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      City of Miami Racially Gerrymandered Voting Districts, Judge Finds

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      The federal judge threw out the city’s voting map, rejecting the rationale that city commissioners have used for more than 20 years.The City of Miami unconstitutionally gerrymandered voting districts by race and ethnicity, a federal judge found on Wednesday, throwing out the city’s voting map and rejecting the way city commissioners have tried to hold on to power for more than two decades.Judge K. Michael Moore of the Federal District Court in Miami wrote that commissioners had used redistricting rationale since 1997 to draw five districts with the explicit intent of having voters elect three Hispanic commissioners, one Black commissioner and one non-Hispanic white commissioner.“Sorting voters on the basis of race, as the city did here, deprives Miamians of the constitutional promise that they receive equal protection under the law,” Judge Moore wrote. “These are the serious harms that the city perpetuated, and Miamians suffered. Today, the court permanently prevents the city from racial gerrymandering any longer.”The ruling comes as scandal has roiled City Hall.Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination, has been dogged by controversies over undisclosed work for clients outside City Hall. Last year, a jury held Commissioner Joe Carollo liable for more than $63 million in damages for siccing inspectors on two businessmen as political retribution.A former commissioner, Alex Díaz de la Portilla, faces bribery and money laundering charges in a case involving a city land deal. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Another former commissioner, Sabina Covo, has been under investigation for bribery. (She has denied wrongdoing.) The city attorney, Victoria Méndez, has been accused in a lawsuit of being involved in a house-flipping scheme with her husband. (She has denied involvement or wrongdoing.)As a result of Judge Moore’s ruling, the city could be forced to hold a special election or to draw a new voting map. The next municipal elections are supposed to take place in November 2025. Commissioners, who are nonpartisan, serve staggered four-year terms.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 History Behind Arizona’s 160-Year-Old Abortion Ban

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      The state’s Supreme Court ruled that the 1864 law is enforceable today. Here is what led to its enactment.The 160-year-old Arizona abortion ban that was upheld on Tuesday by the state’s highest court was among a wave of anti-abortion laws propelled by some historical twists and turns that might seem surprising.For decades after the United States became a nation, abortion was legal until fetal movement could be felt, usually well into the second trimester. Movement, known as quickening, was the threshold because, in a time before pregnancy tests or ultrasounds, it was the clearest sign that a woman was pregnant.Before that point, “women could try to obtain an abortion without having to fear that it was illegal,” said Johanna Schoen, a professor of history at Rutgers University. After quickening, abortion providers could be charged with a misdemeanor.“I don’t think it was particularly stigmatized,” Dr. Schoen said. “I think what was stigmatized was maybe this idea that you were having sex outside of marriage, but of course, married women also ended their pregnancies.”Women would terminate pregnancies in several different ways, such as ingesting herbs or medicinal potions that were thought to induce a miscarriage, Dr. Schoen said. The herbs commonly used included pennyroyal and tansy. Another method involved inserting an object in the cervix to try to interrupt a pregnancy or terminate it by causing an infection, Dr. Schoen said.Since tools to determine early pregnancy did not yet exist, many women could honestly say that they were not sure if they were pregnant and were simply taking herbs to restore their menstrual period.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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      Judge Blocks Trump’s Lawyers From Naming Witnesses in Documents Case

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      The special counsel had asked that the names of about two dozen government witnesses be redacted from a public version of a court filing to protect against potential threats or harassment.Granting a request by federal prosecutors, the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case ordered his lawyers on Tuesday to redact the names of about two dozen government witnesses from a public version of one of their court filings to protect them against potential threats or harassment.In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, told Mr. Trump’s lawyers to refer to the witnesses in their filing with a pseudonym or a categorical description — say, John Smith or F.B.I. Agent 1 — rather than identifying them by name.The special counsel, Jack Smith, had expressed a deep concern over witness safety, an issue that has touched on several of Mr. Trump’s criminal cases. Among the people prosecutors were seeking to protect were “career civil servants and former close advisers” to Mr. Trump, including one who had told them that he was so concerned about potential threats from “Trump world” that he refused to permit investigators to record an interview with him.Judge Cannon’s decision, reversing her initial ruling on the matter, was noteworthy, if only for the way it hewed to standard practice. After making a series of unorthodox rulings and allowing the case to become bogged down by a logjam of unresolved legal issues, the judge has come under intense scrutiny. Each of her decisions has been studied closely by legal experts for any indication of how she plans to proceed with other matters.But as she has in other rulings where she found in favor of Mr. Smith, Judge Cannon used her decision on Tuesday to take a shot at the special counsel, with whom she has been feuding. Although she agreed with him, she pointed out that his request to protect “all potential government witnesses without differentiation” was “sweeping in nature” and that she was “unable to locate another high-profile case” in which a judge had issued a similar decision.The fight over the witnesses began in earnest in early February when Mr. Smith’s prosecutors asked Judge Cannon to reconsider a decision she had made allowing Mr. Trump to publicly name about 24 witnesses in court papers they had filed asking the government for additional discovery information.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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      Trump Gag Order Is Expanded to Stop Attacks on Judge Merchan’s Family

