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In analyzing whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applied to Mr. Trump, a trial court judge in Denver and Colorado’s top court concluded that his actions met that standard. Mr. Trump’s allies — as well as even some of his critics — tend to argue that “insurrection” is hyperbole. Still, the special counsel, Jack Smith, did not include inciting an insurrection in the charges he brought against Mr. Trump in connection with his attempts to stay in office. Mr. Trump has argued that all his actions were protected by the Constitution, including the First Amendment. But other politicians have faced similar legal challenges in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Trump’s, , Trump —, Donald Trump, Pete Marovich, Mike Pence, Jack Smith, Marjorie Taylor Greene, , Couy Griffin, Griffin, Organizations: Capitol, Trump, Electoral, Union, United, Capitol ., The New York Times, Justice Department, Washington, Mr Locations: Denver, United States, Georgia, New Mexico, New Mexico’s Otero County
It would be a daunting task for anyone making his first argument before the Supreme Court. He was also appearing before two of his former bosses: Justices Elena Kagan and Neil M. Gorsuch. After finishing Harvard Law School, he clerked for Justice Gorsuch, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and later spent a year working for Justice Kagan, finishing in 2014. Each pummeled Mr. Murray with a punishing barrage of questions. Justice Kagan pushed Mr. Murray on the implications of allowing Colorado to ban Mr. Trump, questioning what would happen if the state at the heart of the case were instead a swing state like Michigan or Wisconsin.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Jason Murray, Elena Kagan, Neil M, Gorsuch, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kagan, Barack Obama, Mr, Murray Organizations: Harvard Law School, U.S ., Appeals, Circuit, Trump, Colorado Supreme Locations: Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin
The Supreme Court declined on Friday to temporarily block race-conscious admissions at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, clearing the way for the school to continue considering race as a factor in selecting the class that will enroll in the fall. The court’s order rejected a request for emergency relief from Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative group that has repeatedly challenged the consideration of race in higher education, as a lawsuit moves forward. It had asked the justices to act swiftly because West Point was poised to stop accepting applications on Wednesday. The founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, cast the court’s decision as a setback. “It is disappointing that the young men and women who apply to West Point for the foreseeable future will have their race used as a factor to admit or reject them,” he said in a statement.
Persons: Edward Blum, Organizations: U.S . Military Academy, West, Fair
Purdue Pharma and the wealthy family that controlled it are forever linked to the deadly opioid epidemic, which has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. But their role in the public health crisis is not the central question that the Supreme Court will wrestle with on Monday when it hears arguments over a bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue, the maker of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin. Instead, the justices will focus on a narrower issue: whether the plan, devised to address the thousands of claims brought by state and local governments, tribes, hospitals and individual victims, can give wide-ranging legal protections to members of the Sackler family, the owners of the company. Under the deal, the Sacklers would pay up to $6 billion of their fortune toward settling those claims in exchange for immunity from all civil legal disputes related to the opioid crisis and Purdue.
Persons: Sackler Organizations: Purdue Pharma, Purdue
For years, Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, had been entangled in lawsuits seeking to hold it to account for its role in the spiraling opioid crisis. A pathbreaking settlement reached last year appeared to signal the end to thousands of those cases, funneling billions of dollars toward fighting the epidemic in exchange for exempting members of the billionaire Sackler family, which once controlled the company, from civil lawsuits. But on Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the agreement is a violation of federal law in a case that could have ramifications not just for Purdue but also for organizations that turn to bankruptcy court, as the company did, to resolve claims of mass injury. “There’s huge implications for all of corporate bankruptcy,” said Anthony J. Casey, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “I think this is probably the most important bankruptcy case before the court in 30, maybe 40 years.”
Persons: Sackler, , , Anthony J, Casey Organizations: Purdue Pharma, Purdue, University of Chicago
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it had issued an ethics code for the justices after a series of revelations about undisclosed property deals and gifts intensified pressure on the court to adopt one. In a statement by the court, the justices said they had adopted the code of conduct “to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.”“For the most part these rules and principles are not new,” the court said, adding that “the absence of a code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”Left unclear was how the code will be enforced. Although lower federal judges are bound by an ethics code that governs their conduct, the Supreme Court justices have never been required to abide by those same rules because of its special constitutional status. In a letter to lawmakers this spring, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the court “takes guidance” from the ethics code for other federal judges.
Persons: , John G, Roberts Jr Organizations: Supreme
“It’s a fundamental strategic goal to present cases in the most favorable light possible, and that would include having a sympathetic and relatable person,” said Clark Neily, the senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute, which has advocated gun rights. A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit wrote that he was “hardly a model citizen,” even as they sided with him. Mr. Rahimi’s case could expand gun rights protections by undoing a federal law that makes it a felony to possess a gun while under a domestic violence protective order. Although the case has garnered a flood of amicus briefs from groups like the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, the organizations have largely shifted focus away from Mr. Rahimi. “You could imagine a different case challenging this same law with a much more sympathetic plaintiff.”
