Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Cowboys for Trump creator found guilty in second US Capitol attack trial

      by

      Cowboys for Trump creator found guilty in second US Capitol attack trialJudge declares Couy Griffin guilty of one of the two offenses, bolstering a key theory from lawyers in hundreds of related cases A New Mexico county commissioner who founded a group called Cowboys for Trump was found guilty by a judge on Tuesday of breaching the US Capitol during the January 6 riot, a second consecutive win at trial for the US Department of Justice.Kid Rock says Donald Trump sought his advice on North Korea and Islamic StateRead moreFollowing a two-day non-jury trial, the US district judge Trevor McFadden said the defendant, Couy Griffin, was guilty of one of the two misdemeanor offenses.The ruling bolsters a key theory from prosecutors in hundreds of related cases.They argued that the Capitol grounds were strictly off-limits on 6 January 2021, and that should have been apparent to the thousands of Donald Trump supporters who breached them in an attempt to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s election.The judge found Griffin guilty of entering a restricted area protected by the US Secret Service but cleared him of disorderly conduct.McFadden said Griffin should have known not to scale walls and enter the Capitol grounds, but said Griffin was innocent of disorderly conduct because he never tried to rile up the crowd at the Capitol or engage in violence.McFadden scheduled a June sentencing hearing for Griffin, who faces up to a year behind bars.Before the mob stormed the Capitol, Trump gave a fiery speech in which he falsely claimed his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.About 800 people face criminal charges relating to the riot, which sent the then-vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of Congress running for their lives. Some 200 have already pleaded guilty.Griffin’s bench trial is seen as an important test case as the DoJ attempts to secure convictions of the hundreds of defendants who have not taken plea deals.The first jury trial for a 6 January defendant ended in a decisive victory for prosecutors earlier this month. After a quick deliberation, a jury unanimously found a Texas man guilty on all five of the felony charges he faced, including bringing a gun onto the Capitol grounds and obstructing an official proceeding.TopicsUS Capitol attackNew MexicoDonald TrumpUS politicsLaw (US)US crimeReuse this content More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The woman jailed for a voting mistake

      by

      Pamela Moses, a Black Lives Matter activist , was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote. Sam Levine tells the remarkable story

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      In 2015 Pamela Moses was convicted of a felony crime in the US state of Tennessee. She pleaded guilty to charges of stalking, tampering with evidence, theft and perjury, although she later said she bitterly regretted accepting those charges. Her punishment was not a prison sentence but a period of probation. But it was the beginning of a chain of events that led to her being sent to jail years later for voter fraud. The Guardian’s Sam Levine tells Nosheen Iqbal that people convicted of certain crimes in Tennessee are automatically disbarred from voting while serving out their sentence, but a bureaucratic mistake in the probation office led to Moses being given the impression that she was once again eligible to cast her ballot. When she began an unlikely run for elected office, it came to light that she was in fact not allowed to vote and she was arrested and charged with voter fraud, and later sentenced to six years in jail. When Levine published a story about this in the Guardian, it was picked up elsewhere and became a huge national story. And one that at the time of recording still has a final act yet to play out. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senator

