The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 against Brett Jones, 31, a man convicted of committing murder when he was 15, rejecting his argument that the court should impose new restrictions on the power of states to sentence juveniles to life imprisonment without parole. In its ruling, the high court determined that his sentence doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Jones had argued that two Supreme Court decisions on mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile defendants required the sentencing judge to explicitly find that rehabilitation was impossible in his case before imposing life without parole. The Supreme Court disagreed, determining … Continue reading Supreme Court rules against teen murderer

Three Democratic lawmakers are demanding that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett recuse herself from an upcoming high-profile donor privacy case because one of the litigants spent money in support of her confirmation to the nation’s highest court. Nominated by then-President Donald Trump, the constitutionalist-conservative Barrett was confirmed by the U.S. Senate just before Election Day 2020. She replaced the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, 2020. The case, Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez, and a companion case, Thomas More Law Center v. Rodriquez, have been consolidated and will be heard together by the court on April … Continue reading Democrats demand Justice Barrett recuse herself from campaign donations case

The Supreme Court heard arguments from the Biden administration that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders from troubled countries shouldn’t be allowed to upgrade to lawful permanent resident status from inside the United States. The case, Sanchez v. Mayorkas, court file 20-315, comes at a time when the federal government finds itself overwhelmed by a rush of would-be immigrants flooding the nation’s border with Mexico, a situation President Joe Biden finally labeled a “crisis” on April 17. Biden said that situation prevents him from raising the refugee quota at this time. A ruling in favor of the petitioners could allow thousands of TPS … Continue reading Temporary Protected Status holders from El Salvador urge Supreme Court to let them apply for green cards

As state and local governments across the United States ease pandemic-related restrictions, the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii has decided to end a program that allowed for the release of low-level inmates early in hopes of controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the Aloha State’s detention facilities. The three-page ruling ending judicial oversight of the jails came on April 16. The vote was 4–1. The order also ended the temporary prohibition on judges imposing bail on defendants charged with certain low-level offenses. Concerned about a viral breakout at Oahu Community Correctional Center, the Office of the Public Defender filed a … Continue reading Hawaii supreme court ends pandemic-related early prisoner release

The Biden administration is urging the Supreme Court not to take up a petition asking the court to strike down as unconstitutional a law that authorizes military conscription solely for men. The Trump administration defended the current system in the lower courts. President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained two deadline extensions before filing its response. The case is National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, court file 20-928. In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Rostker v. Goldberg that the Military Selective Service Act, under which men, but not women, are required to register for the … Continue reading Don’t accept legal challenge to all-male military draft, DOJ urges Supreme Court

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked the Supreme Court to review a decision by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down a state law blocking abortionists from terminating a pregnancy solely because the unborn child has Down syndrome. Rutledge, a Republican, is challenging the appeals court’s finding that the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to selectively abort unborn children with Down syndrome. Rutledge announced the filing April 13, the same day as the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowly reversed a lower court’s injunction blocking a similar Ohio statute that forbids abortions to be carried out because of fetal Down syndrome. The Ohio law, … Continue reading Arkansas asks Supreme Court to review appeals court ruling against law banning Down Syndrome abortions

The Supreme Court has refused to put on hold a decision by a federal court in Mississippi that found the state’s public education system provided inadequate education to the state’s black children. The case is Reeves v. Williams, court file 20A126. The application to recall and stay the mandate of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was presented to Justice Samuel Alito, who then referred the matter to the full Supreme Court. The Supreme Court turned down the emergency application on April 8, saying it is too early for it to act because the trial court is still dealing … Continue reading Supreme Court refuses stay in Mississippi schools case

Places where Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests occurred from 2014 to 2019 experienced a decrease in lethal use of force by police but an overall increase in murders, according to an upcoming soon-to-be peer-reviewed academic study. The study from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst may bolster the so-called Ferguson Effect hypothesis, which holds that police officers are reluctant to do their jobs and follow proper police procedure when dealing with blacks because they fear their actions will be characterized as examples of race-driven police brutality. Ferguson, Missouri, was the site of prolonged violent protests in 2014 after Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, … Continue reading After Black Lives Matter protests, police lethal force decreases: Study

An Oregon state government employee is suing a labor union under racketeering laws over its refusal to grant her request to opt out of paying dues, claiming the union engaged in a pattern of fraudulent activity that victimized her and other union members. Staci Trees of Bend, Oregon, who works for the Oregon Department of Transportation, was required to either sign a union membership card or pay an agency fee to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 503 when she was first hired in 2009. But in June 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME, disrupting how public-sector unions finance their … Continue reading State employee brings RICO suit against public sector union