Persons: , , Clark Neily, Mr, Rahimi, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, Eric Ruben Organizations: Cato Institute, U.S ., Appeals, Fifth Circuit, National Rifle Association, Amendment, Southern Methodist University, Brennan Center for Justice Locations: Texas
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower-court ruling that delays an effort to redraw Louisiana’s congressional map, prolonging a bitter clash over the representation of Black voters in the state. Civil rights groups had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing aimed at drafting a new map for Louisiana. That map was to include two districts in which Black voters represent a large enough share of the population to have the opportunity to select a candidate. The appeals court said that the state legislature should have more time to redraw its own map before a lower court stepped in. The Supreme Court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications, and there were no public dissents.
Organizations: Republican Locations: Louisiana
The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning declined to reinstate a congressional map in Alabama drawn by Republican lawmakers that had only one majority-Black district, paving the way for a new map to be put in place before the 2024 election. The order came in response to a request from Alabama that the justices freeze a lower-court ruling striking down its proposed map. A three-judge panel found that the state had brazenly flouted its directive to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”Alabama’s request for relief was the second time in under a year that it had asked the Supreme Court to affirm a limited role of race in establishing voting districts for federal elections in what amounted to a defiant repudiation of lower-court rulings. The court’s order gave no reasons, which is often the case when the justices decide on emergency applications. The ruling clears the way for a special master and court-appointed cartographer to create a new map.
Organizations: Republican Locations: Alabama, Black
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday called on the nation to accept some of the ugliest truths in its history as she confronted the debates roiling the country about racism and violence against Black Americans. “If we’re going to continue to move forward as a nation we cannot allow concerns about discomfort to displace knowledge, truth or history,” Justice Jackson told a crowd of hundreds. “It is certainly the case that parts of this country’s story can be hard to think about. I know that atrocities like the one we’re memorializing today are difficult to remember and relive. “We cannot forget because we cannot learn from past mistakes we do not know exist.”
Persons: Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Jackson, ” Justice Jackson, Organizations: Black, Sixteenth, Baptist Church, Ku Klux, Sunday, Locations: Birmingham, Alabama
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday evening to hear a challenge to the availability of a commonly used abortion pill, raising the possibility that the justices will rule on the fate of the drug. The case centers on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug more than two decades ago and could have broader implications for the pharmaceutical industry, including the agency’s regulatory authority over other medications. The request came in response to a ruling by a federal appeals court last month that upheld the legality of the pill but imposed significant restrictions on its distribution. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit would prevent the drug from being sent through the mail or prescribed by telemedicine. For now, the pill remains available because the Supreme Court determined in April that access to the drug would remain unchanged until the appeals process finished.
Organizations: Department, Food, U.S ., Appeals, Fifth Locations: United States
But Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. requested 90-day extensions, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which collects and publishes the forms. Mr. Crow treated the justice on a series of lavish trips, including flights on his private jet, island-hopping on his superyacht and vacationing at his estate in the Adirondacks. Mr. Crow also bought the justice’s mother’s home in Savannah, Ga., and covered a portion of private school tuition for the justice’s great-nephew, whom he was raising. Other wealthy friends have hosted Justice Thomas, including David L. Sokol, the former heir apparent to Berkshire Hathaway. In the years that followed, Mr. Singer repeatedly had business before the court.
Persons: Thomas, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Thomas’s, Harlan Crow, ProPublica, Crow, David L, Berkshire Hathaway, Anthony Welters, underwrote, Prevost, ” Justice Alito, Paul Singer, Singer Organizations: Administrative, U.S . Courts, Sokol, Locations: Texas, Savannah , Ga, Berkshire, Washington, Alaska
The settlement involving Purdue, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, touches on one of the country’s largest public health crises. Experts say the decision may also have important consequences for other cases that use the bankruptcy system to settle claims of mass injuries. Here’s what you need to know about the court’s decision:Why did the Supreme Court decide to weigh in? It’s rare for the Supreme Court to agree to hear a bankruptcy court dispute, experts say, especially one dealing with a settlement agreement in a mass-injury case. Trustee Program, a watchdog office within the Justice Department, that petitioned the Supreme Court to review the deal.