      by

      Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senatorSenate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.How Ketanji Brown Jackson became Biden’s supreme court nominee – podcastRead moreHawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.“He doesn’t have the credibility he thinks he does.”If confirmed, Jackson will be the first Black woman on the court. If Democrats hold their 50 votes she will be installed, via Kamala Harris’s vote as vice-president.Jackson has attracted Republican support before and some have indicated they may back her this time. Jackson’s confirmation will not affect the balance of a court which conservatives dominate 6-3, as she will replace another liberal, the retiring Stephen Breyer.Hawley is however one of several hard-right members of the judiciary committee, alongside Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, to harbour presidential ambitions. Such senators could see attacking a Biden nominee as a way to appeal to supporters.This week, in tweets echoed by the Republican National Committee, Hawley highlighted a potential line of attack.“I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” Hawley said.He did not raise the issue when he questioned Jackson last year, before voting against her confirmation to an appeals court. The White House said the senator was pushing “toxic and weakly presented misinformation”.Jackson sat on the US Sentencing Commission, an agency meant to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences. The sentencing expert Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, has said her record shows she is skeptical of the range of sentences recommended for child pornography cases, the subject seized upon by Hawley.“But so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide,” Berman wrote.Durbin told ABC’s This Week: “As far as Senator Hawley is concerned, here’s the bottom line – he’s wrong. He’s inaccurate and unfair in his analysis.“Judge Jackson has been scrutinised more than any person I can think of. This is her fourth time before the Senate judiciary committee. In three previous times, she came through with flying colors and bipartisan support, the last time just last year.“And now Senator Hawley is making these charges that came out of nowhere. The independent fact checkers … have discredited his claims already. They should have. There’s no truth to what he says.“And he’s part of the fringe within the Republican party. This was a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of last year. He doesn’t have the credibility he thinks he does.”This week, Politico demanded Hawley stop using for fundraising purposes a picture of his famous raised-fist salute to protesters before the deadly attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Hawley indicated that he would not stop using the image.12:30PM: Senator Josh Hawley pumps his fist at pro-Trump crowd gathered at the east side of the Capitol before heading into the joint session of Congress. #Jan6NeverAgain #TheBigLie pic.twitter.com/rEFsfLY4x9— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) April 16, 2021
      On ABC, John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of Senate Republican leadership, was asked if Hawley was guilty of “character assassination” in his attack on Jackson.“The whole process is going to be fair, respectful and thorough,” Barrasso said, adding that he found Jackson “clearly, very intelligent”.Using a key Republican attack line in an election year, Barrasso added: “Going through the record, there are some concerns that people have about her being perceived as soft on crime. That’s all going to come out with the hearings but they’re going to be respectful, they’re going to be thorough and they’re going to be fair.”Asked if Hawley’s attack was fair, Barrasso said: “Well, he’s going to have his opportunity to question the judge as will all the members of the committee.“The last time we had a hearing with [Brett] Kavanaugh, he was accused of being a serial rapist with no evidence whatsoever. So, I think we’re going to have a fair process and a respectful process, unlike what the Democrats did to Justice Kavanaugh.”In fact Kavanaugh – who denied allegations of sexual assault detailed by an alleged victim in confirmation hearings – was the second of three justices installed by Republicans under Donald Trump. The third, Amy Coney Barrett, was jammed on to the court shortly before the 2020 election, after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, told CBS’s Face the Nation he and Jackson “had a very good conversation”. He asked her, he said, to “defend the court” against those who say Democrats should expand it beyond nine justices to redress its ideological balance.Mug shot: Republican Josh Hawley told to stop using January 6 fist salute photoRead more“Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Breyer both publicly opposed court packing,” McConnell said, “that is trying to increase the number of members in order to get an outcome you like. That would have been an easy thing for [Jackson] to do, to defend the integrity of the court. She wouldn’t do that.”The man who drastically shifted the balance of the court in part by denying a nomination to Barack Obama in 2016 and swiftly confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett four years later also said: “I haven’t made a final decision as to how I’m gonna vote.”Hearings begin on Monday. Jackson is expected to make a statement and answer questions. Harvard-trained, she spent two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American on the court.The American Bar Association has given Jackson its highest rating, unanimously “well qualified”.Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she was excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a seat.“Representation matters,” Wallace said. “It’s critical to have diverse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural diversity of this country.”
      The Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, attended rally preceding Capitol attack

