The Supreme Court has given counsel for a transgender middle school student until March 20 to respond to West Virginia’s emergency application to lift a federal appeals court order blocking the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act from taking effect. The legal action comes as West Virginia and other states take action to make sure women and girls continue to have access to school sports even as males who identify as females take spots on women’s sports teams. Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Arkansas, and Florida have also passed legislation that keeps men from competing in women’s sports. West Virginia enacted the Save … Continue reading ACLU will ask Supreme Court to block state law banning men from women’s sports

A U.S. Supreme Court case that could recognize state legislatures’ power to regulate federal elections without interference from state courts will continue even though a recent action by the high court suggests it may drop the case, the top lawyer for Republicans who brought the case said in a prediction to The Epoch Times. Republican Tim Moore, speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, is asking the high court to recognize that state legislatures have preeminent authority under the U.S. Constitution to make the rules for presidential and congressional elections without state courts getting involved in the process. The Elections Clause … Continue reading SCOTUS case about excluding judges from electoral redistricting will proceed, lawyer for GOP says

The U.S. Supreme Court set aside the death sentences of six convicted murderers in Arizona after recently ruling that withholding certain information from the jury during the sentencing process was unlawful. The court previously held it was illegal to prevent jurors from being informed that if a condemned person were given a life sentence it would be without the possibility of parole. The ruling on March 6 does not set aside the murder convictions of Johnathan Ian Burns, Steve Boggs, Ruben Garza, Fabio Gomez, Steven Newell, and Stephen Reeves, but directs the lower courts to carry out new sentencing proceedings. … Continue reading Supreme Court reverses death sentences of 6 in Arizona, orders new sentencings

The legal team representing an evangelical Christian postal worker who quit the U.S. Postal Service after it refused to accommodate his wish not to work on the Sunday Sabbath is “optimistic” about the case the Supreme Court will hear next month. Over the opposition of the Biden administration, the court agreed on Jan. 13 to take up the civil rights lawsuit of Gerald Groff, who began working as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in 2012. The granting of the petition earlier this year came as the high court has become increasingly protective of First Amendment-based religious protections … Continue reading Legal team for Christian postal worker pushed out for demanding Sunday work exemption hopeful about upcoming case

I stumbled upon an excellent essay by my old childhood friend, Michael Redhill. It is entitled, “Thoughts on depression from an artistic mind.” It appeared in the Globe and Mail on Aug. 15, 2014. An excerpt: I am not an expert in the causes of depression, only an expert in the experience of it, and after four or so decades living with the illness, I know a few things about it: There’s no cure, only remission. People who suffer from depression (not “normal unhappiness,” which was the goal of Freud’s talking cure), are never fully out of danger because it is … Continue reading Thoughts on depression from an artistic mind

The Supreme Court seemed receptive to New Jersey’s argument on March 1 that it should be allowed to unilaterally withdraw from the interstate compact that created the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor to combat corruption. The justices asked many questions that focused on what impact their ruling would have on other interstate compacts. Other questions reflected a basic principle of contract law, which is that one can party can end a contract on its own unless the contract specifies how it can be terminated. Although the storied Port of New York and New Jersey’s reckoning with organized crime was immortalized in … Continue reading Supreme Court leans toward allowing New Jersey to leave Waterfront Commission