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Texas advances new abortion limits despite court defeats
Court Watch |
2017/05/18 14:59
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Texas' Republican-controlled Legislature late Friday advanced tough new limits on abortion— hitting back at a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer striking down most of the sweeping restrictions on the procedure that America's second-largest state approved four years ago.
The Texas House voted 96-47 on legislation that bans a commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure, known as dilation and evacuation, similar to laws that courts have blocked in Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas and Louisiana. It further directed doctors performing the procedure in Texas to face felony charges.
Those contentious provisions were tacked onto a broader bill requiring the burial or cremation of fetal remains from abortions, even though a federal judge has already blocked an existing state rule mandating the same thing.
The measure also bars sale or donation of fetal tissue, something GOP-majority legislatures around the country have sought since the release of heavily edited, secretly recorded videos shot inside Planned Parenthood clinics by an anti-abortion group in 2015. Federal law already prohibits sale of fetal tissue.
Final approval should come Saturday. The proposal previously cleared the state Senate, but will have to return there because the House so expanded its scope. That chamber is even more conservative, though, and passage should be easy. |
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Court pauses criminal case against Texas' attorney general
Legal Focuses |
2017/05/17 15:00
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A state appeals court has temporarily halted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's criminal case on securities fraud charges as he presses for a new judge.
The ruling Tuesday comes as Paxton is scheduled to stand trial in Houston in September on felony accusations that he misled investors in a tech startup. He has pleaded not guilty.
The Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals is now putting the case on hold while it considers Paxton's demand for a new judge. The Republican has sought to remove state District Judge George Gallagher after the trial was moved from Paxton's hometown near Dallas.
The court didn't indicate when it will make a final decision. If convicted, Paxton faces five to 99 years in prison. |
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Court likely to question if Trump's travel ban discriminates
Court Line |
2017/05/16 08:52
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For the second time in a week, government lawyers will try to persuade a federal appeals court to reinstate President Donald Trump's revised travel ban — and once again, they can expect plenty of questions Monday about whether it was designed to discriminate against Muslims.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled arguments in Seattle over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge's decision putting the ban on ice. They peppered Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall with questions about whether they could consider Trump's campaign statements calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., with one judge asking if there was anything other than "willful blindness" that would prevent them from doing so.
Monday's arguments mark the second time Trump's efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.
After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide — a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel. |
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Supreme Court declines to hear North Carolina voter ID case
Attorney News |
2017/05/15 21:57
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The Supreme Court declined to hear a case Monday about North Carolina's voter ID law, allowing a lower court ruling holding that the law was passed with "discriminatory intent" to prevail.
The Supreme Court's denial of the case means a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that struck down the law will stand.
In explaining the high court's decision not to take the case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the new governor and attorney general that took office in January 2017 moved to dismiss North Carolina's petition. Roberts also pointed out the "blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law." |
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High court could soon signal view on Trump immigration plans
Court Line |
2017/05/15 21:56
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Supreme Court decisions in a half-dozen cases dealing with immigration over the next two months could reveal how the justices might evaluate Trump administration actions on immigration, especially stepped-up deportations.
Some of those cases could be decided as early as Monday, when the court is meeting to issue opinions in cases that were argued over the past six months.
The outcomes could indicate whether the justices are retreating from long-standing decisions that give the president and Congress great discretion in dealing with immigration, and what role administration policies, including the proposed ban on visits to the United States by residents of six majority Muslim countries, may play.
President Trump has pledged to increase deportations, particularly of people who have been convicted of crimes. But Supreme Court rulings in favor of the immigrants in the pending cases “could make his plans more difficult to realize,” said Christopher Hajec, director of litigation for the Immigration Reform Litigation Institute. The group generally supports the new administration’s immigration actions, including the travel ban.
For about a century, the court has held that, when dealing with immigration, the White House and Congress “can get away with things they ordinarily couldn’t,” said Temple University law professor Peter Spiro, an immigration law expert. “The court has explicitly said the Constitution applies differently in immigration than in other contexts.”
Two of the immigration cases at the court offer the justices the possibility of cutting into the deference that courts have given the other branches of government in this area. One case is a class-action lawsuit brought by immigrants who’ve spent long periods in custody, including many who are legal residents of the United States or are seeking asylum. The court is weighing whether the detainees have a right to court hearings.
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