Gerald Austin McHugh, a judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ruled Tuesday that a proposed supervised injection site in Philadelphia does not violate federal law. Safehouse, a nonprofit organization that aims to reduce drug overdose deaths through prevention services, first announced their plans to institute the overdose prevention site [...]

On Tuesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Sineneng-Smith. The Court granted certiorari last October. Evelyn Sineneng-Smith challenged a law that criminalizes encouraging or aiding in illegal immigration. She was convicted of bringing persons to the US illegally through fraudulent use of the “Labor Certification” program which expired in 2001. The [...]

A federal bankruptcy judge denied Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) investors’ motion to apply Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 7023 to their class proofs of claim on Monday. In the motion, the investors argued that PG&E committed securities fraud by “mis investors about their wildfire safety practices.” They also claim that PG&E “artificially inflat stock [...]

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new Public Health Update on the ongoing spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the US. The update warns of potential social consequences of the virus including school and daycare closures. The first significant number of cases of coronavirus were seen in Wuhan, China, the capital [...]

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court held that a child’s habitual residence depends on a totality of circumstances specific to the case, not on categorical requirements such as an actual agreement between parents. This decision follows the International Child Abduction Remedies Act implemented by  The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague [...]

Lee Boyd Malvo, who was sentenced to multiple life-without-parole sentences for his involvement in the 2003 DC Sniper murders, asked the US Supreme Court to dismiss his appeal Monday following a newly-passed Virginia law allows parole boards to consider Malvo for early release. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill into law Monday. The bill [...]

The US Supreme Court heard two oral arguments on Monday: US Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, in which the court will consider a case concerning a pipeline on federal forest land; and Opati v. Sudan, which asks whether the current version of the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allows punitive [...]

The Supreme Court held Tuesday that state appellate courts may conduct a Clemons reweighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and may do so in collateral proceedings as appropriate and provided under state law. James McKinney received two death sentences in 1992 following his conviction of two counts of first-degree murder for the murders of Christine [...]

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that, even in cases concerning federal bankruptcy and tax law, state tax law is to be applied concerning corporate property. The ruling vacates the decision of the lower court that applied a federal common-law rule known as the Bob Richards rule on how to allocate a tax [...]

A county judge in San Diego ruled on Tuesday last week that the grocery delivery service Instacart has unlawfully misclassified its employees as independent contractors since 2012. This classification has given Instacart an unfair competitive advantage by permitting the company to avoid paying its employees a lawful wage and defer their job-related expenses. By avoiding [...]