Courts and the Judiciary

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      How Biden Changed His Mind on Pardoning Hunter: ‘Time to End All of This’

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      The threat of a retribution-focused Trump administration and his son’s looming sentencings prompted the president to abandon a promise not to get involved in Hunter Biden’s legal problems.A dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president.Inside a borrowed vacation compound earlier in the week, with its views of the Nantucket Harbor, Mr. Biden had met with his wife, Jill Biden, and his son Hunter Biden to discuss a decision that had tormented him for months. The issue: a pardon that would clear Hunter of years of legal trouble, something the president had repeatedly insisted he would not do.Support for pardoning Hunter Biden had been building for months within the family, but external forces had more recently weighed on Mr. Biden, who watched warily as President-elect Donald J. Trump picked loyalists for his administration who promised to bring political and legal retribution to Mr. Trump’s enemies.Mr. Biden had even invited Mr. Trump to the White House, listening without responding as the president-elect aired familiar grievances about the Justice Department — then surprised his host by sympathizing with the Biden family’s own troubles with the department, according to three people briefed on the conversation.But it was Hunter Biden’s looming sentencings on federal gun and tax charges, scheduled for later this month, that gave Mr. Biden the final push. A pardon was one thing he could do for a troubled son, a recovering addict who he felt had been subjected to years of public pain.When the president returned to Washington late Saturday evening, he convened a call with several senior aides to tell them about his decision.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mexico Passes Bill Barring Legal Challenges to Constitutional Changes

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      The bill has drawn criticism from legal scholars who say it would bulldoze any judicial oversight of constitutional matters. Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved sweeping new measures on Wednesday that would prevent legal challenges to constitutional amendments, allowing lawmakers to reshape the country’s charter without any judicial review — even from the Supreme Court.The bill, which was already passed by the Senate last week, has drawn criticism from legal scholars and human rights experts, who say it would bulldoze any judicial oversight of constitutional matters and hand the ruling Morena party seemingly unchecked power to pass profound changes to the laws governing the nation.Most state legislatures are expected to approve the measure in the coming days, paving the way for the president to sign it into law.The move comes at a tense moment for Mexico, in which the major branches of government barreling toward open conflict over the fundamental makeup of the judicial system and the role it should play in the country’s democracy.“This reform, if it passes, does place us in a context of an exercise of unlimited power,” said Guadalupe Salmorán Villar, a researcher on global rule of law and constitutional democracy based in Mexico City. “It’s an overt attempt by the federal government, with the support of the large congressional majority of Morena and its allies, to politically subjugate the judiciary.”Olga Sánchez Cordero, a Morena lawmaker, said that while the initiative would bar courts from weighing in on the content of constitutional amendments, it would not prohibit challenges on procedural grounds. Until now, she said, the Constitution has not been clear on how changes to the charter could be revised, but now there would be “a clear, explicit, unequivocal mechanism” for evaluating them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      8 Supreme Court Justices in Mexico to Resign Ahead of Contentious Election

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      All but three of the country’s Supreme Court justices announced they would quit rather than partake in the controversial elections mandated by a judicial overhaul.In a series of terse resignation letters released Wednesday, eight of Mexico’s 11 Supreme Court justices said they would step down from their posts instead of participating in a contentious election of thousands of judges next year. The justices will all serve the remainder of their terms, most of which conclude in August.The announcements were the latest volley in an ongoing battle over a judicial overhaul, passed by the ruling party and its allies in September, that promises to upend the system by which Mexico’s judges are chosen and how they operate.The resignations follow a spate of attacks on the courts by President Claudia Sheinbaum and prominent members of her Morena party, who have said the response to the overhaul by the country’s justices is motivated by their desire to protect their own privileges. “This is a political message being sent not just by the Supreme Court, but the entire judiciary,” said Fernanda Caso, a political analyst in Mexico City. “These resignations and decisions not to participate, as a matter of dignity, are a response to the attacks and the way they have been treated.”Among other changes, the redesign of the judiciary requires that all of the nation’s judges be elected and will subject them to review by a disciplinary tribunal made up of elected officials, who will have the power to investigate and impeach judges.Supporters say the measure will help curb corruption within the judicial system. Critics say it will undermine judicial independence and give the Morena party control over a key check on its power. It has been met with more than 500 legal challenges by federal judges and other critics, some of whom say it violates the Constitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawyers Should Not Assist Trump in a Potential Power Grab

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      As the presidential campaign begins its final sprint, Donald Trump has made crystal clear how he will respond if he loses. He will refuse to accept the results; he will make baseless claims of voter fraud; and he will turn, with even more ferocity than he did in 2020, to the courts to save him.Mr. Trump has made clear that he views any election he loses — no matter how close or fair — as by definition illegitimate. The question then is whether there will be lawyers willing to cloak this insistence in the language of legal reasoning and therefore to assist him in litigating his way back to the White House.Republican lawyers have already unleashed lawsuits ahead of Election Day. These legal partisans have pursued their efforts across the country but have concentrated on swing states and key counties. The moves are clearly intended to lay the groundwork for Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in states where the margins of victory are close.Such post-election efforts will be credible only if credible attorneys sign on to mount them. So it is critical that lawyers of conscience refuse to assist in those endeavors. As Mr. Trump’s rhetoric grows ever more vengeful and openly authoritarian, a great deal turns on the willingness of members of the legal profession to make common cause with him.At least since 2000, every close presidential election has involved recounts or litigation. Both sides lawyer up, and a high-stakes game of inches ensues.Although the lawyers engaged in those efforts are playing hardball, their work is predicated on a shared set of premises: In elections, the candidate who gets the most votes prevails (whether that means winning state or federal office or winning a state’s electoral votes). And in a close election, skilled lawyers will seek to develop legal arguments that determine which votes count, and therefore who emerges as the winner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kentucky Sheriff Arrested in Shooting Death of Judge

