US Legal News Round Up for Saturday, 28 October 2017 News
US Legal News Round Up for Saturday, 28 October 2017

Here’s the domestic legal news we covered this week:

Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] on Thursday released a report [press release] detailing the lack of respect for the rights of intersex individuals in the United States.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Latino Justice PRLDEF [advocacy websites] on Wednesday announced [press release] a settlement [consent decree, PDF] with New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE)[official site] to end their voter suppression suit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York [official site].
The US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] on Wednesday denied [order, PDF] a motion for preliminary injunction to require the Trump administration to continue to pay insurance subsidies necessary for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) [text, PDF].
The Supreme Court of Virginia [official website] agreed on Tuesday to hear an appeal [petition, PDF] filed by an advocacy group that challenges a decision [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] from earlier this year that upheld the constitutionality of 11 state legislative districts.
A bipartisan group of US senators introduced the USA Rights Act [text] on Tuesday that would overhaul aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] warrantless internet surveillance program.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text], which is set to expire at the end of the year, is used by US intelligence officials to combat national and cyber security threats, and it allows officials to tap into and store digital communications from foreign suspects.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] on Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF] 6-3 that a 17-year-old unidentified, undocumented immigrant has the right to obtain an abortion.

A week earlier, the same court through a three-judge panel temporarily blocked [JURIST report] a lower court ruling permitting the teen immigrant to have an abortion, noting that it needed time to consider the emergency motion.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [official website], as well as other federal and state officials, claimed the teen had no inherent right [NPR report] to an elective abortion in the US due to her status as an undocumented immigrant.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Milett wrote:

[T]oday’s decision rights a grave constitutional wrong by the government.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday ordered the dismissal [text, PDF] of Hawaii v.
[JURIST] US President Donald Trump signed an executive order [text] Tuesday resuming the admissions of refugees into the US but introducing heightened vetting procedures.

The order states that the prior executive order [JURIST news archive] barring refugee admissions from a number of Islamic nations is no longer in effect and “the Secretary of State may resume travel of qualified and appropriately vetted refugees into the United States, and the Secretary of Homeland Security may resume adjudicating applications for refugee resettlement.” The order also notes that during the 120-day review period of the initial order, the Secretary of State and Department of Homeland Security [official websites] have concluded that the barring of refugees from the aforementioned nations was no necessary “to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people.”

Under this order, a new 90-day review period has been initiated.

Microsoft [corporate website] announced plans to drop its lawsuit against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Monday after the DOJ issued new guidelines in an effort to curb its practice of using secrecy orders to silence companies from alerting its customers when their personal information is accessed by the federal government.
A US district court judge in San Jose, California, on Sunday ordered [text] a retrial to determine how much Samsung owes Apple for infringing three iPhone 3Gs patents: “black rectangular front face of a phone with rounded corners,” “the rectangular front face of a phone with rounded corners and a raised rim,” and “the grid of 16 colorful icons on a black screen.”

Ten months ago, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the previous judgment against Samsung was unfair and sent the case back to the district court to adjust the damages in accordance with the court’s definition of “article of manufacture,” under section 289 of the Patent Act [PDF].

Attorneys general from 17 US states urged Congress in a letter [text, PDF] Monday to abandon legislation that would require states to validate concealed-carry gun permits issued in another state, regardless of their own gun law restrictions.

The attorneys general argue that the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 [text, PDF] could “lead to the death of police officers and civilians, the proliferation of gun traffickers, and acts of terrorism and other mass violence.”

They further argue, “Under the legislation, our residents would lose the protections that their legislators and law enforcement agencies have deemed appropriate, in favor of rules made by States legislating for very different local conditions.