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      Supreme Court Declines to Rule on Tech Platforms’ Free Speech Rights

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      The justices returned both cases, which concerned state laws that supporters said were aimed at “Silicon Valley censorship,” to lower courts. Critics had said the laws violated the sites’ First Amendment rights.The Supreme Court on Monday avoided a definitive resolution of challenges to laws in Florida and Texas that curb the power of social media companies to moderate content, leaving in limbo an effort by Republicans who have promoted such legislation to remedy what they say is a bias against conservatives.Instead, the justices unanimously agreed to return the cases to lower courts for analysis. In the majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that neither lower appeals court had properly analyzed the First Amendment challenges to the Florida and Texas laws.The laws were prompted in part by the decisions of some platforms to bar President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Supporters of the laws said they were an attempt to combat what they called Silicon Valley censorship. The laws, they added, fostered free speech, giving the public access to all points of view.Opponents said the laws trampled on the platforms’ own First Amendment rights and would turn them into cesspools of filth, hate and lies.The two laws differ in their details. Florida’s prevents the platforms from permanently barring candidates for political office in the state, while Texas’ prohibits the platforms from removing any content based on a user’s viewpoint.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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      Oklahoma Law Criminalizing Immigrants Without Legal Status Is Blocked

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      The ruling by a federal judge is the latest setback for G.O.P.-controlled states that have passed their own laws on immigration. A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from enforcing its new immigration law that would make it a crime to enter the state without legal authorization to be in the United States.The ruling, issued just days before the law was set to go into effect on Monday, is the latest legal setback for Republican-controlled states that have tested the limits of their role in immigration by passing their own legislation meant to crack down on people who crossed the border illegally. The Justice Department maintains that only the federal government can regulate and enforce immigration. A Texas law that would have given state and local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented migrants was put on hold by a federal appeals court in March. The Supreme Court had briefly let the law stand but returned the case to the appeals court, which decided to pause enforcement of it. Then, in May, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of a Florida law that made it a crime to transport unauthorized immigrants into the state. And in mid-June, an Iowa law that would have made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the country was put on pause by a district court. In the Oklahoma case, U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones wrote in his ruling that the state “may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration,” but the state “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.” He issued a preliminary injunction, pausing enforcement of the law while a case over the law’s constitutionality continues. Under the new law, willfully entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal immigration status would be a state crime called an “impermissible occupation.” A first offense would be a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine; a subsequent offense would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail and a $1,000 fine.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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      Supreme Court Rules for Member of Jan 6. Mob in Obstruction Case

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      The Supreme Court sided on Friday with a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, saying that prosecutors had overstepped in using an obstruction law to charge him.The ruling may affect hundreds of other prosecutions of rioters, as well as part of the federal case against former President Donald J. Trump accusing him of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. But the precise impact of the court’s ruling on those other cases was not immediately clear.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, read the law narrowly, saying it applied only when the defendant’s actions impaired the integrity of physical evidence.Lower courts will now apply that strict standard, and it will presumably lead them to dismiss charges against many defendants.The vote was 6 to 3, but it featured unusual alliances. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, voted with the majority. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, wrote the dissent.Most Jan. 6 defendants have not been charged under the law, which prosecutors have reserved for the most serious cases, and those who have been charged under it face other counts, as well. The defendant in the case before the justices, Joseph W. Fischer, for instance, faced six other charges.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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      Supreme Court Allows, for Now, Emergency Abortions in Idaho

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      A majority of the justices dismissed the case, reinstating a lower-court ruling that paused the state’s near-total abortion ban.The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk.The brief, unsigned opinion declared that the case had been “improvidently granted.” The decision reinstates a lower-court ruling that had halted Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and permitted emergency abortions at hospitals if needed to protect the health of the mother while the case makes its way through the courts.The decision, which did not rule on the substance of the case, appeared to closely mirror a version that appeared briefly on the court’s website a day earlier and was reported by Bloomberg. A court spokeswoman acknowledged on Wednesday that the publications unit had “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document” and said a ruling in the case would appear in due time.The joined cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, focus on whether a federal law aimed at ensuring emergency care for any patient supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest. The state outlaws the procedure, with few exceptions unless a woman’s life is in danger.The decision was essentially 6 to 3, with three conservative justices siding with the liberal wing in saying they would drop the case.It was the first time that the court was confronted with the question of statewide restrictions on abortion, many of which swiftly took effect after the court eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure two years ago.Tracking Abortion Bans Across the CountryThe New York Times is tracking the status of abortion laws in each state following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.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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      Supreme Court Rejects S.E.C.’s Administrative Tribunals