Persons: Sackler Organizations: Supreme, Purdue Pharma, Purdue, U.S ., Justice Department Locations: U.S
The Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to consider the government’s challenge of a bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma, putting on pause a deal that would have shielded members of the wealthy Sackler family from civil opioid lawsuits in exchange for payments of up to $6 billion to thousands of plaintiffs. In doing so, the court sided with the Justice Department, which had requested the court put the settlement plan on hold while it considered reviewing the agreement. The government has argued that the family behind Purdue Pharma, maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, should not be able to take advantage of legal protections meant for debtors in “financial distress.”The court’s order, which was unsigned, gave no reasons and included no public dissents, adds to the uncertainty around the plan to compensate states, local governments, tribes and individuals harmed by the opioid crisis while offering protection for the Sackler family. The order specified that the justices would hear arguments in the case in December. The court’s decision to take up the challenge to the bankruptcy agreement is the latest twist in the yearslong legal battle over compensation for victims of the prescription drug crisis.
Persons: Sackler Organizations: Purdue Pharma, Justice Department
Judge Maryellen Noreika, a 57-year-old former patent and intellectual property litigator, is not an especially high-profile figure in the small legal community in the country’s second-smallest state. Records show she had not worked on criminal cases or presided over a courtroom before President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the federal bench in 2017. She stunned everyone in the courtroom by refusing to approve a deal that would have settled tax and gun charges against Mr. Biden. Then she sent the lawyers back to the drawing board. He selected her, he said, as a research assistant to help supervise a group of law students for a large project for the Federal Judicial Center, the education and research agency of the United States federal courts.
Persons: Judge Maryellen Noreika, Donald J, Trump, Hunter Biden, Mr, Biden, Arthur Hellman, Judge Noreika Organizations: Records, Court, Justice Department, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Federal Judicial Center, United Locations: Wilmington, Del, United States
Only three months into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first Supreme Court term, she announced a book deal negotiated by the same powerhouse lawyer who represented the Obamas and James Patterson. The deal was worth about $3 million, according to people familiar with the agreement, and made Justice Jackson the latest Supreme Court justice to parlay her fame into a big book contract. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch had made $650,000 for a book of essays and personal reflections on the role of judges, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a $2 million advance for her forthcoming book about keeping personal feelings out of judicial rulings. Those newer justices joined two of their more senior colleagues, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, in securing payments that eclipse their government salaries. In recent months reports by ProPublica, The New York Times and others have highlighted a lack of transparency at the Supreme Court, as well as the absence of a binding ethics code for the justices.
Persons: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s, James Patterson, Jackson, Neil M, Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, ProPublica, Thomas’s, Justice Samuel A, Alito Jr, John G, Roberts Organizations: The New York Times, Supreme, Republican Locations: The
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the second Black justice to sit on the court after Thurgood Marshall, has spent years opposing affirmative action. When the high court struck down the policy last month, Justice Thomas was one of the most influential figures behind the ruling. Abbie VanSickle, who covers the Supreme Court for The Times, explains the impact affirmative action has had on Justice Thomas’s life and how he helped to bring about its demise.
Persons: Clarence Thomas, Thurgood Marshall, Thomas, Abbie VanSickle Organizations: The Times
On Oct. 15, 1991, Clarence Thomas secured his seat on the Supreme Court, a narrow victory after a bruising confirmation fight that left him isolated and disillusioned. Within months, the new justice enjoyed a far-warmer acceptance to a second exclusive club: the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, named for the Gilded Age author whose rags-to-riches novels represented an aspirational version of Justice Thomas’s own bootstraps origin story. If Justice Thomas’s life had unfolded as he had envisioned, his Horatio Alger induction might have been a celebration of his triumphs as a prosperous lawyer instead of a judge. So began his grudging path to a judicial career that brought him great prestige but only modest material wealth after decades of financial struggle. When he joined the Horatio Alger Association, Justice Thomas entered a world whose defining ethos of meritocratic success — that anyone can achieve the American dream with hard work, pluck and a little luck — was the embodiment of his own life philosophy, and a foundation of his jurisprudence.
Persons: Clarence Thomas, Horatio Alger, Thomas’s, Justice Thomas, , Organizations: Distinguished, Yale Law School, Horatio, Horatio Alger Association, Justice
The case, though framed as clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, notably conservative Christians. A Colorado law forbids discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public as well as statements announcing such discrimination. But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, 303 Creative L.L.C. He was the author of every major Supreme Court decision protecting gay rights under the Constitution. But he was also the court’s most ardent defender of free speech.