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      Donald Trump had in recent days targeted the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing his criminal trial in Manhattan, in blistering social media posts.The New York judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial later this month expanded a gag order on Monday to bar the former president from attacking the judge’s family members, who in recent days have become the target of Mr. Trump’s abuse.Justice Juan M. Merchan last week issued an order prohibiting Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives. That order, however, did not cover Justice Merchan himself or the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the criminal case against the former president.And although the ruling issued on Monday still does not apply to the judge or the district attorney, Justice Merchan, granting a request from Mr. Bragg’s office, amended the gag order so that it does now cover their families.In his ruling, the judge cited recent attacks against his daughter, and rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that his statements were “core political speech.”“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Justice Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for defendant’s vitriol.”Mr. Bragg’s office had asked the judge to clarify that their relatives were included, calling such protection “amply warranted.” Noting Mr. Trump’s track record of issuing “threatening and alarming remarks,” Mr. Bragg’s office warned of “the harms that those family members have suffered.”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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      U.S.S. Cole Case Judge Sets Goal of 2025 Trial

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      The NewsAn Army judge who was in law school at the time of the U.S.S. Cole bombing restarted hearings in the case on Monday and declared it was his intention to put the accused mastermind of the attack on trial at Guantánamo Bay in 2025. If he does, the trial would start a quarter century after the terrorist attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors off Aden, Yemen.“I think it’s important to set benchmarks,” said Col. Matthew S. Fitzgerald, adding that he expected to serve as a military judge through 2026. He replaced the third judge to preside in the case at Guantánamo, Lanny J. Acosta Jr., who held his last hearing in the case in June.The destroyer Cole, at port in Aden, Yemen, after it was heavily damaged in an attack in 2000.Dimitri Messinis/Associated PressWhy It Matters: Families are waitingIt has been a long wait for survivors of the attack and relatives of the sailors who were killed. A Saudi prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and was first charged in 2011, making his the longest-running capital case at Guantánamo Bay.Paul Abney, a senior sailor on the ship, called the judge’s announcement “delightful words to hear.” He was in court on Monday for the hearings and has traveled to Guantánamo about 10 times since 2012 to watch the legal wranglings.“Even if it doesn’t happen next year, the fact that he’s willing to put a target date down, and make it a goal to shoot for is, I think, inspiring,” said Mr. Abney, a retired Navy master chief.What’s Next: More hearingsColonel Fitzgerald has 14 more weeks of hearings on the 2024 calendar. Pretrial matters yet to be tackled include the admissibility of some evidence, proposed witnesses, whether Mr. Nashiri can be tried by a military commission, how to seat a panel of military officers and whether Mr. Nashiri would be entitled to administrative credit if he is convicted but not sentenced to death.Even before court began, the judge issued an order with deadlines for both sides to prepare for trial. The timetable orders lawyers for Mr. Nashiri to provide prosecutors with a list of witnesses they would want to call to testify at the trial by Jan. 9.Facts to Keep in Mind: An appeal loomsThe judge announced the goal in his first hour on the bench. But he made no mention of a government effort to get an appellate panel to overturn a decision by his predecessor.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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      New Jersey Ballot Ruling Applies Only to Democratic Race, Judge Says

