The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment bar wrongful termination lawsuits when the employer is a religious group and the employee is one of the organization’s ministers. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) contains a [...]

Wednesday marked the tenth annivesary of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay . On January 11, 2002, 20 detainees arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, imprisoned as the first “enemy combatants” in the War on Terror declared by the US after 9/11 . The 20 men were the first of nearly 800 prisoners to pass through [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of South Carolina on Monday placed a hold on a lawsuit over the state’s new immigration law pending the outcome of a similar case to be heard by the US Supreme Court . The South Carolina legislation requires police officers to check a suspect’s immigration [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday in Pacific Operators Offshore LLP v. Valladolid that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) extends coverage to an employee who can establish a substantial nexus between his injury and his employer’s extractive operations on the outer continental shelf (OCS). The OCSLA governs those who work on oil [...]

A report compiled by a French court appeared Tuesday to clear Rwandan President Paul Kagame of accusations that he orchestrated the 1994 assassination of the country’s then-leader Juvenal Habyarimana . The accusations against Kagame stem from the April 6, 1994, plane crash that killed Habyarimana when his plane was shot down by a missile. The [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Wednesday in Perry v. New Hampshire that the Due Process Clause does not require a preliminary judicial inquiry into the reliability of an eyewitness identification when the identification was not procured under unnecessarily suggestive circumstances arranged by law enforcement. The petitioner was convicted based in part on an eyewitness [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday lifted an injunction on a Texas law that requires women to have a sonogram before undergoing an abortion , allowing the law to be enforced. In addition to the sonogram, the new law also dictates that the woman must listen to a detailed description [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases on Tuesday. In FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. , the court heard arguments on whether the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) current indecency enforcement regime violates the First or Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution by being too vague to be enforced properly. The case [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday in Smith v. Cain to overturn the conviction of Juan Smith due to the New Orleans District Attorney’s office withholding material evidence from the defense. Smith was convicted of murder largely on the testimony of one eyewitness. However, the District Attorney’s office had statements from the witness that [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday in CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood that, because the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) is silent on whether claims can proceed in an arbitrable forum, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires the arbitration agreement to be enforced according to its terms. The case arose from a dispute between consumers [...]