Did US violate First Amendment by pressuring social media? Supreme Court will decide

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider whether the U.S. government unconstitutionally pressured social media companies to curb COVID-19 misinformation and other content.

Oct 24, 2023 9:00 AM CDT

MacArthur grant winners include 2 law profs and democracy lawyer, all Yale Law grads

Updated: A democracy lawyer and legal scholars studying global migration and incarceration practices will each receive $800,000 after being named 2023 MacArthur Foundation fellows.

Oct 4, 2023 3:21 PM CDT

Justice Alito temporarily blocks curbs on Biden administration’s communications with social media

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday temporarily blocked an injunction that curbed the Biden administration’s communications with social media.

Sep 15, 2023 9:45 AM CDT

US pressure on social media over misinformation likely unconstitutional, 5th Circuit says

Updated: The U.S. government likely violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to block COVID-19 misinformation and other content, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Sep 11, 2023 10:42 AM CDT

25 federal district courts have always had white judges

Twenty-five out of 94 federal district courts have never had a judge of color, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.

Sep 5, 2023 12:36 PM CDT

Louisiana man’s jokes about sheriff’s department are protected free speech, 5th Circuit says

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a Louisiana man who was arrested after posting on Facebook that a local sheriff’s department had ordered its deputies to shoot people who were infected with COVID-19.

Aug 28, 2023 11:43 AM CDT

Religious act may protect Jehovah’s Witness who refused psychiatric meds before trial, 5th Circuit says

A federal judge should consider the religious claims of a defendant who has refused to take psychiatric medications to become competent for trial on a charge of threatening a New Orleans judge, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Aug 15, 2023 2:09 PM CDT

Referee faults Florida Bar probe of lawyer accused of improperly soliciting hurricane clients

A Florida partner with a Louisiana law firm did not improperly solicit Florida clients after Hurricane Ian and did not attempt to mislead the public about the nature of a truck, a trailer and a tent set up in a parking lot for client meetings, according to a referee in an ethics case.

Aug 15, 2023 8:29 AM CDT

Weekly Briefs: ‘Taco Tuesday’ trademark spat resolved; Trump Organization settles with Michael Cohen

‘Taco Tuesday’ trademark abandoned Taco John’s has agreed to give up its “Taco Tuesday” trademark after Taco Bell sought its cancellation in what it described as a “liberation” campaign. Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement “paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t…

Jul 21, 2023 2:35 PM CDT

Judge curbs US effort to battle disinformation on social media; will ruling withstand appeal?

The federal government has appealed a federal judge’s curbs on the Biden administration’s efforts to stop misinformation on social media.

Jul 6, 2023 11:58 AM CDT

States can’t challenge Biden administration’s immigration enforcement policy, Supreme Court rules

Updated: Texas and Louisiana don’t have standing to challenge immigration-enforcement guidelines that the two states believe to be too lenient, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in an 8-1 decision.

Jun 23, 2023 10:51 AM CDT

Jackson dissent: SCOTUS should have heard case of death-row inmate who didn’t get co-defendant’s confession

Apr 3, 2023 10:05 AM CDT

Law firm accused of 856 insurer misrepresentations is suspended from practice in federal district court

Houston-based law firm McClenny, Moseley & Associates has been suspended from practice in a Louisiana federal court because of a judge’s concerns about its purported representation of clients with claims related to Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Ida.

Mar 7, 2023 3:02 PM CST

ABA partners with law schools to advance new approaches to policing and public safety

Kendall Anderson, a 3L at the Syracuse University College of Law, is a fellow in the third class of the Legal Education Police Practices Consortium. He plans to study cases in which police stops end in physical altercations. “I’ll try to get insight from officers as to the training they do that is preparing and equipping them to be able to handle those situations better.”

Mar 7, 2023 11:43 AM CST

More than a quarter of Louisiana prisoners have been held past their release dates since 2012, DOJ says

There is reasonable cause to think that Louisiana is violating the constitutional rights of imprisoned people by keeping them in custody past their release dates, the U.S. Department of Justice has concluded.

Jan 30, 2023 9:11 AM CST