The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that police officers who conducted a no-knock raid on a house and injured four unarmed people were not subject to qualified immunity, a type of immunity that protects individual government officials from being sued over acts in the course of their duties. In [...]
Search Results for: Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania state court website down due to denial of service cyberattack
Pennsylvania Chief Justice Debra Todd announced Sunday night that a portion of the Pennsylvania State Court’s website is unavailable because of a denial of service cyberattack. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) defines a denial of service attack as when users cannot access their online information systems or network resources because of “malicious actors [...]
Pennsylvania Supreme Court orders reconsideration of Medicaid abortion coverage limits
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered a lower court to reconsider whether a state law limiting Medicaid funds for abortion violates the equal protection rights of low-income individuals. Under the 1982 Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, abortion care can only be covered by Medicaid — a government-funded health insurance program for low-income individuals and families — [...]
Hafsa Kanjwal is an Assistant Professor of South Asian history at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she has taught courses covering the history of the modern world, South Asian history, and Islam in the modern context. Most recently, Kanjwal authored a book titled “Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation.” In a conversation with JURIST’s [...]
My Fellow Jewish Leaders Should Not 'Toe the Party Line' on Israel
It is in the best interest of the Jewish people and the state of Israel that my fellow Jewish leaders whose moral compass compels them to criticize elements of the Israeli government’s response to Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attack do so openly. They should speak truth to power, despite any fears for job security, [...]
New York City bans solitary confinement in jails as inhumane punishment
The New York City Council moved to largely ban solitary confinement in city jails in a 39-7 vote Wednesday and also added new restrictions on other safety management tactics. The council’s newly passed bill would prohibit placing inmates in solitary confinement for more than eight hours at night to sleep or for more than two hours [...]
A federal court sentenced a West Virginia man, Hardy Carroll Lloyd, to 78 months in prison on Wednesday for obstructing the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting trial. The sentencing includes the possibility of supervised release after three years. Lloyd previously admitted to intentionally interfering in the federal hate crimes trial for Robert Bowers, who shot [...]
Explainer: The Expulsion of Representative George Santos Under US Law
Representative George Santos is the third member of the House of Representatives since the Civil War to be expelled and the first in United States history to be removed before being convicted by the Judiciary. It is significant to recognize that how it internally operates and disciplines its members, including expulsion, is beyond the general [...]
US Supreme Court declines case surrounding reproductive health clinic 'buffer zones'
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a case that would have restricted the use of “bubble” zones around abortion clinics, areas where protesters are not permitted. The court’s decision means that the buffer zones will remain in place. The case under consideration involved Debra Vitagliano, a Catholic woman in Westchester County, New [...]
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce opened a formal investigation on Thursday into three of the US’s top universities’ and their responses to increasing antisemitism on campuses. The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology previously appeared before a congressional committee for a hearing on December [...]