All Law & Courts
- Minnesota school massacre averted: template for community vigilance?How police caught John LaDue, who allegedly planned to kill his family and bomb his school, offers a lesson in communal vigilance: how one watchful person had the power to stop a tragedy.
- Revenge porn: With Arizona, 10 states now outlaw such postingsArizona's new law to battle 'revenge porn' is among the toughest in the US, making it a felony to post on the Web images of someone who is nude, without consent. Similar bills are moving in other states.
- 'Stand your ground' laws: Two cases may suggest limits to their protectionsProsecutors have pressed ahead with cases in Montana and Minnesota, prompting consideration of potential limits to stand your ground laws.
- Botched Oklahoma execution shakes even death penalty supportersA majority of Americans support the death penalty, but a failed execution in Oklahoma is raising questions about what society will accept in the course of capital punishment.
- Donald Sterling ouster: Are ugly comments enough to remove a business owner?If Donald Sterling decides to contest an ouster from NBA ownership, legal experts foresee a protracted legal battle. The case offers a window on the intersection of social values, property rights, and public responsibility for private speech.
- Supreme Court appears wary of carte blanche for cellphone searchesThe Supreme Court justices confronted a government request for the warrantless search of cellphones of individuals being arrested, even for minor crimes like jaywalking or failing to wear a seatbelt.
- Sexual assault on campus: 'No more turning a blind eye' to it, Biden saysThe first report from the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault was released Tuesday as the Obama administration increases pressure on colleges to better address the problem.
- Supreme Court OKs EPA rules for cutting cross-state air pollutionThe US Supreme Court on Tuesday decided in favor of controversial EPA rules that aim to limit power-plant emissions in 28 upwind states to reduce air pollution in downwind states. Critics object that the rules give regulators too much power.
- When can cops search cellphones? Supreme Court to hear casesThe US Supreme Court will hear two cases Tuesday that deal with police searching an arrestee's cellphone without a warrant. Lower courts have disagreed on whether that is constitutional.
- When is a fish like an incriminating document? Supreme Court will decide.A missing box of undersized fish led to charges against a Florida fisherman under a federal anti-document shredding measure. Whether he was overcharged will be for the Supreme Court to say.
- Fracking: In apparent first, family gets courtroom victory in health caseAlthough others have sued oil and gas companies over alleged injuries from fracking, most have settled in agreements that include gag orders. But in the case involving the Parr family, a jury awarded $2.95 million.
- US widens path to clemency for nonviolent federal drug offendersThe new Justice Department clemency guidelines, which apply to inmates who have served 10 years of their sentence, are designed to alleviate racial disparities left over from tough drug laws.
- N.C. prosecutor kidnap plot: Home attacks on justice officials on the upswingThe alleged perpetrators nabbed the wrong person and traveled nearly halfway across the US to the wrong town, an indictment states. But the episode reveals soft spots in protection for judges and prosecutors, especially at their homes.
- US Supreme Court limits restitution payments to child pornography victimsThe Supreme Court said federal law does not require a defendant to pay the entire amount of a multimillion-dollar restitution award owed to a child pornography victim whose abuse is depicted in images widely distributed on the Internet.
- Groups react to Supreme Court decision upholding ban on race-based admissionsThe US Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Michigan ban on affirmative action. Opponents and supporters of the ban weighed in after the ruling.
- The ExplainerCourt halts Oklahoma executions: why lethal injection is now so controversialThe Oklahoma Supreme Court halted two executions over concerns that the state is keeping secrets about its lethal injection drugs. The issue is increasingly urgent for many states.
- US Supreme Court: Michigan ban on affirmative action OKThe Supreme Court said Tuesday that Proposal 2 in Michigan did not violate the US Constitution鈥檚 Equal Protection Clause as charged by groups favoring the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
- US Supreme Court to hear dispute over 'Jerusalem, Israel' as birthplaceAn American couple wants their son's passport to read, 'Jerusalem, Israel,' not simply 'Jerusalem.' The Supreme Court will consider whether a 2002 US law giving them that option trumps a State Department policy that doesn't, so as to avoid taking sides in the Middle East conflict.
- Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of longtime Guant谩namo detaineeAbdul Al Qader Ahmed Hussain has spent a third of his life in US custody. His lawyers say there's no evidence he was an enemy combatant, but the US Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up his appeal.
- Aereo Internet service vs. TV broadcasters: US Supreme Court to decideAereo provides TV viewing and recording to subscribers via the Internet for $8 a month. But Aereo pays major broadcast companies nothing, and broadcasters say that violates copyright protections.