U.S. Courts News Reporter
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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Feb. 24 in the case of a man on Texas death row who has long tried to obtain postconviction DNA testing on evidence that he says would exonerate him. Ruben Gutierrez was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville, Tex. Gutierrez has maintained his innocence and says DNA from several pieces of evidence — such as a hair and nail scrapings from Harrison’s finger and … Read the rest
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Over a dissent from the court’s three liberal justices, the Supreme Court turned down a request from a Louisiana man on death-row to weigh in on when someone else’s confession is the kind of evidence that the Constitution requires prosecutors to turn over. The court’s denial of review in Brown v. Louisiana came at the end of a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week.
The justices did not add any new cases to their docket … Read the rest
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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
This week the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal criminal law passed in 2013 regarding cyberstalking, holding that it passes constitutional muster. U.S. v. Yung, Case No. 19-1640 (3d Cir.). The case arose in the context of a criminal matter involving a student who was rejected from Georgetown University Law Center after interviewing with an alumni representative. The decision issued by a three-judge panel is precedential and will impact other federal cyber litigations. Read on to learn … Read the rest