      by

      Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, attended rally preceding Capitol attackConservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, says she briefly attended rally but left before Trump addressed crowd Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has admitted attending a rally which preceded the January 6 attack on the US Capitol but denied helping to plan it.Critics accuse CPAC of becoming pay-to-play as Trump loyalists gain powerRead moreIn an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Thomas, a conservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, said she briefly attended the rally near the White House on 6 January 2021 but left before Donald Trump addressed the crowd.Trump used his address to tell supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud. A bipartisan Senate report said seven deaths were connected to the assault on Congress which followed.Thomas said brief attendance at the rally was the full extent of her involvement.“I was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on 6 January,” she told the Free Beacon, a conservative site.Investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker have raised questions about Thomas’s ties to organizers of the January 6 rally.According to the Times, Thomas sits on the board of a rightwing group that circulated “action steps” after the 2020 election, in an attempt to keep Trump in power.One of the organizers of the rally told the Times Thomas was a peacekeeper between various factions. Thomas denied those allegations.“I played no role with those who were planning and leading the 6 January events,” she said.The Times told the Free Beacon it stood by its “fair and accurate” reporting.Thomas, who has been involved in conservative activism for decades, also categorically rejected any suggestion her political activities present a conflict of interest for her husband. Some judicial ethics experts have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving causes with which his wife has been involved.However, Ginni Thomas’s comments on the morning of 6 January only intensified questions about her husband’s possible conflicts of interest.In a series of Facebook posts that are no longer visible, Thomas said “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” and “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING!”She later added a note that the posts were written before the attack on the Capitol, according to Slate.Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politicsRead moreThomas has insisted her activism has no bearing on her husband’s rulings, saying they have kept their careers separate since he was confirmed in 1991.“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America,” Thomas told the Free Beacon. “But we have our own separate careers and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me and I don’t involve him in my work.”Justice Thomas’s critics will closely scrutinize his work related to the Capitol attack.In January, he provided an early hint about his opinion of efforts to investigate January 6. The supreme court rejected Trump’s request to stop a House select committee accessing his White House records.Only one justice dissented: Clarence Thomas.TopicsClarence ThomasUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics

      by

      Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politicsThe court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights

      The Agenda: how the supreme court threatens US democracy
      The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?Read more“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.“You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised.”Thomas was speaking at a hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday.“By doing this,” he said, “you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society.”The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights. Conservative victories are expected. The conservative-dominated court has already ruled against the Biden administration on coronavirus mitigation and other matters.The US constitution does not mandate that the court consist of nine justices. Some progressives and Democratic politicians have therefore called to expand it, in order to reset its ideological balance. Democrats in Congress last year introduced a bill to add four justices and Joe Biden has created a commission to study expansion.Few analysts think expansion is likely to happen.Republican senators are currently attacking Biden for his campaign promise to nominate a first Black woman to the court, a promise he fulfilled by nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer.Republican presidents have nominated justices on grounds of identity, most recently when Trump said he would pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the liberal lion who died in September 2020.Ignoring their own claims about the impropriety of confirmations in election years, made in denying Merrick Garland even a hearing to replace Antonin Scalia in 2016, Senate Republicans installed Amy Coney Barrett, a hardline Catholic conservative, as Ginsberg’s replacement.In Utah on Friday, Thomas also voiced a familiar conservative complaint about so-called “cancel culture”, the supposed silencing of voices or world views deemed unacceptable on political grounds.He was, he said, “afraid, particularly in this world of cancel culture attack, I don’t know where you’re going to learn to engage as we did when I grew up.“If you don’t learn at that level in high school, in grammar school, in your neighborhood, or in civic organizations, then how do you have it when you’re making decisions in government, in the legislature, or in the courts?”Thomas also attacked the media for, he said, cultivating inaccurate impressions about public figures including himself, his wife and Scalia.Ginni Thomas has faced scrutiny for her involvement in groups that file briefs about cases in front of the supreme court, as well as using Facebook to amplify partisan attacks.Thomas has claimed the supreme court is above politics – a claim made by justices on either side of the partisan divide.Congress is preparing for confirmation hearings for Jackson. She will be installed if all 50 Democratic senators back her, via the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Some Republicans have indicated they could support her too.In Utah, Thomas recalled his own confirmation in 1991 as a humiliating and embarrassing experience. Lawmakers including Biden grilled Thomas about sexual harassment allegations from Anita Hill, a former employee, leading him to call the experience a “high tech lynching”. Biden has also been criticised for his treatment of Hill.‘The Scheme’: a senator’s plan to highlight rightwing influence on the supreme courtRead moreOn Friday, Thomas said he held civility as one of his highest values. He said he learned to respect institutions and debate civilly with those who disagreed with him during his years in school.Based on conversations with students in recent years, he said, he does not believe colleges are now welcoming places for productive debate, particularly for students who support what he described as traditional families or oppose abortion.Thomas did not reference the future of Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion rights. The court on which he sits is scheduled to rule this year on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concerning whether Mississippi can ban abortions at 15 weeks.The court is expected to overturn Roe. While the justices deliberate, conservative lawmakers in Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky are advancing similar legislation.
      The Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsClarence ThomasUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge blocks Texas from investigating parents of transgender children