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      A federal judge who tossed out the state’s unique ballot design said his ruling would affect only the Democratic primary.New Jersey moved a step closer last week toward overhauling its unique-in-the-nation election ballots, in a decision that could reshape party politics in the state for years to come.But not — at least not immediately — for both major parties.On Saturday, the federal judge who ordered the redesign, in response to a lawsuit filed in February by three Democratic candidates, said in a statement that only the Democratic primary, which includes the race to replace Senator Robert Menendez, would have to use the new ballot. The Republican ballot, he wrote, can stay the same, though he said his order did not prohibit Republican leaders from choosing to alter their party’s ballot.The clarification is the latest twist in a long legal battle in New Jersey to shift the balance of electoral power away from party-backed candidates and open the door for newcomers in both parties. But if the decision stands, Republicans, too, may soon be forced to change their ballot, though perhaps not in time for the June 4 primary, said Julia Sass Rubin, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University who was an expert witness in the lawsuit.“It’s just a hiccup,” Dr. Rubin said. “If this decision holds, it will completely upend New Jersey politics.”On Friday, the federal judge, Zahid N. Quraishi of U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, ruled in favor of changing the format of primary election ballots used in 19 of 21 counties in New Jersey, which have historically favored candidates put forward by party bosses.The so-called county-line ballot, in which local political leaders’ preferred candidates are grouped together in a prominent position, is an anomaly in the United States, with only New Jersey using the system, said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a professor at Harvard Law School.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 Persistent Threat to Abortion Rights

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      The Supreme Court this week heard the first major challenge to abortion rights since it struck down Roe v. Wade two years ago — an attempt to severely limit access to mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion pill in the country, by a group of doctors who are morally opposed to the practice.The justices seem prepared to throw out the lawsuit. During oral arguments, they questioned whether the doctors had suffered the harm necessary to bring the suit in the first place.But that should come as small comfort to anyone concerned for the future of reproductive freedom in America. Judges at the state and federal level are ready to further restrict reproductive options and health care access. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, has indicated support for a 15-week national abortion ban. And while the Supreme Court, in overturning Roe, ostensibly left it to each state to decide abortion policy, several states have gone against the will of their voters on abortion or tried to block ballot measures that would protect abortion rights. Anti-abortion forces may have had a tough week in the Supreme Court, but they remain focused on playing and winning a longer game.Even potential victories for reproductive freedom may prove short-lived: The mifepristone case, for instance, is far from dead. Another plaintiff could bring the same case and have it considered on the merits, a possibility Justice Samuel Alito raised during oral arguments.“Is there anybody who could challenge in court the lawfulness of what the F.D.A. did here?” he asked the solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar. Such a challenge would be exceptionally weak, given that the F.D.A. provided substantial support for its approval and regulatory guidance on the use of mifepristone, but the right-wing justices on the Roberts court may be willing to hear it again anyway. The justices have already illustrated their hostility to the authority of administrative agencies, and that hostility may persist even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.Then there is the Comstock Act, a 151-year-old federal law that anti-abortion activists are trying to revive to block the mailing of mifepristone and other abortion medication. During the oral arguments this week, Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas repeatedly expressed their openness to the use of the law, which was pushed by an anti-vice crusader decades before women won the right to vote. If anti-abortion activists can get themselves before a sympathetic court and secure a national injunction on this medication being mailed, they may well be able to block access to abortion throughout the country, including in states where it is legal.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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      Appeals Court Keeps Block on Texas Migrant Law

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      The decision in favor of the federal government left in place a trial court injunction while courts determine whether the measure is legal. A federal appeals court late Tuesday ruled against Texas in its bitter clash with the federal government, deciding that a law allowing the state to arrest and deport migrants could not be implemented while the courts wrestled with the question of whether it is legal.A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has a reputation for conservative rulings, sided in its 2-to-1 decision with lawyers for the Biden administration who have argued that the law violates the U.S. Constitution and decades of legal precedent.The panel’s 50-page majority opinion left in place an injunction imposed last month by a lower court in Austin, which found that the federal government was likely to succeed in its arguments against the law. The opinion was written by the Fifth Circuit’s chief judge, Priscilla Richman, a nominee of President George W. Bush, and was joined by Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who was nominated to the bench by President Biden last year.Judge Richman found that Texas’ law conflicted with federal law and with Supreme Court precedent, particularly a 2012 immigration case, Arizona v. United States.“For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission and removal of noncitizens — is exclusively a federal power,” she wrote. “Texas has not shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits,” she said after discussing how various arguments made by the state fell short.It was a setback for Gov. Greg Abbott but not an unexpected one: The governor has said that he anticipated the fight over the law’s constitutionality to eventually reach the Supreme Court. Mr. Abbott has said the law, which allows the state to arrest and deport migrants on its own, is necessary to deal with the record number of migrants crossing into Texas from Mexico. 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