The Supreme Court directed the Biden administration to share its views on whether New Jersey should be allowed to withdraw from a powerful bistate commission that monitors corruption at the storied Port of New York and New Jersey, a signal that it may soon decide to hear the commission’s appeal from a lower court. The case is Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor v. Murphy, court file 20-772. The commission won at trial, foiling, at least temporarily, New Jersey’s move to exit from the commission, but that decision was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The Waterfront Commission is “a … Continue reading Supreme Court asks Biden administration to weigh in on Waterfront Commission dispute

The Supreme Court refused to take up an appeal that could have resulted in a different standard for when employers must accommodate the religious beliefs of employees, but two justices objected to the decision in a strongly worded dissent. The case is Small v. Memphis Light, Gas and Water, court file 19-1388. The Supreme Court denied Small’s petition for certiorari, or review, in an unsigned order April 5 without explaining why, as is its custom when refusing to hear cases. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote an opinion dissenting from the denial of certiorari, which Justice Samuel Alito joined. Federal law requires companies to accommodate employees’ religious … Continue reading Supreme Court refuses to take up religious accommodation appeal

Google didn’t infringe Oracle’s copyright when it used that company’s programming code in the Android cellphone operating system, the Supreme Court ruled April 5 in overturning a lower court ruling that favored Oracle. Android is the most popular cellphone operating system in the world. Oracle had been seeking $9 billion in damages in the decade-old litigation between the tech companies that could have changed the rules of the road for the software industry. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the 6–2 decision for the high court in Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., court file 18-956. The case came to the court on appeal from the U.S. … Continue reading Supreme Court rules Google didn’t violate copyright law when it used Oracle code for Android

The Texas Supreme Court has directed courts in the state to stop honoring the federal moratorium on residential evictions that a federal judge in the state already struck down in late February as unconstitutional. The Texas Supreme Court’s 34th emergency order that applied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) moratorium on evictions expired March 31 and hasn’t been renewed, which means new and paused eviction applications may now move forward. The Texas Justice Court Training Center, which is responsible for training eviction court judges, is now encouraging judges to set new hearings for old cases that were put on hold by the … Continue reading Texas no longer observing CDC eviction moratorium

Vaccination passports, like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want everyone to be forced to carry, are profoundly un-American. This data-driven authoritarianism, if it comes to pass, will wash away what remains of the rule of law and the Constitution, and annihilate the American way of life. First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) inflicted their possibly lab-designed Wuhan Virus on America, and now we get their Social Credit System, their totalitarian digital architecture for society as well. America’s placeholder president, the Communist Chinese ventriloquist’s dummy who fantasizes about becoming the new Franklin Delano Roosevelt, wants these vaccination passports badly. POTUS 46* … Continue reading Vaccination passports: the cornerstone of a totalitarian state ushering China’s social credit system into America

A proposed class-action lawsuit accusing Facebook of violating a federal anti-robocall law may not go forward because the social media company’s unwanted text messages aren’t covered under federal law, the Supreme Court ruled April 1. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the unanimous decision for the high court in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, court file 19-511. Justice Samuel Alito filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment. The case, heard telephonically on Dec. 8, 2020, concerns a federal law that imposes penalties of up to $1,500 for each unwanted call or text. The prohibition on such calls applies to dialing systems that can “store or produce telephone … Continue reading Unwanted Facebook messages don’t justify anti-robocall class-action lawsuit, Supreme Court rules

Before a skeptical Supreme Court on March 31, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) defended its rules that preclude paying student-athletes. The Biden administration sided with the student-athletes during telephonic oral arguments that ran 94 minutes instead of the allotted 60. The case is actually two cases heard together: National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, court file 20-512, and American Athletic Conference (AAC) v. Alston, court file 20-520. Former football player Shawne Alston, one of a group of football and basketball athletes challenging the NCAA, was a running back for the West Virginia University Mountaineers from 2009 to 2012. For years, college football has … Continue reading Supreme Court unsympathetic to NCAA arguments justifying not paying student-athletes

News Analysis A radical piece of legislation that sponsors say will “supercharge civics education” by devoting $6 billion to the left’s pet projects will, according to critic Stanley Kurtz, actually “supercharge” the “culture war by injecting it into the heart of federal education policy.” The Biden administration is firmly behind this effort to further entrench what critics say is an ahistorical, politically slanted interpretation of American history and civics into the nation’s classrooms, where, in many cases, the writings of communist scholar Howard Zinn, along with dubious revisionist material provided by the 1619 Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center, … Continue reading Civics bill would devote $6 billion to woke education, critics say