Search Results for: mississippi

The NAACP Monday filed a lawsuit to block a new Mississippi bill that they allege would violate the state’s constitution. House Bill (HB) 1020 allows the Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice to appoint four judges to the Circuit Court of Hinds County. While HB 1020 calls the appointed judges “temporary,” their term will last until [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Wednesday vacated a preliminary injunction blocking Executive Order 13990. The order re-established an interagency working group to calculate the “social costs of greenhouse gases” for consideration by federal agencies during policymaking. The plaintiffs are a group of Republican-led states, including Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, [...]

The Idaho legislature Monday passed House Bill 186 which will allow firing squads as a method of execution, making death by firing squad the standard execution procedure if lethal injections are found to be unconstitutional. The bill also gives the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) the authority to set the procedures for firing squad executions. [...]

In New York State Pistol & Rifle Ass’n v. Bruen, decided last June, the Supreme Court issued one of the most unusual and dangerous opinions in American history. Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion instructed lower court judges to rely exclusively on history and tradition to resolve Second Amendment cases and to completely ignore the government’s asserted [...]

The Minnesota Supreme Court Wednesday upheld a state law prohibiting convicted felons from voting while on probation or parole in a 3-1 ruling. The law at issue, Minn. Stat. § 609.165 (2022), restores a felon’s right to vote upon the “discharge” of their sentence, meaning that a felon is only able to vote in the [...]

Mifepristone manufacturer GenBioPro Inc. Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the state of West Virginia, challenging the state’s restrictions on medication abortions. Mifepristone is a generic medication abortion pill approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be used up to ten weeks of pregnancy. GenBioPro alleges that West Virginia’s Unborn Child Protection Act [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Monday affirmed a preliminary injunction from the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana blocking the White House’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors. The ruling results from a 2-1 decision from the three-judge panel. Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt authored the opinion of the court, [...]

The US House of Representatives’ Rules Committee Wednesday held a hearing exploring the possibility of seating a nonvoting delegate from the Cherokee Nation. The hearing is an essential first step towards fulfilling a provision from an old treaty, known as the Treaty of New Echota, that led to the Cherokee Nation’s forced removal from their ancestral lands. Article 7 [...]

Attorneys general in 40 states Monday announced a $391.5 million, multi-state settlement with Google over the company’s location tracking practices. The agreement marks the largest US privacy settlement in history. Authorities allege that Google’s collection of location information violated the participating states’ consumer protection laws because “Google misled its users into thinking they had turned [...]

Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont Tuesday voted on Election Day ballot measures to end the practice of enslavement after criminal conviction. Under the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, slavery and involuntary servitude may not exist “except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This language [...]