Search Results for: aclu

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 US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on Tuesday that West Virginia’s ban on transgender girls competing on girls’ sports teams violates a transgender student’s rights under Title IX. The law, which is known as the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” prohibits individuals who were assigned male at birth from competing on girls’ [...]

The US Supreme Court Monday declined a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Black Lives Matter organizer DeRay Mckesson, effectively allowing him to be sued by a Louisiana police officer for negligence. The case at bar, DeRay Mckesson v. John Doe, centers around a protest that took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July [...]

The US House of Representatives passed on Friday a two-year reauthorization of an expiring warrantless surveillance law that had been stalled earlier in the week. The passed bill extends a contentious provision called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. Wiretapping for national security investigations involving Americans or individuals within [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost admitted on Friday in a court filing that the state’s ban on most abortions is unconstitutional after voters passed an amendment to the Ohio Constitution in November 2023 enshrining access to abortion. The issue in the pending litigation is a law passed by the Ohio legislature and signed by former [...]

The Court of Appeals of the Second Appellate District of Texas threw out a voter fraud conviction Thursday that would have put a Texas woman accused of voting while on supervised release after being convicted of a felony behind bars for five years. Texas does not allow those convicted of a felony to vote in [...]

The Georgia state legislature advanced SB 189 Thursday, which contains new rules on which presidential candidates can appear on the state ballot and probable cause to challenge voter registration ahead of the 2024 elections. Under the proposed law, presidential candidates can appear on the state ballot if their political party “has obtained ballot access in [...]

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 [...]