathic Association all filed an amicus brief saying that HB2’s ambulatory surgical center requirement “imposes medically unnecessary demands on abortion facilities and serves no medical purpose.”

What about all of the other states’ regulations?

Several states around the country have laws similar to Texas’s (although some are currently blocked) and if they are deemed similar enough, they will most likely be thrown out or will suffer intense hurdles in order to become lasting laws.

However, lawmakers have found ways to increase restrictions on abortions even after other landmark abortion cases, so time will tell if this ruling will make a large impact nationwide.

Strong opinions on both sides

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito offered dissenting opinions. However, unlike Thomas, who would’ve upheld the previous ruling, Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts would have sent it back to the lower courts for further discussion.

“The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution,” Thomas wrote in his scathing dissent.

On the other side, Breyer wrote in the majority opinion that the Texas restrictions “vastly increase the obstacles confronting women seeking abortions in Texas without providing any benefit to women’s health capable of withstanding any meaningful scrutiny.”

Ginsberg offered up a concurring opinion as well.

“Given those realities, it is beyond rational belief that H.B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions,'” she wrote. “When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety.”

You can read the full opinion here.

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A verdict in Utah v. Strieff was handed down by the Supreme Court yesterday, weighing in on how the Fourth Amendment applies to illegal searches. In a 5 to 3 decision, the Supreme Court reversed a ruling from the Utah Supreme Court, concluding that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment can be used in court.

The case began when a narcotics detective in Salt Lake City, Utah stopped Edward Strieff after he exited a house that was being monitored for potential drug activity. The detective had seen multiple people making brief stops at the house, calling Strieff’s activities into suspicion. When the detective stopped Strieff, he asked him what he was doing and to provide some identification. He relayed Strieff’s information to a dispatch officer who found that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Strieff was arrested for this violation and promptly searched upon arrest.

So, what’s the Fourth Amendment question? The search revealed that Strieff had methamphetamine and a pipe on him, which were later used as evidence against him. Strieff challenged the case to the District Court, arguing that the evidence should not be used because it was obtained from an illegal search. The District Court and the Court of Appeals both ruled against Strieff, but when he appealed once again to the Utah Supreme Court, the ruling turned in his favor. Finally, the Utah Attorney General appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argues that the evidence used to convict Strieff was legally gathered. Thomas writes that, although the original stop may not have been constitutional, the fact that the officer later obtained an arrest warrant meant that the evidence was collected legally. As Thomas puts it,

The discovery of that warrant broke the causal chain between the unconstitutional stop and the discovery of evidence by compelling Officer Fackrell to arrest Strieff.

Three justices–Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan–dissented from the majority opinion. In her dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor destroyed the opposing argument. She eloquently described exactly why police powers should not be so broad and how the court’s decision, and the unlawful stops that will likely follow, will have disastrous effects on the public. The end of her dissent is a chilling reminder of how far we have to go as a country when it comes to liberty and equality:

By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are “isolated.” They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives.

Several groups were also deeply disappointed with the case’s outcome and the effects it may have in the future. The ACLU tweeted its disapproval:

We are deeply disappointed. #SCOTUS got it wrong on the 4th Amendment in Streiff, with terrible repercussions, esp. for people of color.

— ACLU National (@ACLU) June 20, 2016

Regardless of the circumstances of this case, the decision gives unprecedented power to police under the Fourth Amendment. People may now be stopped on the streets without having committed a crime. Even worse, any incriminating evidence that results from an unlawful stop may be legally used against you in court. This decision has the power to lead to more and more unconstitutional searches by police.

In the words of Justice Sotomayor, people who are targeted by the police in the way that this decision will now expand, are a warning to us all. They point to injustice in our justice system and show us where we need to improve in order to ensure the liberty for all that is promised in our Constitution. She concluded her dissent saying,

“Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but.”

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

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Since Colorado became one of the first states to formally legalize recreational marijuana, there have been many attempts to stop legalization in its tracks. But the most interesting, and arguably the most promising attempt, was Nebraska and Oklahoma’s lawsuit against Colorado, which allege that since Colorado legalized weed, both states face an increased burden on their law enforcement due to marijuana coming in from Colorado. The Supreme Court dashed both states’ hopes on Monday when it declined to hear the case, but still this might not be the end of the story.

The lawsuit claims that Colorado’s marijuana legalization is unlawful for a number of reasons, from violating the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, to going against international treaties adopted by the United States. Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act during Nixon’s presidency, which categorized Marijuana as a Schedule I drug making it illegal and placing some of the strictest restrictions on its use and sale. The Supremacy Clause of Article IV of the Constitution states that federal law is the “supreme law of the land” and supersedes state laws, which effectively makes Colorado’s legalization unconstitutional.

The lawsuit claims:

In passing and enforcing Amendment 64, the State of Colorado has created a dangerous gap in the federal drug control system enacted by the United States Congress. Marijuana flows from this gap into neighboring states, undermining Plaintiff States’ own marijuana bans, draining their treasuries, and placing stress on their criminal justice systems.

However, in light of many states’ efforts to legalize marijuana, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued guidance that largely allows states to move forward without federal interference. Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memo highlighting eight enforcement priorities, including things like preventing marijuana distribution to minors and stopping marijuana-related violence. But the memo notes that “Outside of these enforcement priorities, the federal government has traditionally relied on states and local law enforcement agencies to address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws.” He further says that if state laws sufficiently regulate marijuana to deal with the DOJ’s enforcement priorities, then the federal government will largely leave states alone. This essentially meant that states would be free to legalize as long as they created a strong enough regulatory system to protect the priorities outlined by the DOJ.

So that explains why the federal government didn’t stop the legalization, but what happens when others challenge the law? That’s how we got here, with Nebraska and Oklahoma suing Colorado after voters passed Amendment 64 back in 2012. The lawsuit was sent directly to the Supreme Court, which has “original jurisdiction” over disputes between states, meaning that such cases begin at the Supreme Court and do not need to go through the traditional appellate process first.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear the lawsuit, Justices Thomas and Alito–both of whom are pretty conservative–dissented primarily because of the nature of the court’s original jurisdiction. In his dissent, Justice Thomas writes, “Federal law is unambiguous: If there is a controversy between two States, this Court—and only this Court—has jurisdiction over it.” He argues that, regardless of his or the other justices’ desired outcomes, the court has a duty to hear the case because it is the only body that can resolve these disputes.

But others have noted that the Nebraska and Oklahoma’s attorneys general still may be able to take the case to a lower court. Robert Mikos, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, told the Cannabist that the two states could pursue their case in a district court. Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed a brief calling for them to not take up the case. He claimed that doing so would be a “unwarranted expansion of the Court’s original jurisdiction” because it would need to argue that one state’s laws caused the illegal actions of people in bordering states. He also argues that hearing the case would be unwarranted because the dispute could be handled by a circuit court.

Many were not surprised when the court ultimately declined to hear the case. Cases between states are typically pretty rare and the court has often refused to hear them in the past. As the Federal Judicial Center notes, “Since 1960, the Court has received fewer than 140 motions for leave to file original cases, nearly half of which were denied a hearing.” Now it’s up to the Nebraska and Oklahoma to decide whether they want to pursue the case in a different court.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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