On Wednesday, November 14, 2018, the United States Department of Justice provided a twenty page memo to President Donald J. Trump arguing that President Trump's appointment of Acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker complied with federal statutes and the U.S. Constitution, and that the appointment is "[c]onsistent with our prior opinion and with centuries of historical practice and precedents."
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA permits approximately 600,000 unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the US as children to remain in the country legally by seeking permission from the Department of Homeland Security every two years. Though the Trump administration had asked the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the case pending in the 9th Circuit before the appellate ruling, now that the appellate court has issued its decision, it is even more likely that the Supreme Court will take up the matter in 2019.
In response to the recent worldwide protests, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company would agree to the first demand made by the organizers.
Two Florida district courts have reached clashing conclusions on whether a suspect in a criminal case can invoke the Fifth Amendment to withhold their iPhone passcode from law enforcement. In the older case, State of Florida v. Stahl, the court ruled that a criminal suspect does not have this right under the Constitution. (This case involved…
Listen to the October, 2018 oral arguments presented to the Court and learn more about new cases on the docket.
A landmark bill aimed at protecting the rights of transgender Massachusetts residents in the context of public accommodations was upheld by voters on November 6.
In its first decision from this term, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier today that state and local governments must follow labor laws that ban age discrimination regardless of the number of their employees. Plaintiffs in Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido were two former Arizona firefighters who argued that the Mount Lemmon Fire District laid them off in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Because the fire department had fewer than 20 employees, the defendant argued that they were too small to qualify as an employer who had to comply with the law.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments this week in its second session of the 2018–2019 term. The cases argued span a wide range of topics, including arbitration, criminal procedure, federal Indian law, sovereign immunity, and class action settlements.
October 24, 2018 -- The 4th District appellate court ruled in G.A.Q.L. v State of Florida that an intoxicated minor involved in a car crash that killed someone cannot be forced to reveal the passcode to his iPhone. The teen, known as G.A.Q.L., was allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment clause, shielding him from self-incrimination. He had been found with a blood alcohol level of 0.086, which is over the legal limit, at the hospital after the car crash had occurred.
On Friday, October 19, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter of the Southern District of New York sentenced the CEO Of Natural Sapphire Company, Michael Arnstein, to nine months in prison for conspiring to forge a federal judge's signature on fake court orders compelling Google to remove negative reviews from Google search results related to Natural Sapphire Company. Arnstein previously plead guilty on September 15, 2017.