      by

      Judge blocks Texas from investigating parents of transgender childrenThe halt follows an ACLU lawsuit that accused Greg Abbott of trampling ‘on the constitutional rights of transgender children’ A Texas judge has temporarily blocked the state from investigating parents who provide their transgender children with gender-affirming medical treatments, following a hearing in which one state inspector said they were told to pursue parents even when they did not think abuse had occurred.The temporary halt, issued by a district court judge on Friday, follows a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who the organization accused of trampling “on the constitutional rights of transgender children, their parents, and professionals who provide vital care to transgender children”.‘When a child tells you who they are, believe them’: the psychologist taking on Texas’ anti-trans policiesRead moreJudge Amy Clark Meachum held a hearing on Friday as she considered a request to temporarily block Abbot’s order. Randa Mulanax, an employee of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), was the first witness to testify.Mulanax said that she has resigned from the department because of concerns about the directive, and said cases involving gender confirming care were being treated differently than others. Mulanax said her agency did not give workers the option to determine a reported case of child abuse involving a transgender child was “priority none” status, meaning it did not merit investigation.“We had to be investigating these cases,” Mulanax testified, adding that she has handed in her resignation notice because she believes the directive is “unethical”.Such investigations could remove trans children from families and jail parents who provide them with procedures.The hearing is part of pushback by LGBTQ+ groups against conservative politicians’ proposals in dozens of US states to criminalize gender-affirming procedures for trans youth in the run up to midterm elections.Abbott ordered doctors, nurses and teachers to report such care or face criminal penalties.The ACLU asked Meachum to impose a statewide injunction on investigations by the DFPS into what the civil rights group said was “medically necessary gender-affirming care”.Meachum last week temporarily blocked an investigation into the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl, saying it would make them the subject of “an unfounded child abuse investigation”.Opponents of gender-transitioning procedures say minors are too young to make life-altering decisions about their bodies. Advocates argue that it is crucial care that has been politically weaponized, impacting the mental health of trans youth who suffer a disproportionately high rate of suicide.More than 60 major US businesses, including Apple and Johnson & Johnson, signed their names to an advertisement that ran in Texas on Friday opposing Abbott’s directive, saying “discrimination is bad for business”.The DFPS has opened nine child welfare inquiries subject to Abbott’s directive, a spokesman said.Megan Mooney, a clinical psychologist, said the governor’s directive has caused “outright panic” among mental health professionals and families of transgender youth.“Parents are terrified that [child protective services] is going to come and question their children, or take them away,” Mooney testified. “Mental health professionals are scared that we’re either violating our standards and professional codes of conduct, or in violation of the law.”TopicsTexasLGBT rightsUS politicsLaw (US)Children’s healthnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Why dissent by conservative justices in voting rights cases is alarming

