US DOJ opens civil rights investigation into Illinois police shooting
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to the Sangamon County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Department on Thursday announcing an investigation into potential civil rights violations prompted by the July 6 police shooting of Sonya Massey. The letter stated that a review of department practices revealed potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights [...]
Bodycam footage shows Illinois sheriff's deputy shooting Black woman over boiling water
Bodycam footage released Monday by the Illinois State Police showed Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson shooting 36-year-old Sonya Massey, a Black woman, who was tending to a pot of boiling water. Grayson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct for his actions. He was also fired [...]
The US Supreme Court struck down a bump stock ban Friday enacted in 2018 following a deadly mass shooting in California. In a 6-3 vote, the court held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority in enacting the bump stock ban. The case known as Garland v. Cargill was [...]
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” so taught civil rights campaigner and feminist Rita Mae Brown. There is no more fitting maxim for the broken American system that in 2024 has allowed Donald Trump to return as a major political party’s presumptive nominee for its highest office. [...]
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 Trump v. US, a case concerning whether a president has absolute immunity after they [...]
The US Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments this week in a landmark case that will determine whether states are entitled to remove former president and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump from election ballots over his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when the US Capitol was stormed by protesters. In anticipation of the [...]
Trump and Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment: An Exploration of Constitutional Eligibility
Academicians, lawyers, elections officials, pundits and politicians are presently ensconced in the problem of Donald Trump’s continuing constitutional qualification for presidential office. Although he plainly meets Article II of the United States Constitution’s three qualifications – at least 35 years old, natural born citizen, sufficient residence in the United States – Trump arguably runs afoul [...]
Canadian law students are reporting for JURIST on national and international developments in and affecting Canada. Mélanie Cantin is JURIST’s Chief Correspondent for Canada and a rising 3L at the University of Ottawa. On Monday, May 1, the jury for the coroner’s inquest into the 2015 death of 35-year-old British Columbia man Myles Gray during [...]
US Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Biden student loan forgiveness
The US Supreme Court Tuesday heard oral arguments in Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown, two cases that will determine the future of the Biden administration’s student loan debt forgiveness program. The plaintiffs in both cases allege that President Joe Biden’s program–a key 2020 campaign promise by the president–is a broad overreach of executive [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday heard its first oral arguments of the term in Sackett v. EPA over whether wetlands are “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The controversy arose in 2007 when “without a CWA permit, —who operated a commercial construction and excavation business—dumped approximately 1700 cubic yards of [...]
