On Thursday, the Indiana Court of Appeals largely affirmed an injunction the trial court had placed on the state’s near-total abortion ban. The vote was unanimous. The Court of Appeals ruling will send the lawsuit back to the trial court to narrow the effect of the trial court injunction. The Court of Appeals stated that [...]
Search Results for: First Amendment
Advocacy groups file lawsuit to block Alabama law criminalizing absentee voting assistance
Several advocacy groups on Thursday sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Alabama’s 42 District Attorneys, and Alabama Secretary of Stae Wes Allen to block the state’s recently enacted Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), which would directly target, restrict, and severely penalize certain engagement measures that would enable broader access to the right to vote. SB [...]
Georgia judge upholds indictment against Trump in 2020 election interference case
The Georgia judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s 2020 state election interference case upheld the criminal indictment underlying the case on Thursday. Trump’s legal team had argued that his actions during the certification of the 2020 presidential election amounted to protected speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. However, on Thursday, Judge Scott McAfee rejected [...]
Scotland's controversial new hate crime law comes into effect
Scotland’s controversial Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force on Monday. The law intends to unite existing hate crime laws, along with creating several new offenses, most notably criminalizing “threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred.” Stirring up racial hatred has been an offense since 1986. However, [...]
The Somali parliament approved a proposal on Saturday to amend its constitution, which will overhaul its electoral system and reintroduce universal suffrage. The vote, which was unanimous, will amend the first four chapters of the country’s transitional constitution, to introduce a presidential electoral vote. This will give the Somali people the power to directly chose [...]
US federal judge orders New Jersey to stop using unique ballot design in primary elections
A federal judge in New Jersey on Friday ordered the state to replace its current ballot design for the upcoming June primary elections. Judge Zahid N. Quraishi ruled that the state’s design raises freedom of association concerns under the First Amendment to the US Constitution because candidates need an endorsement from their party to get a [...]
The French National Assembly passed a bill on Thursday banning discrimination over the texture, length, color or style of a person’s hair on first reading. The bill will now go to the Senate for further approval. The proposed bill aims to amend the wording of existing anti-discrimination measures adopted in the labor code, penal code and [...]
Explainer: US Mass Incarceration and Its Disparate Racial Impacts
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
Marissa Zupancic is JURIST’s Washington DC Correspondent, a JURIST Senior Editor and a 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She’s stationed in Washington during her Semester in DC. Today I attended oral arguments at the US Supreme Court for Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The case concerns whether the [...]
New York court issues gag order against Trump in hush money case
New York’s supreme court on Tuesday issued an order restricting former US president Donald Trump from making extrajudicial statements that could sway jurors and witnesses ahead of his upcoming trial for alleged hush money payments made to an adult film star. Set to commence on April 15, 2024, the trial will center on 34 counts [...]