On Monday the US Supreme Court added seven more cases to its October docket. Also notable, the Court denied a North Carolina political redistricting question and one of a Washington florist who refused to provide flowers for a gay couple’s wedding on First Amendment grounds, sending them back to lower courts consistent with its recent [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that Texas’ federal congressional and state legislative districts were not a racial gerrymander against minority voters with respect to three challenged districts, overturning a lower court ruling . The court did rule one of the districts is an impermissible racial gerrymander. Abbott v. Perez concerned two consolidated cases [...]

One of the year’s most-watched Supreme Court controversies, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Limited v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission , was never likely to deliver the full faceoff between Religious Free Exercise and Anti-Discrimination Rights that many people expected.  As I’ll explain more fully below, cake baker Jack Phillip’s claim to avoid administrative sanctions despite refusing on religious grounds to sell [...]

On May 8, 2018,  the United States president announced that the U.S. was ceasing its participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”) and reinstating sanctions lifted through the JCPOA  basis of a wind-down mechanism. Under the instruction of a President Memorandum, the Department of the Treasury, in particular, has taken some steps to [...]

In WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corporation , the US Supreme Court determined Friday that a patentee who has shown patent infringement in the US may recover damages for the profits that it would have earned outside of the US if the infringement had not occurred. The dispute is between two companies that have systems [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled in Currier v. Virginia on Friday that a defendant indicted on multiple charges who agrees to have each charge tried separately gives up his right to benefit from an acquittal in the first trial. Virginia man Michael Currier faced trial for breaking and entering and grand larceny. While he was [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Friday in Ortiz v. United States that it has jurisdiction to review decisions made by the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces. It also held that simultaneously serving on both the Court of Military Commissions Review (CMCR) and the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) is lawful. Dalmazzi v. United [...]

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu vetoed a bill Thursday that would have abolished the death penalty. Currently, the law states: “A  person convicted of a capital murder may be punished by death.” The bill proposed that those found guilty would instead be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In New Hampshire, [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Friday in Carpenter v. United States that police must generally obtain a warrant in order to obtain cell phone location data. This case arose from petitioner Timothy Carpenter’s conviction for armed robbery, for which he was sentenced to 116 days in prison. At trial, the prosecution offered evidence of [...]

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday rejected an appeal by Norwegian mass murderer Fjotolf Hansen, previously known as Anders Behring Breivik. Hansen was convicted of killing 77 people and wounding 42 others at a political youth camp and was sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention. In his appeal, he challenged the conditions [...]