Persons: Neil M, Gorsuch, Lorie Smith, Smith, Smith’s, Mary Beck Briscoe, Judge Briscoe, , ” Judge Briscoe, Timothy M, Tymkovich, George Orwell, ’ ”, , Anthony M, Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, Jack Phillips, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Brett M, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett Organizations: Supreme, U.S ., Appeals, Circuit, Colorado Civil Rights Commission Locations: Colorado, Denver, “ Colorado
In an extraordinary exchange that played out among the pages of a landmark decision by the Supreme Court declaring race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities across the nation unlawful, two Black justices battled over the merits of affirmative action. Even as they appeared to agree over the policy’s aim — remedying the longstanding discrimination and segregation of Black Americans — they drew opposite conclusions on how and what to do. Both justices were raised by Black family members who suffered under Jim Crow and segregation, and both gained admission to elite law schools (Justice Jackson to Harvard, Justice Thomas to Yale) before ascending to the Supreme Court. But their interpretation of the law and their understanding of affirmative action and its role in American life could not be farther apart. In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas called out Justice Jackson directly in a lengthy critique, singling out her views on race and leveling broader criticisms of liberal support for affirmative action.
Persons: Clarence Thomas, Ketanji Brown Jackson, , Black, Jim Crow, Jackson, Justice Thomas, Yale, Justice Jackson Organizations: Harvard, Supreme
The impact of the ruling could affect countless workplaces and could require many employers to make substantial changes to accommodate religious workers. The latest decision may be less divisive than some of the court’s recent rulings on religion, in part because protecting observance of the Sabbath may not split Americans along the usual lines. Indeed, liberal justices have tried in the past to shield workers from discipline and termination for following their faith, and all three on the court signed onto the decision. The case was brought by Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former missionary who worked as a substitute mail carrier. After the Postal Service made a deal with Amazon in 2013 to deliver packages on Sundays, Mr. Groff said he had to choose between his faith and his livelihood, opting to quit after being disciplined for missing work.
Persons: Trump, Gerald Groff, Groff Organizations: Postal Service, Amazon Locations: Maine, Montana, Philadelphia
admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the equal protection clause,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. The court had repeatedly upheld similar admissions programs, most recently in 2016, saying that race could be used as one factor among many in evaluating applicants. The university responded that its admissions policies fostered educational diversity and were lawful under longstanding Supreme Court precedents. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that courts must give universities substantial but not total leeway in devising their admissions programs. The Texas decision essentially reaffirmed Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 decision in which the Supreme Court endorsed holistic admissions programs, saying it was permissible to consider race to achieve educational diversity.
Persons: , John G, Roberts, , Sonia Sotomayor, Edward Blum, Antonin Scalia, Elena Kagan, Justice Anthony M, Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G, Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kennedy, Brett M, Kavanaugh, Ginsburg, Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Breyer, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Jackson, Grutter, Bollinger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas Organizations: Harvard, University of North, Civil, Asian, Fair, University of Texas Locations: University of North Carolina, North Carolina, Austin, Texas
The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law on Tuesday that requires corporations to consent to being sued in its courts — by anyone, for conduct anywhere — as a condition for doing business in the state. Only Pennsylvania has such a law. But the ruling may pave the way for other states to enact similar ones, giving injured consumers, workers and others more choices of where to sue and subjecting corporations to suits in courts they may view as hostile to business. The Supreme Court was split 5 to 4, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing for the majority. In ruling against the corporation at the center of the case, Norfolk Southern, Justice Gorsuch rejected its argument that it was entitled “to a more favorable rule, one shielding it from suits even its employees must answer” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Persons: Neil M, Justice Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, John G, Roberts Jr, Elena Kagan, Brett M, Kavanaugh, Organizations: Chief Locations: Pennsylvania, Norfolk Southern
Supreme Court Upholds Native American Adoption Law
  + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Abbie Vansickle | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: 1 min
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 1978 law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees with their tribes and traditions, handing a victory to tribes that had argued that a blow to the law would upend the basic principles that have allowed them to govern themselves. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented. Justice Barrett acknowledged the myriad thorny subjects raised in the challenge to the law, which pitted a white foster couple from Texas against five tribes and the Interior Department as they battled over the adoption of a Native American child. “But the bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute, some on the merits and others for lack of standing.”
Persons: Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Barrett, Organizations: Interior Department Locations: Texas, American
Justice Clarence Thomas delayed releasing his annual financial disclosure form on Wednesday after recent revelations cast scrutiny on his travel, gifts and real estate dealings with a conservative billionaire donor from Texas. Like Justice Thomas, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked for a 90-day extension to file the forms, which detail gifts, investments and other financial holdings, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which handles the financial records and the database where they are publicly disclosed. The financial disclosures, especially that of Justice Thomas, have drawn heightened interest after a series of reports raised questions about the level of transparency at the Supreme Court and the lack of an enforceable ethics code. The nature of Justice Thomas’s relationship with Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and longtime Republican donor, has elicited particular attention. The disclosure forms for the other justices gave a glimpse of their lives outside the court, offering details of travel in 2022 and money earned from book deals.
Persons: Clarence Thomas, Justice Thomas, Justice Samuel A, Alito Jr, Thomas’s, Harlan Crow Organizations: Administrative, U.S . Courts, Supreme Locations: Texas
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