U.S. Courts News Reporter
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The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a plea from Missouri to block New York from imposing a gag order and sentencing former President Donald Trump in his criminal proceedings there until after the 2024 elections.
After a six-week trial, Trump was convicted in May in a New York state court on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors contended that Trump sought to hide a $ 130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a North Dakota truck stop can bring a challenge to a regulation issued 13 years ago by the Federal Reserve Board. In a 6-3 vote divided along ideological lines, the justices significantly expanded plaintiffs’ ability to sue federal regulators, ruling that the statute of limitations to challenge an action by a federal agency begins to run when the plaintiff is injured by the action, even if – as happened in this case … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that state and local governments already regulate gifts to officials, and so the federal law “does not supplement those state and local rules by subjecting 19 million state and local officials to up to 10 years in … Read the rest
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The court handed a win to a former-city council member in Texas on Thursday, clearing the way for her federal civil rights claim to move forward. Sylvia Gonzalez contends that her 2019 arrest on charges that she had tampered with government records came in retaliation for her criticism of the city manager in Castle Hills, Tex. In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices reinstated Gonzalez’s claim after a federal appeals court had thrown it out, holding that the lower … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule that banned bump stocks, issued by the Trump administration after a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. By a vote of 6-3, the justices rejected the federal government’s argument that rifles equipped with bump stocks are machine guns, which are generally prohibited under federal law. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s conservative justices emphasized that Congress could have enacted a law that banned all … Read the rest
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The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.
The Supreme Court cleared out quite a bit of its backlog of relisted cases at last week’s conference. For starters, it granted review in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, concerning how specific Clean Water Act pollutant discharge permits have to be. But the court denied review in … Read the rest
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In a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference last week, the justices granted review in four cases – adding those cases to the lone four cases that they have agreed to take up for the 2024-25 term since early January. Monday’s grants involve (among others) the interpretation of federal racketeering laws and the “benefit of the doubt” rule for veterans.
In Medical Marijuana v. Horn, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a commercial truck … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Monday in a case that one legal expert has called the “most important Supreme Court case about homelessness in at least 40 years.” The issue before the court is the constitutionality of ordinances in an Oregon town that bar people who are homeless from using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes for protection from the elements while sleeping within the city limits. Defending the ordinances, the city contends that the laws simply … Read the rest