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Since the 1960s, most plaintiffs challenging state restrictions on voting rights have relied primarily on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections in particular played a key role in the rise of equal protection claims by aggrieved voters. In Harper the U.S. Supreme Court [...]

In Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned a 41-year old precedent and held that all union security clauses in public-sector labor contracts violate the First Amendment. A union security clause is provision in a contract between a union and an employer that obliges members of the union bargaining unit to [...]

The US Supreme Court  ruled  Wednesday in a 5-4 decision that it will not follow the recommendation of a Special Master it had appointed to dismiss a suit brought to the court by Florida. In Florida v. Georgia Florida petitioned the court asking for an equal division of a basin at the confluence of the Chattahoochee, [...]

The US Supreme Court  ruled Wednesday in Janus vs. AFSCME  that public sector unions cannot collect what the court calls “agency fee i.e., a percentage of the full union dues” from non-members. In a 5-4 ruling, the court, citing the First Amendment, held that the payment of agency fees forces nonmembers to “endorse ideas they [...]

The US Supreme Court  ruled  Tuesday that a regulation requiring crisis pregnancy centers to give women certain information concerning free or low-cost abortion services and disclose if the center was unlicensed to provide medical services was unconstitutional. In a 5-4 ruling in NIFLA v. Becerra , the court decided that the California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that Texas’ federal congressional and state legislative districts were not a racial gerrymander against minority voters with respect to three challenged districts, overturning a lower court ruling . The court did rule one of the districts is an impermissible racial gerrymander. Abbott v. Perez concerned two consolidated cases [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled in Currier v. Virginia on Friday that a defendant indicted on multiple charges who agrees to have each charge tried separately gives up his right to benefit from an acquittal in the first trial. Virginia man Michael Currier faced trial for breaking and entering and grand larceny. While he was [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Friday in Carpenter v. United States that police must generally obtain a warrant in order to obtain cell phone location data. This case arose from petitioner Timothy Carpenter’s conviction for armed robbery, for which he was sentenced to 116 days in prison. At trial, the prosecution offered evidence of [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that a court’s mistake in calculating a sentence under the advisory US Sentencing Guidelines should result in relief for the defendant, even if the original sentence was within the federal guidelines. This decision reversed and remanded the the lower court’s ruling. In Rosales-Mireles v. United States, one of the [...]

In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled Monday that an Ohio law that uses voter inactivity as a reason to remove names from the voter registration list is not unconstitutional. Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute challenged the state’s voter registration maintenance policy, which permits the government to remove individuals from the voter [...]