Tag: federal court
Jake Tapper: Finally, Justice for C. J. Rice
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C. J. Rice was first arraigned in 2011 on the 11th floor of 1301 Filbert Street, a towering, steel-framed criminal-court complex two miles from the South Philadelphia neighborhood where he’d grown up. In 2013, on the fifth floor of the same building, Rice was tried on four counts of attempted murder, found guilty, and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.
Anti-abortion Conservatives’ First Target If Trump Returns
The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision about the most common pharmaceutical used for medication abortions may be just the beginning of the political battle over the drug.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of lower-court rulings that would severely reduce access to mifepristone. The Court’s acceptance of the case marked a crucial juncture in the legal maneuvering over the medication.
But however the high court rules, pressure is mounting inside the GOP coalition for the next
Beached Syringes and the Invention of Medical Waste
The first tide of syringes washed ashore on Thursday, August 13, 1987. Hundreds of unmarked hypodermic needles spilled out of the surf that afternoon, accompanied by vials and prescription bottles, along a 50-mile stretch of New Jersey beaches during peak tourist season. By the next morning, New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, an environmentalist Republican with national ambitions, was aloft in a helicopter surveying the floating slick of medical waste and other garbage that now stretched from Manasquan to Atlantic
What Trump Brings Out in Americans
Plus: Will the Hunter Biden story spell trouble for Democrats?
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
If you could pose one earnest question to any of the Republican candidates, what would it be? (No insults disguised as questions allowed.)
Trump Has Now Been Indicted for Even More Crimes
Updated at 8:09 p.m. ET on July 28, 2023
Yesterday, Special Counsel Jack Smith secured a superseding indictment in the classified-documents case against Donald Trump and his aide Waltine Nauta in federal court in Florida. The revised indictment adds a new defendant, Carlos de Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, as well as two new obstruction-of-justice counts for attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence.” The new charges stem from allegations that Trump, Nauta, and de Oliveira together attempted
How Comedy Movies Are Changing
Plus: How to increase diversity at the top
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
I’m still rounding up your emails about the song “Fast Car” and coverage of race in journalism––they’ll run early next week and then we’ll be back on our
Trump Will Abuse the Presidency to End His Legal Troubles
If, as seems likely, Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee next year, the 2024 elections will be a referendum on several crucial issues: the prospect of authoritarianism in America, the continuation of a vibrant democracy, the relationship between the executive branch and the other two branches of government, and much else of grave significance.
It will also be a referendum on whether Trump will ever be held legally accountable for his actions. Trump faces multiple civil suits and at
The Best Hope for Fixing America’s Gun Crisis
Even if Congress does manage to pass gun legislation in the weeks ahead—still a big if—that legislation will leave much to be done. The proposed framework does not, for example, increase the minimum age for purchasing firearms, address assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, or close background-check loopholes for secondary sales, among other shortcomings.
Americans who want a more far-reaching answer to the country’s gun crisis should look elsewhere: to the nation’s tort system, which is available right now to push
Courts Should Be More Skeptical About Religious Beliefs
It was no surprise back in March when the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had to oblige a death-row inmate’s wish for the company of a pastor who would pray with him and touch him as the lethal cocktail dripped into his veins. Such execution-chamber companionship was “part of my faith,” the inmate claimed, and if anything could penetrate the Court’s wall of indifference toward the death penalty, it figured to be religion. The vote was 8–1.
But there
The Numbers Are All Wrong in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a case that is seeking to limit the scope of a decision the Court made less than two years ago. In July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that Congress never annulled the Muscogee Nation reservation. After the McGirt ruling, an additional five reservations in the state were affirmed by lower courts—meaning that more than 40 percent of Oklahoma is now legally Indian