NewsHere’s the domestic legal news we covered this week:
The Hawaii Senate on Thursday gave final approval to a bill [text] that would legalize medically assisted death for terminally ill patients.
The bill applies to patients with less than six months to live.
The Supreme Court of Arkansas ruled [opinion] Thursday that the state prison system may be permitted to conceal information that could be used to identify third parties who obtain drugs for the state, but must continue to identify the manufacturers of the drugs.
The ruling comes from an appeal by the Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) from a lower court order requiring the ADC to provide Arkansas lawyer Steven Shultz with label inserts for its supply of potassium chloride.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions [official website] appointed [text, PDF] US Attorney for Utah John Huber [official website] on Thursday to investigate determinations made by the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] in 2016 and 2017.
The investigation will look into the DOJ’s “compliance with certain legal requirements and Department and FBI policies and procedures with respect to certain applications filed with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The NAACP filed a lawsuit [complaint, pdf] Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Maryland against the US Census Bureau [official websites] and President Donald Trump, arguing that the federal government’s unpreparedness for the 2020 Census is a violation of the Constitution.
According to the complaint, the Bureau faces insufficient staffing, funding and preparation, including the lack of both a permanent director and a deputy director, and limited capacity to fill routine staff vacancies due to a presidential hiring freeze.
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] on Wednesday denied [order, PDF] Saudi Arabia’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit for involvement in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Victims and families of victims originally brought suit against Saudi Arabia and the Saudi High Commission for Relief in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SHC).
A federal judge in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland [official website] on Wednesday partially granted [order, PDF] President Donald Trump’s motions to dismiss an emoluments challenge [materials], allowing the remainder of the claims to proceed.
The District of Columbia and Maryland brought suit [JURIST report] in June 2017 alleging that the President is in violation of both the foreignand domestic [texts] Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution, which bar payments to the President from individual states and foreign governments, due to his interest in the Trump Organization [corporate website].
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a memorandum [text] announcing his decision not to extend the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) [materials] protection for Liberians that had been in place since the 1990s.
In the memo, Trump justified this action by explaining that the situations in Liberia, namely the civil war that had prompted the protected status in the 1990s and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, have improved and an extension of the DED status is no longer necessary.
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Monday.
Government watchdog group Common Cause [advocacy website] filed a pair of legal complaints [complaints, PDF] on Monday accusing Cambridge Analytica LTD and its affiliates of violating federal election laws that prohibit foreigners from participating in the decision-making process of US political campaigns.
Filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Department of Justice [official websites], Common Cause names multiple other defendants including parent company SCL Group Limited [corporate website], former CEO Alexander Nix, SCL co-founder Nigel Oakes, acting CEO Alexander Tayler and former employee Christopher Wylie.
US President Donald Trump on Friday directed [presidential memorandum] JSecretary of Defense ames Mattis [official website] to ban transgender troops from serving in the military if they require surgery or significant medical treatment.
The memorandum revokes the president’s August order [JURIST report], which reinstated a pre-2016 blanket ban on transgender military service but has been challenged in, and blocked by [JURIST report], federal courts as a likely violation of Fifth Amendment [background, PDF] due process and equal protection rights.