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      Such tribunals, common in executive agencies, hear enforcement actions without juries, a practice that challengers said violated the Constitution.The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected one of the primary ways the Securities and Exchange Commission enforces laws against securities fraud.The agency, like other regulators, brings some enforcement actions in internal tribunals rather than in federal courts. The S.E.C.’s practice, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for a six-justice majority in a decision divided along ideological lines, violated the right to a jury trial.“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator,” the chief justice wrote.The case is one of several challenges this term to the power of administrative agencies, long a target of the conservative legal movement. The court last month rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded. In January, it heard arguments in a pair of challenges to the Chevron doctrine, a foundational principle of administrative law that requires judicial deference to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. (That case has not been decided.)A central question in the new case, Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, No. 22-859, was whether the administrative tribunals violate the right to a jury trial guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment in “suits at common law.”Lawyers for the agency said juries were not required in administrative proceedings because they were not private lawsuits but part of an effort to protect the rights of the public generally. They added that agency adjudications without juries are commonplace, with two dozen agencies having the authority to impose penalties in administrative proceedings.The case concerned George Jarkesy, a hedge fund manager accused of misleading investors. The S.E.C. brought a civil enforcement proceeding against him before an administrative law judge employed by the agency, who ruled against Mr. Jarkesy. After an internal appeal, the agency eventually ordered him and his company to pay a civil penalty of $300,000 and to disgorge $685,000 in what it said were illicit gains.Mr. Jarkesy appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. A divided three-judge panel of that court ruled against the agency on three different grounds, all with the potential to disrupt enforcement of not only the securities laws but also many other kinds of regulations.In addition to saying that the tribunals ran afoul of the right to a jury trial, the appeals court ruled that the agency’s judges were excessively insulated from presidential oversight and that Congress could not allow the agency itself to decide where suits should be filed. More

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      Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Biden Administration’s Contacts With Social Media Companies

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      The case, one of several this term on how the First Amendment applies to technology platforms, was dismissed on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.The Supreme Court handed the Biden administration a major practical victory on Wednesday, rejecting a challenge to its contacts with social media platforms to combat what administration officials said was misinformation.The court ruled that the states and users who had challenged the contacts had not suffered the sort of direct injury that gave them standing to sue.The decision, by a 6 to 3 vote, left fundamental legal questions for another day.“The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the yearslong communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority. “This court’s standing doctrine prevents us from exercising such general legal oversight of the other branches of government.”Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, dissented.“For months,” Justice Alito wrote, “high-ranking government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”The case arose from a barrage of communications from administration officials urging platforms to take down posts on topics like the coronavirus vaccine and claims of election fraud. The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, both Republicans, sued, saying that many of those contacts violated the First Amendment.Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Louisiana agreed, saying the lawsuit described what could be “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”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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      Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

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      The WikiLeaks founder, who entered the plea in a U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific, now plans to fly home to Australia.Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. It was all part of an agreement allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody — most of it fighting extradition to the United States.His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial.His wife, Stella, posted an urgent fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost of the flight, which she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government. She also wrote on X that watching a video of Mr. Assange entering the courtroom made her think of “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high-security Belmarsh prison cell.”In court, Mr. Assange responded carefully to questions from U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. He defended his actions, describing himself as a journalist seeking information from sources, a task he said he saw as legal and constitutionally protected. 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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      He Stole From His Tech Boss and Killed Him to Conceal the Crime

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      Tyrese Haspil, 25, was convicted of murdering his former boss, the entrepreneur Fahim Saleh, and dismembering his body in 2020.Just days after the body of Fahim Saleh, a successful tech entrepreneur, was found dismembered in his luxury condominium in Manhattan in July 2020, his former personal assistant, Tyrese Haspil, made a series of unsettling web searches.“Fahim Saleh.” “Murder of tech C.E.O. in New York.” “Dismembered body.”The search queries were just some of the chilling details that emerged during Mr. Haspil’s murder trial this month in Manhattan Criminal Court. And on Monday jurors convicted him of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Saleh — and then killing him and cutting up his body in an effort to conceal what he had done.Mr. Haspil, 25, of Brooklyn is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 10.“Tyrese Haspil tragically cut Mr. Saleh’s life short — a man who came from a close-knit immigrant family and followed his passions to become a successful entrepreneur,” said Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, in a statement announcing the conviction on Monday. “I hope the accountability delivered by today’s verdict can provide a measure of comfort to Mr. Saleh’s loved ones as they continue to mourn his loss.”Mr. Saleh, 33, was born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents and grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was the founder of two motorcycle ride-sharing companies, based in Bangladesh and Nigeria, the latter of which raised millions in venture capital. After his death, he was remembered as an innovative businessman and a generous friend.Sam Roberts, Mr. Haspil’s lawyer, said on Monday that he was disappointed by the verdict. He acknowledged that Mr. Haspil had committed the crime and said the killer felt remorse. “We fully believe that Tyrese Haspil is not solely and only the worst thing that he’s done in his life,” he said. “We hope that the court will understand that there are mitigating factors here.”Mr. Haspil’s ill-fated scheme began in the fall of 2018, when he was working as Mr. Saleh’s entrepreneurial assistant and began stealing money from his companies to purchase lavish gifts for his new girlfriend.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