Recent Updates

  • Court: Local Wisconsin heath departments can’t close schools

    Court: Local Wisconsin heath departments can’t close schools

    U.S. Court Watch 06/11/2021

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that local health departments do not have the authority to close schools due to emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic, delivering a win to private and religious schools that challenged a Dane County order....

  • Court nixes South Carolina’s lifelong sex offender registry

    Court nixes South Carolina’s lifelong sex offender registry

    U.S. Court Watch 06/09/2021

    South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a state law requiring sex offenders to register for life, without prior judicial review, is unconstitutional. In a unanimous ruling, justices wrote that “requirement that sex offender...

  • Supreme Court ruling gives immigrant facing deportation hope

    Supreme Court ruling gives immigrant facing deportation hope

    U.S. Court Watch 06/01/2021

    A Guatemalan man who lived in a Massachusetts church for more than three years to avoid deportation said Tuesday he’s hopeful a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision boosts his efforts to remain in the country. Lucio Perez’s lawyer, Glenn Fo...

  • Lawsuit seeks Confederate statue’s removal from courthouse

    Lawsuit seeks Confederate statue’s removal from courthouse

    U.S. Court Watch 05/05/2021

    Civil rights advocates sued a Maryland county on Wednesday to seek the court-ordered removal of a Confederate monument from a courthouse lawn on the state’s Eastern Shore, calling it a racist symbol of oppression.In their federal lawsuit, an NA...

  • Supreme Court asked to give access to secretive court’s work

    Supreme Court asked to give access to secretive court’s work

    U.S. Court Watch 04/19/2021

    Civil liberties groups are asking the Supreme Court to give the public access to opinions of the secretive court that reviews bulk email collection, warrantless internet searches and other government surveillance programs.The groups say in an appeal ...

  • Supreme Court asked to give access to secretive court’s work

    Supreme Court asked to give access to secretive court’s work

    U.S. Court Watch 04/19/2021

    Civil liberties groups are asking the Supreme Court to give the public access to opinions of the secretive court that reviews bulk email collection, warrantless internet searches and other government surveillance programs.The groups say in an appeal ...

  •  Ex-police chief gets 1 year in prison for hiring scandal

    Ex-police chief gets 1 year in prison for hiring scandal

    U.S. Court Watch 04/15/2021

    The former police chief of Connecticut’s largest city was sentenced Monday to one year and one day in prison for rigging the hiring process that led to his appointment in 2018.A federal judge in Bridgeport handed down the punishment to Armando ...

  • Court rules Norman violated FOIA when approving budget

    Court rules Norman violated FOIA when approving budget

    U.S. Court Watch 04/14/2021

    The city of Norman violated the state’s Open Meeting Act when it approved a budget that cut the police budget by $865,000, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.The court upheld a circuit judge’s December ruling that a required notice ...

  • Appellate court arguments set for Charleston church shooter

    Appellate court arguments set for Charleston church shooter

    U.S. Court Watch 03/29/2021

    Attorneys for the man sentenced to federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation are set to formally argue that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned.Oral arguments have been set for...

  • Drug trafficker says he bribed Honduras president

    Drug trafficker says he bribed Honduras president

    U.S. Court Watch 03/11/2021

    A convicted Honduran drug trafficker and former leader of a cartel testified in United States federal court Thursday that he paid now-President Juan Orlando Hernández $250,000 for protection from arrest in 2012.Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, f...

  • Judge refuses to order remote access to New Hampshire House

    Judge refuses to order remote access to New Hampshire House

    U.S. Court Watch 02/22/2021

    The New Hampshire House can proceed with in-person sessions this week without providing remote access to medically vulnerable lawmakers, a federal judge ruled Monday.Seven Democratic lawmakers sued Republican House Speaker Sherm Packard last week arg...

  • Feds drop legal battle over tribe’s reservation status

    Feds drop legal battle over tribe’s reservation status

    U.S. Court Watch 02/20/2021

    The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe scored a legal victory Friday when the U.S. Interior Department withdrew a Trump administration appeal that aimed to revoke federal reservation designation for the tribe’s land in Massachusetts.A federal judge in 202...