On Tuesday, US District Judge John D. Bates ordered the Trump administration to continue the Obama-era program known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

On Monday the Ninth Circuit ruled that animals do not have standing to sue people for breaking copyright laws. Had Congress intended for copyright protection to extend to animals, the should have expressly written it into the law, the three-judge panel concluded.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a law regulating abortions signed into law in March of 2016 by then Indiana Governor Mike Pence.Called the “Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban”, the law imposed restrictions on a woman’s ability to have an abortion based on her reasons for seeking the abortion. The law prohibited a person from performing an abortion if the person knows the woman is seeking an abortion solely for one of the enumerated reasons related to the disposition of the fetus, and required those performing abortions to inform women of the provisions. The prohibited reasons included seeking an abortion based on the sex of the fetus, whether the fetus had been diagnose with a disability, or its race, color, national origin or ancestry.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Russian Government, numerous top officials in the Trump Campaign, and the WikiLeaks organization. The lawsuit alleges that Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and releasing the information found.

The largest social media company in the world faces another legal battle. On Monday, April 16, 2018, US District Judge James Donato ruled in San Francisco federal court that a class action lawsuit could proceed with the allegation that Facebook illegally collected and stored its users biometric data without their permission.

On Tuesday, April 17, 2018, the United States Supreme Court decided Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), with Justice Neil Gorsuch casting the deciding vote against the Trump Administration. The Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. 16(b), as incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act, was unconstitutionally "void for vagueness," citing Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___ (2015).

Along with other news organizations, the Los Angeles Times has filed a lawsuit challenging California's new execution rules. The complaint alleges violations of the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to witness and report on executions on behalf of the public. At issue are provisions permitting lethal injection drugs to be concocted outside the view of media observers, and requiring the curtains in the lethal injection chamber to be drawn and media witnesses removed if an execution does not proceed as planned. 

In a motion filed on Friday, April 13th, the NFL requested the appointment of a special investigator to stop the "widespread fraud" that allegedly is taking place in efforts to secure payment from the $1 billion settlement.

A federal district court judge in Massachusetts ruled that the Second Amendment does not prevent Massachusetts from banning assault rifles.

Federal District Court Judge Mark E. Walker had some choice words for the administration of Florida Governor Rick Scott in a recent ruling on voting rights. View the full docket and reading the ruling on Justia.