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Court Raises Bar for Some Immigrants to Avoid Deportation
The Supreme Court has made it harder for longtime immigrants who have been convicted of a crime to avoid deportation
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Supreme Court Ruling: LGBTQ People Protected From Job Discrimination
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that LGBTQ rights are protected from discrimination in employment.
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Roberts Seems to Hold Key to Case Over New York City Gun Law
Chief Justice John Roberts appeared Monday to be the key vote in whether the Supreme Court considers expanding gun rights or sidesteps its first case on the issue in nearly 10 years. The court’s dismissal of the case would be a disappointment to gun-rights advocates and a huge relief to gun-control groups. Both sides thought a conservative Supreme Court majority...
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Abortion, Immigrants, LGBT Rights Top High Court's New Term
Abortion rights as well as protections for young immigrants and LGBT people top an election-year agenda for the Supreme Court. Its conservative majority will have ample opportunity to flex its muscle, testing Chief Justice John Roberts’ attempts to keep the court clear of Washington partisan politics. Guns could be part of a term with plenty of high-profile cases and at...
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Supreme Court to Hear Louisiana Abortion Regulation Case
The Supreme Court is adding an abortion case to its busy election-year docket, agreeing to take up a Louisiana law that could leave the state with just one clinic. The justices won’t hear arguments until the winter and a decision is likely to come by the end of June, four months before the presidential election. The high court in February...
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Gun-Control Backers Concerned About Changing Federal Courts
California has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, including a ban on the type of high-capacity ammunition magazines used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. How long those types of laws will stand is a growing concern among gun control advocates in California and elsewhere. A federal judiciary that is becoming increasingly conservative under President...
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Ex-Marine, Professor, MLB Draft Pick Among High Court Clerks
A former Marine who deployed twice to Afghanistan. A patent law professor. A woman who’s blind. Two Rhodes scholars. They’re among the lawyers starting work this summer as law clerks at the Supreme Court. The group of 16 women and 23 men hired by the justices were already on paths to become leading judges, professors and Supreme Court advocates. The...
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Justices Side With Business, Government in Information Fight
The Supreme Court sided with businesses and the U.S. government Monday in a ruling about the public’s access to information, telling a South Dakota newspaper it can’t get the data it was seeking. Open government and reporters groups described the ruling against the Argus Leader newspaper as a setback, but it was not clear how big its impact will ultimately...
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Justices Side With Business, Government in Information Fight
The Supreme Court sided with businesses and the U.S. government Monday in a ruling about the public’s access to information, telling a South Dakota newspaper it can’t get the data it was seeking. Open government and reporters groups described the ruling against the Argus Leader newspaper as a setback, but it was not clear how big its impact will ultimately...
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Supreme Court Tosses Murder Conviction of Curtis Flowers, Black Mississippi Man Who Was Tried Six Times
The Supreme Court on Friday threw out the murder conviction and death sentence for a black man in Mississippi because of a prosecutor’s efforts to keep African Americans off the jury. The defendant already has been tried six times and now could face a seventh trial. The removal of black prospective jurors deprived inmate Curtis Flowers of a fair trial,...
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Georgia's Republican Gov. Kemp Signs Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Ban
Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation on Tuesday banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant. Kemp said he was signing the bill “to ensure that all Georgians have the opportunity to live, grow, learn and prosper in our great state.” The signing caps...
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Justice Clarence Thomas' Moment May Finally Have Arrived
Clarence Thomas has been a Supreme Court justice for nearly three decades. It may finally be his moment. Many Americans know Thomas largely from his bruising 1991 confirmation hearing, when he was accused of sexual harassment charges by former employee Anita Hill — charges he denied. People may know he’s a conservative and has gone years without speaking during arguments...
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Accuracy at Core of Supreme Court Case Over Census Question
Justice Elena Kagan’s father was 3 years old when the census taker came to the family’s apartment on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, New York, on April 10, 1930. Robert Kagan was initially wrongly listed as an “alien,” though he was a native-born New Yorker. The entry about his citizenship status appears to have been crossed out on the census form....
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In ‘FUCT' Fashion Brand Case, Justices Avoid Saying Word
None of the Supreme Court’s justices wanted to say the four-letter word. The high court was discussing a trademark case Monday involving a Los Angeles-based fashion brand “FUCT.” But the justices did some verbal gymnastics to get through about an hour of arguments without saying the brand’s name. Chief Justice John Roberts described it as the “vulgar word at the...
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Justices Rule Against Missouri Inmate With Rare Health Issue
Missouri can execute an inmate who argued his rare medical condition will result in severe pain if he is put to death by lethal injection, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The justices split along ideological lines in ruling 5-4 against inmate Russell Bucklew, who is on death row for a 1996 murder.
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2 Death Row Inmates Had Similar Requests, But Different Results
Death row inmates Patrick Murphy and Domineque Ray each turned to courts recently with a similar plea: Halt my execution if the state won’t let a spiritual adviser of my faith accompany me into the execution chamber. Both cases wound up at the Supreme Court. And while the justices overrode a lower court and allowed Ray’s execution to go forward...
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2 Death Row Inmates Had Similar Requests, But Different Results
Death row inmates Patrick Murphy and Domineque Ray each turned to courts recently with a similar plea: Halt my execution if the state won’t let a spiritual adviser of my faith accompany me into the execution chamber. Both cases wound up at the Supreme Court. And while the justices overrode a lower court and allowed Ray’s execution to go forward...
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‘Heartbeat' Abortion Ban Heads to Georgia Governor's Desk
Watchful eyes now turn to Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, wondering when he might sign a “heartbeat” abortion ban that he supported and helped push through. The Georgia House gave final approval Friday to legislation outlawing abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, sending the bill to Kemp. If enacted, it’d be among the strictest abortion bans in the...
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Abortion Case Shows Roberts Firmly at Supreme Court's Center
Chief Justice John Roberts broke with the Supreme Court’s other conservative justices and his own voting record on abortion to block a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Roberts didn’t explain his decision late Thursday to join the court’s four liberal justices. But it was the clearest sign yet of the role Roberts...
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Federal Judge Strikes Down Citizenship Question From 2020 Census
The Trump administration cannot put a question about citizenship status on the 2020 census, a federal judge in New York ruled Friday in a boost to proponents of counting immigrants.