Search Results for: Eighth Circuit

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether enforcing public camping ordinances against unhoused people without adequate shelter is cruel and unusual punishment and, therefore, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, originated in southern Oregon. The central question before the court revolves around the [...]

The Georgia Parole Board denied clemency for inmate Willie James Pye on Tuesday, making him soon to be the first inmate executed in the state since 2020. Pye was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 after the murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbough, with whom he was involved in a relationship. During the clemency meeting [...]

The US has faced numerous issues involving prescription drugs, especially with rising costs and accessibility of life-saving and required medications. One class action lawsuit (Wilkins et. al. v. Genzyme Corporation (n/k/Sanofi) against Genzyme (now owned by and known as Sanofi, the eighth largest pharmaceutical company in the world) alleges the company intentionally misled patients with [...]

The US Supreme Court left in place an admissions policy at an elite public high school in Virginia on Tuesday after the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the admissions practice. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the school’s policy discriminates against Asian Americans. Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the majority [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked on Thursday prison inmates’ lawsuit against Oregon Governor Kate Brown and others for putting the inmates on the lowest tier of priority for access to the COVID-19 vaccine. The court found that the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act immunized state officials and the vaccine [...]

The US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals declined Tuesday to rehear with the full Eighth Circuit panel of judges a prior appeals court decision curtailing private organizations’ ability to sue under section two of the Voting Rights Act for alleged racial gerrymandering in redistricting decisions. In the order denying the rehearing, Judge David Stras, writing [...]

Alabama inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith was executed Thursday night by nitrogen hypoxia after the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, declined to intervene in the state’s second attempt to execute an inmate who had previously survived a botched lethal injection. The court’s three liberal justices expressed their willingness to hear Smith’s claims of cruel [...]

The US Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Wednesday refused Kenneth Smith’s application for a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia.   Kenneth Smith is scheduled to be executed by way of nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. According to the Alabama execution [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case challenging a Mississippi felon voter disenfranchisement law. Several voters who were previously convicted of felonies challenged the law on the basis of it being an unconstitutional example of cruel and unusual punishment under the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. The [...]

A US district court on Wednesday dismissed concerns about Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith potentially choking on his own vomit during his planned execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a novel and untested method of capital punishment. Smith’s legal team is urgently trying to stop the execution, which is scheduled for Thursday. They argue that [...]