The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday rejected a death row inmate’s argument that the reinstatement of the death penalty in Nebraska violated his constitutional rights. In May 2015 the Nebraska legislature enacted LB 268, a law that aimed to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska and change death penalty sentences into life imprisonment sentences. LB 268 [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday upheld a the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking the reinstallation of Confederate statues on the University of Texas Austin campus and a Confederate monument in a San Antonio city park. The statues on campus had been installed in the 1930s, but following a 2017 [...]

In response to Thursday night’s drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions Agnes Callamard said that the assassination likely violated international human rights laws. Late Thursday evening the White House revealed that President Donald Trump had authorized a drone strike against Soleimani while the general visited Baghdad. Soleimani [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday approved the release of records from the prosecution of an associate of Rudy Giuliani to the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani, is being prosecuted for campaign finance violations stemming [...]

More than 200 Republican members of Congress and two Democrats filed an amicus curiae brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to overturn its decision in the landmark abortion cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The brief argues that the history of the abortion case decisions including Roe, Casey and Hellerstedt, create [...]

GEO Group, a Florida-based security firm that operates a number of private prions and detainment centers across the US, sued California on Monday after the state passed a law aimed at ending the use of private prisons. The California legislature overwhelmingly passed Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32) in early October, barring the state from entering [...]

Top Iranian forces commander and architect of military operations, Qasem Soleimani, was killed early Friday in Baghdad by a drone strike ordered by US President Donald Trump, the Pentagon announced. Suleimani, leader of the US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and top commander of Iranian security and intelligence operations, was [...]

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on Tuesday granted 11,017 pardons for individuals convicted of misdemeanor cannabis offenses involving less than 30 grams. The expungements involved Illinoisans in 92 counties. The landmark bipartisan Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, signed by the governor in June, provided paths to relief for more the 700,000 cannabis-related arrest and conviction records. While [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of California court on Tuesday denied a motion by brand-name drug companies to halt the implementation of a California bill that would stop “reverse payments” to generic drug companies. The bill in question is Assembly Bill 824 (AB 824), which seeks to stop “reverse [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled an upcoming trip to Ukraine and four other countries on Wednesday in order to address the current security concerns in Iraq. In a press statement, the State Department indicated that Pompeo would reschedule the trip to begin on Friday order to “ensure the safety and security of Americans [...]