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 [...]
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Explainer: Unpacking SB 4, Texas's Controversial Border Security Legislation
In recent days, an unusual state border-security law has ricocheted back and forth between US federal courts, introducing novel questions of state and federal supremacy. Long disgruntled over the federal government’s perceived inadequate efforts to curb illegal immigration along its southern border, Texas enacted a state law that would enable it to take action in [...]
US Supreme Court allows Texas law criminalizing illegal entry from abroad to go into effect
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a stay that prohibited the enforcement of a Texas law that criminalizes illegal entry into the state from other countries, allowing the law to go into effect. While Justice Samuel Alito indefinitely extended the stay Monday afternoon, he found himself among the six justices voting to lift the stay [...]
US Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Trump-era bump stock ban
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the legality of a Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule that banned rapid-fire “bump stock.” The case is an appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which struck down the rule. Throughout all the arguments, the justices wrestled with [...]
Alabama executes Kenneth Smith by nitrogen gas after US Supreme Court rejects final appeal
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 [...]
US Supreme Court allows federal agents to cut Texas border fencing
The US Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Monday to permit federal border patrol agents to cut the razor wire that Texas installed on the US-Mexico border. The Biden administration requested the decision to allow federal agents to access the border without facing tort claims from Texas. The urgency follows recent deaths at the border crossing [...]
US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in 2 cases seeking to limit executive agency powers
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in two cases involving a requirement for herring fisheries to pay for the observers the government used to monitor overfishing. At the heart of the two cases was a debate over the court’s current deference to executive branch agencies in interpreting ambiguous language in federal laws. The [...]
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) released their annual report on Friday, reporting that for the first time more Americans believe the death penalty is administered unfairly than those who believe otherwise. The report also revealed that there were more death penalty sentences imposed than executions carried out during 2023. A majority of US state [...]
US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in South Carolina racial gerrymander case
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in case involving racial gerrymandering claims against South Carolina’s congressional map. The case is an appeal from a three-judge panel decision in the US District Court for the District of South Carolina Columbia Division, which found that South Carolina’s Republican-led legislature’s design of that state’s First [...]
US Supreme Court hears case regarding failure to place disability information on hotel website
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in the case Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer, which questions if a person has the right to sue a business over its disability accessibility information if the individual has no plans of actually going to that business. Deborah Laufer is a wheelchair and cane user, has [...]