Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo issued an order Monday rendering the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017 void. Graffeo determined that the Memorial Preservation Act was unconstitutional in his resolution of Alabama v. Birmingham, a case that arose in August 2017 when Birmingham city officials requested the removal of the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument from Linn Park. Then-mayor [...]
The New York State Assembly passed two bills on Tuesday protecting transgender and gender non-conforming individuals from discrimination and banning “conversion therapy.” The first bill, Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), protects individuals from discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The bill adds gender identity and expression to the list of classes protected against discrimination in [...]
The UK House of Commons on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to withdraw the country from the EU. The plan was defeated by a margin of 230 votes, with 432 Members of Parliament voting no and only 202 voting in the affirmative, marking the largest defeat for a sitting government proposal in [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in two cases. The first, Home Depot v. Jackson, asks whether a class action defendant can remove the case from state to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), despite the now plaintiff and former defendant not agreeing to removal. Petitioner Home Depot argued [...]
US President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, on Tuesday appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing. Much of the questioning concerned the Robert Mueller investigation and Barr’s ability and willingness to faithfully execute his duties during the investigation. The Committee also probed into his thoughts as to whether Mueller should [...]
The President only has two enumerated constitutional duties, to be the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch and be Commander in Chief of the Armed forces during time of war. That is it. His oath in Article II of the Constitution requires him to protect and defend that Constitution. Additionally, he is constitutionally bound to [...]
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University reported on Monday that 42,726 scheduled immigration court hearings had been canceled throughout the US as of January 11 due to the government shutdown. The largest number of cases comes from California, with 9,424 cases canceled. New York has canceled 5,320 cases, and Texas has canceled [...]
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a robbery conducted with the use of force sufficient to overcome a victim’s resistance, satisfies the “physical force” requirement of a violent felony and can trigger punishment via the Armed Career Criminal Act. The Armed Career Criminal Act is a federal law in which those convicted of possessing [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled 8-0 Tuesday that courts lack authority under the Federal Arbitration Act to order arbitration in cases that involve contracted workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce. The appeal came in a class action lawsuit brought by Oliveira against the trucking company, New Prime, for unlawful wages paid to its drivers. [...]
The Mannheim District Court in Germany dismissed a patent lawsuit from Qualcomm against Apple on Tuesday. Qualcomm filed the suit against Apple due to the use of Qualcomm chips in Apple’s smartphones. The court determined that Qualcomm’s lawsuit against Apple was groundless. The lawsuit was determined based on the language of the patent which the court determined [...]
