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Supreme Court

Jamaican green-card holder asks court to overrule precedent on “crimes involving moral turpitude”

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

In its 1951 decision in Jordan v. De George, the Supreme Court held that the term “crime involving moral turpitude” in federal immigration law is not unconstitutionally vague. The term lacks any statutory definition, however, and courts around the country have since struggled to apply it evenly and frequently … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Court denies mental incompetency plea in Oklahoma execution case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to block the execution of an Oklahoma man with schizophrenia, rejecting a claim from his legal team that he does not understand the reason for his execution. Benjamin Cole is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday.

The court turned down Cole’s last-minute appeal in a brief order with no recorded dissents. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the decision. Gorsuch likely recused himself because he was a judge on … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Court declines to take up petition seeking to overturn Insular Cases

The Supreme Court will not reconsider the Insular Cases, a widely criticized and racist group of early 20th-century decisions holding that the residents of U.S. territories do not automatically enjoy all of the rights protected by the Constitution. The announcement came on a list of orders released on Monday morning from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the 2022-23 term.

The request to overrule the Insular … Read the rest

Supreme Court

With The Onion’s support, satirist asks court to revive lawsuit against police who arrested him

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

In a case that prompted satirical news outlet The Onion to file its first-ever amicus brief in the Supreme Court, an Ohio man sued police for violating his constitutional rights when they arrested him for creating a Facebook page parodying the local police department. This week, we highlight cert petitions … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Court denies Trump’s request to intervene in Mar-a-Lago documents case

The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon rejected a request from former President Donald Trump to allow a special master to review about 100 documents, marked as classified, that the FBI seized from Trump’s home. The ruling came in an unsigned one-sentence order; there were no dissents recorded.

The documents at the center of the dispute were among the 11,000 documents seized by the FBI in an Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida. In September, … Read the rest

Civil Law

Court action in case against former Blue Bell chief continues despite hung jury

— ANALYSIS —

Today the U.S. Court for the Western District of Texas is giving its first attention since Aug. 15 to the criminal case involving former Blue Bell chief Paul Kruse.

“The court hereby sets and directs the parties, or counsel acting on their behalf, to appear by phone for an initial pretrial conference on 10/05/2022 at 10:10 AM, “ the federal case dockets says.

The court declared a mistrial in the case on Aug. 15 after a jury trial broke … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Divided court authorizes Alabama execution, but state is unable to carry it out before midnight deadline

The Supreme Court on Thursday night cleared the way for Alabama to carry out a lethal injection of an inmate who argued that he had the right to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that supporters say is more humane. In an unsigned order that divided the justices 5-4, the court lifted an order by a federal judge that would have required the state to use nitrogen hypoxia to execute Alan Eugene Miller. But the state called off … Read the rest

Circuit Courts

Supreme Court Fellowship Program Resumes with 4 New Fellows

Four new U.S. Supreme Court Fellows are set to begin their 2022-2023 fellowships in September. They are the first to experience the program in-person in nearly two years; the COVID-19 pandemic forced the 2020-2021 class to work virtually and led to a decision to pause the program the following year.
Judiciary News – United States Courts… Read the rest