U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented Monday, when the high court declined to consider whether qualified immunity should protect a police officer who fatally shot a man holding a gun to his own temple.
A federal appeals court has upheld a New Jersey directive that limited state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Chemerinsky: SCOTUS weighs whether freedom of speech applies to students off campus using social media
Erwin Chemerinsky. Photo by Jim Block.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear its last oral arguments of the term in April, and it will finish with a First Amendment case of potential great importance.
Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. involves whether a student can be punished for speech on social media over the weekend.
The court has not decided a student speech case in over a decade, and this will be the first to address the ability of schools to impose discipline for speech out of school and over social media.
Afternoon Briefs: Lawyer regrets pepper-spray incident; ex-FBI lawyer avoids prison
Lawyer expresses regret after he is pepper-sprayed by mayor
A lawyer who was pepper-sprayed by the mayor of Portland, Oregon, has expressed regret for the incident that provoked the response. Mayor Ted Wheeler had pepper-sprayed Cary Cadonau after the lawyer confronted the mayor in a restaurant parking lot and accused him of failing to practice social distancing while dining outdoors with a companion. The mayor told police that Cadonau wasn’t wearing a mask when he got within a foot or two of him, and he feared for his safety. Cadonau said he is “remorseful for my decision to confront Mayor Wheeler,” and he is sorry that the mayor felt the need to use pepper spray. Cadonau also apologized to his law partners at Brownstein Rask. Wheeler said he appreciated the apology, and he considers the matter closed. (Law360, the Oregonian)
Transformation of judiciary is Trump s most consequential accomplishment, says nonprofit founder
Image from Shutterstock.com.
President Donald Trump has appointed 54 of the nation’s federal appellate judges during his four years in office, just one judge short of the number appointed by President Barack Obama in his two terms.
Trump’s appointments “flipped” three federal appeals courts from a majority of Democratic appointees to a majority of Republican appointees, Reuters reports.
They are the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta, the 2nd Circuit at New York and the 3rd Circuit at Philadelphia.
The number of federal appellate appointments amounts to nearly a third of the nation’s 179 federal appeals judges. Trump has also appointed 174 federal district judges and three U.S. Supreme Court judges, giving the high court a 6-3 conservative majority.