      by

      Why dissent by conservative justices in voting rights cases is alarmingDemocrats won two major victories, but a dissenting opinion from three of the supreme court’s justices set off alarms bells Hello, and Happy Thursday,It’s no secret that the US supreme court has been hostile to voting rights recently. But two recent decisions, I think, highlight why what the court is doing is both alarming and inconsistent.Get the latest updates on voting rights in the Guardian’s Fight to vote newsletterOn Monday evening, the court gave Democrats two major victories, blocking Republican attempts to impose unfair congressional maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In both states the respective state supreme courts had redrawn them to be fairer – decisions which the US supreme court upheld. Yet even though legal experts expected this outcome, a dissenting opinion from three of the court’s conservative justices set off loud alarm bells for me.The dissent was authored by Justice Samuel Alito (and joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch in the North Carolina case). The three justices wrote that they would have blocked the state supreme court maps from going into effect. They pointed to a provision in the US constitution, the elections clause, that explicitly gives state legislatures the authority to set the “time, manner, and place” of federal elections. That provision, they said, likely means that state supreme courts can’t impose a new map, even if the one the legislature adopts violates a state’s constitution.“If the language of the Elections Clause is taken seriously, there must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections,” Alito wrote.Alito’s dissent embraces an idea called the “independent state legislature doctrine”. Increasingly popular among conservative litigants, it argues that state courts cannot second-guess election rules – whether it be a gerrymandered map or a new voter ID law – passed by a legislature. It would give state legislatures enormous power over elections.The theory largely fell into disuse in the early 20th century, according to a paper by Michael Morley, a law professor at Florida State University. The supreme court has also repeatedly rejected the idea over the last century. But in a handful of cases during the 2020 election, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas all expressed interest in the idea.The focus on this idea is also notable because it is directly at odds with what Alito and other conservative justices have said recently.Reading Alito’s dissent, I couldn’t help but think of a majority opinion that he, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh signed onto in 2019. In that case, called Rucho v Common Cause, they were part of a majority that said federal courts could not do anything to stop partisan gerrymandering. But, Roberts wrote, state laws and state courts could continue to police it. It was a clear instruction to litigants that they should take their cases about partisan gerrymandering to state courts, which is exactly what they did in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.Now, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch – and maybe Kavanaugh – seem to be backing away from that position.It’s not the only area of voting rights law where the supreme court has pulled a kind of bait-and-switch recently. In 2013, when a majority of the court, including Roberts, Alito and Thomas, gutted the the heart of the Voting Rights Act, designed to prevent voting discrimination, it pointed to another provision of the law, section 2, as a tool litigants could continue to use. But recently, the court has been slowly chipping away at section 2, too, making it harder to challenge laws under it and stepping in to overrule lower courts that have relied on it to block discriminatory maps. Taken together, the cases show how the supreme court is slowly attacking laws that are supposed to prevent Americans against voting discrimination.One other piece of Alito’s dissent deserves attention because it is, I would argue, hypocritical. In two short paragraphs, Alito explained why he didn’t think it would be a big deal for a court to step in and order North Carolina to adopt new congressional districts after candidates had begun filing for office ahead of the state’s 17 May primary. The public interest favored such a reset, he said, to ensure that districts were constitutional. All candidates would have to do, he said, was file a new form indicating they were running in the districts the legislature, not the state supreme court, had adopted. “That would not have been greatly disruptive,” he wrote.But last month, Alito took the opposite approach when he agreed with an opinion by Kavanaugh saying it would be too disruptive to impose new, non-discriminatory maps for Alabama’s 24 May primary – a week later than the one in North Carolina. Kavanaugh wrote: “Running elections statewide is extraordinarily complicated and difficult. Those elections require enormous advance preparations by state and local officials, and pose significant logistical challenges.”That argument prompted a furious response from Justice Elena Kagan, who said discrimination in Alabama should not get a free pass merely because elections were on the horizon. “Alabama is not entitled to keep violating Black Alabamians’ voting rights just because the court’s order came down in the first month of an election year,” she said.The opposing conclusions Alito reached in both cases underscores the immense discretion he is wielding on the bench to evaluate these claims. In North Carolina, when the legislature’s constitutional rights were at issue, it warranted the supreme court’s intervention. In Alabama, when Black Americans’ voting rights were at issue, he believed the court’s intervention was not needed.Also worth watching…
      A Colorado election clerk was indicted on charges she helped allow unaurthorized access to voting equipment.
      Florida Republicans are on the verge of creating a new office to investigate election crimes.
      The top election official in Texas’s largest county announced she would resign after the county experienced significant voting problems in the state’s primary.
      Newly released records in Wisconsin provide insight into a widely criticized review of the 2020 election.
      TopicsUS supreme courtThe fight to voteLaw (US)US politicsUS voting rightsfeaturesReuse this content More