Articles Posted in Constitutional Law

Today, in a 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who refused to create a cake for a gay couple. The Court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions violated the baker’s right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.

On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied Planned Parenthood's petition for a writ of certiorari in Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley (8th Cir. 2017). At issue is an Arkansas abortion law that requires doctors who provide medication abortions to contract with a second doctor who has hospital admitting privileges. Arkansas has three abortion clinics, two of which only offer medication abortions; only the abortion clinic in Little Rock offers surgical abortions. Arkansas would become the seventh state to have only one abortion clinic should the law stand.

A federal district court judge has ruled the President cannot block users from his Twitter account based on their political views. The account is a public forum and as such the President's first amendment rights do not out weigh those of his Twitter followers. Read the full opinion and view the case filings at Justia.

A federal district court judge in Massachusetts recently issued a memorandum and order denying the government’s motion to dismiss a case challenging warrantless searches of electronic device at the US Boarder. The plaintiffs (ten United States citizens and one permanent resident) brought suit in September 2017 against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alleging that the defendants’ conduct searching plaintiffs’ electronic devices at ports of entry to the United States violates the Fourth Amendment and First Amendment of the Constitution.

In a 6-3 opinion, the US Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal statute that prohibited most states from allowing sports betting. Ruling in favor of the State of New Jersey and against sports leagues including the NCAA, the Court found that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) contained provisions that violated a doctrine known as the anticommandeering rule under the 10th Amendment, meaning that the law represented an unconstitutional overreach into state sovereignty.

A federal district court judge in New York has granted the government's request to appeal his earlier ruling that plaintiffs seeking to stop the president's attempted rollback of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy could cite Trump's "racially charged" language as part of their case. 

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.

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.

On Wednesday, April 04, 2018, the U.S Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California challenging a law that provides the state with the power to purchase federal lands or to designate a specific buyer. Lawmakers who passed the law reasoned that it is needed due to the 46 million acres of federal lands in California, arguing that the Trump administration may use those lands for more logging, oil drilling, or development.