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      The police say a sheriff shot District Judge Kevin Mullins inside the courthouse on Thursday afternoon before turning himself in.The sheriff of a rural eastern Kentucky county walked into a courthouse on Thursday afternoon and shot and killed a district judge in his chambers after an argument, the police said.Mickey Stines, 43, the sheriff in Letcher County, turned himself in after shooting Judge Kevin Mullins and was charged with first-degree murder, Trooper Matt Gayheart of the Kentucky State Police said at a news conference on Thursday evening.The shooting happened at about 2:55 p.m. inside the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg, a city in southeastern Kentucky.The sheriff was taken to a local jail and had been cooperative with investigators, Trooper Gayheart said.“This community is small in nature, and we’re all shook,” the trooper said.Judge Mullins, 54, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, Trooper Gayheart said.Investigators were interviewing witnesses who were in the building at the time of the shooting. The police were still trying to determine what had led up to the argument.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mexico’s Contentious Judiciary Overhaul Becomes Law

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      Going forward, Mexican voters will now elect judges at every level, dramatically restructuring the third branch of government.Mexico passed into law on Sunday a constitutional amendment remaking its entire judiciary, marking the most far-reaching overhaul of a country’s court system ever carried out by a major democracy.The results demonstrate the exceptional influence of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, who championed the legislation. The victory of his allies in June elections afforded them substantial legislative majorities to advance the contentious proposal in the leader’s final weeks in office. On the eve of Mexico’s Independence Day, the measure was published in the government’s official gazette, making it law.The law shifts the judiciary from an appointment-based system, largely grounded in training and qualifications, to one where voters elect judges and there are fewer requirements to run. That puts Mexico onto an untested course, the consequences of which are difficult to foresee.“Now it’s different,” Mr. López Obrador said in a video posted on social media on Sunday night in which his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, was seated next to him. “Now it’s the people who rule, the people who decide.”Roughly 7,000 judges, from the chief justice of the Supreme Court down to those at local courts, will have to run for office under the new system. The changes will be put into effect gradually, with a large portion of the judiciary up for election in 2025 and the rest in 2027.The government said the overhaul was needed to modernize the courts and to instill trust in a system plagued by graft, influence peddling and nepotism. Ms. Sheinbaum, takes office on Oct. 1 and has fully backed the plan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Contention Over Mexico’s Plan to Elect Judges, Explained

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      A sweeping change would have thousands of judges, from local courtrooms all the way up to the Supreme Court, elected instead of appointed.A landmark shift unfolded in Mexico on Thursday as a majority of its 32 states approved an overhaul of the country’s judicial system. In a monumental change, thousands of judges would be elected instead of appointed, from local courtrooms to the Supreme Court.The measure could produce one of the most far-reaching judicial overhauls of any major democracy and has already provoked deep division in Mexico.Nevertheless, the legislation’s passage into law was practically a foregone conclusion by Thursday as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced his intent to publish the bill on Sunday, on the eve of Mexico’s Independence Day.“It is a very important reform,” Mr. López Obrador, whose six-year tenure ends at the end of the month, said during his daily news conference. “It’s reaffirming that in Mexico there is an authentic democracy where the people elect their representatives.”The departing president and his Morena party have championed remaking the court system as a way to curtail graft, influence-peddling and nepotism and to give Mexicans a greater voice. Mr. López Obrador’s successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, will take office on Oct. 1 and has fully backed the plan.But court workers, judges, legal scholars and opposition leaders argue that it would inadequately address issues such as corruption and instead bolster Mr. López Obrador’s political movement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      La Cámara de Diputados en México aprueba en lo general la propuesta del presidente en materia judicial

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      Fue el primer paso hacia un sistema en el que casi todos los jueces del país serían elegidos por voto popular. El proyecto pasa ahora al Senado.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Los legisladores de la Cámara de Diputados del Congreso de México aprobaron el miércoles en la madrugada en lo general una amplia propuesta para rediseñar todo el poder judicial, el primer paso para cambiar el país a un sistema en el que casi todos los jueces sean elegidos por voto popular para el cargo.La votación avanza una de las revisiones judiciales de mayor alcance de las últimas décadas en cualquier gran democracia, lo que eleva las tensiones en México sobre si las medidas mejorarán el funcionamiento de los tribunales del país o politizarán el poder judicial a favor del partido gobernante Morena y sus aliados. En el sistema actual, los jueces se nombran en función de una formación y unas calificaciones especiales.Ahora, la Cámara de Diputados tendrá que discutir más de 600 detalles del proyecto de ley antes de que pase al Senado, donde al bloque gobernante solo le falta un escaño para alcanzar la mayoría calificada, aunque se espera que la medida sea aprobada.El martes, cuando los legisladores se reunieron para discutir la propuesta, ocho de los 11 ministros de la Suprema Corte votaron a favor de suspender las sesiones durante el resto de la semana en apoyo a los empleados judiciales en huelga del alto tribunal, que iniciaron un paro durante la semana, con lo que se sumaron a los cientos de trabajadores judiciales y jueces federales de todo México que iniciaron una huelga indefinida el mes pasado por los cambios propuestos.Con la esperanza de retrasar la votación, los trabajadores en huelga formaron una cadena humana para bloquear el acceso a la Cámara de Diputados. Pero los legisladores cambiaron de sede y prosiguieron con el debate, que a menudo se convirtió en un tenso intercambio de acusaciones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More