Thursday, May 9, 2024

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 | Back issues

Civil Rights

Ninth Circuit finds that convicted felons also have Second Amendment rights

Edvard Pettersson / May 9, 2024

In a significant shift, the appellate court ruled that a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court means that convicted felons can't automatically be deprived of their right to bear arms.

North Carolina man tells Fourth Circuit cops made him pay for son’s drug crimes

Sydney Haulenbeek / May 9, 2024

Judges questioned if officers had probable cause to charge and detain a Black minister and community leader for drug trafficking after all evidence pointed to his son.

Rights groups sue Iowa over new law making illegal immigration a state crime

Rox Laird / May 9, 2024

A new law in Iowa makes it a state crime for noncitizens to reenter the United States after being removed. Violators could face deportation or up to 10 years in prison.

Racial harassment

Brief / May 9, 2024

CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit upheld an Illinois federal court’s decision to throw out most of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s claims on behalf of Black nursing home workers who say they worked in a racially hostile working environment. The appellate judges ruled that whatever insensitivity and harassment the employees faced at work, none of it rose to the level of pervasiveness or severity necessary to sustain the lawsuit.

Inaccessible border app

Brief / May 8, 2024

LOS ANGELES — Civil rights groups say that U.S. Custom and Border Protection's app for asylum applicants is faulty and inaccessible, especially for disabled applicants. The groups filed a Freedom of Information Act to request the agency release documents on the app's operations.

Kids’ climate change class action against EPA thrown out

Edvard Pettersson / May 8, 2024

A federal judge concluded that a group of children had no standing to bring their lawsuit over pollution and the climate crisis.

Exploitation and theft

Brief / May 8, 2024

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal court in Texas dismissed the counterclaims brought by Louis Black, the co-founder of the Austin Chronicle and South by Southwest (SXSW), against a former employee who sued him for allegedly coercing her into sex and withholding her salary when she refused to marry him. His countersuit alleges that she stole “several valuable comic books and pulp magazines” from his garage, but the counterclaim is inappropriate because the legal questions in the suit and countersuit “contain no overlap.”

Alabama abortion assistance

Brief / May 8, 2024

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal court in Alabama partially denied the state attorney general’s motion to dismiss a constitutional challenge to the state’s prosecution of anyone who assists in facilitating out-of-state abortions. “Alabama can no more restrict people from going to, say, California to engage in what is lawful there than California can restrict people from coming to Alabama to do what is lawful here.” Advocates’ right-to-travel, freedom of speech, freedom of association and extraterritoriality claims survive the motion.

Civil Rights

Ninth Circuit finds that convicted felons also have Second Amendment rights

North Carolina man tells Fourth Circuit cops made him pay for son’s drug crimes

Rights groups sue Iowa over new law making illegal immigration a state crime

Racial harassment

Inaccessible border app

Kids’ climate change class action against EPA thrown out

Exploitation and theft

Alabama abortion assistance

California gets appellate OK to share gun owners’ data with university researchers

First Circuit checks RI prison staff’s qualified immunity against solitary confinement claims

Hong Kong demands online platforms remove banned protest song