Courts and the Judiciary
A Florida School Received a Threat. Did a Red Flag Law Prevent a Shooting?
The requests were granted. But the results of the search were not what the detective expected. Memories of Parkland Nationally, more than 20,000 petitions for extreme risk protection orders were filed from 1999 to 2021, according to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group. A vast majority of those petitions — more […]
Know More
A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin
Lauren Justice for The New York Times Conservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a […]
Know More
Despite Biden’s Success on Judges, Progressives Demand a Faster Pace
WASHINGTON — With an extended summer recess looming and their majority at risk in November elections, Senate Democrats were facing the prospect of allowing dozens of judicial vacancies to go unfilled by President Biden this year, and under pressure from progressive activists to move more quickly and aggressively to push them through. Mr. Biden and […]
Know More
House Moves to Protect Same-Sex Marriage From Supreme Court Reversal
WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages at the federal level, with a bipartisan coalition supporting a measure that addresses growing concerns that a conservative Supreme Court could nullify marriage equality. Forty-seven Republicans joined Democrats in backing the bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the […]
Know More
Biden Drops Plan to Name Anti-Abortion Lawyer Backed by McConnell as Judge
WASHINGTON — The White House is abandoning plans to nominate a Kentucky lawyer who opposes abortion rights and is backed by Senator Mitch McConnell to a federal court seat, citing opposition from Senator Rand Paul, Mr. McConnell’s home-state colleague. The resistance from Mr. McConnell’s fellow Republican marked a new twist over a potential nomination that […]
Know More
A Battle Over How to Battle Over Roe: Protests at Justices’ Homes Fuel Rancor
But critics say the protesters should not be there at all. Some Republicans have pointed to a 1950 federal statute that says anyone “with the intent of influencing any judge” who “pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied […]
Know More
Once Close Allies, Roberts and Alito Have Taken Divergent Paths
WASHINGTON — There was a time when Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the author of the leaked draft opinion on abortion that rocked the nation on Monday night, was Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s closest ally on the Supreme Court. The two men are both products of the conservative legal movement, and they were […]
Know More
How a Crime-Fighting Institution Took a Partisan Turn
HOUSTON — “Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.” That message, along with the promise of a reward, has appeared for decades at the end of news reports about shootings, stabbings or criminal mayhem in the nation’s fourth-largest city. But recently, Crime Stoppers of Houston has been blasting out a different, […]
Know More
Democrats Aim to Fill as Many Court Vacancies as Possible by End of 2022
WASHINGTON — The partisan clash that concluded with the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court is hardly the end of judicial showdowns in the Senate. With control of the chamber up for grabs in November, Democrats, led by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, intend to push through […]
Know More