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☆ Richard Glossip: Supreme Court halts execution
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The US Supreme Court on Friday put on hold the execution of Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma death row inmate whose capital conviction the state attorney general has said he could no longer support. The latest round of litigation was brought to the Supreme Court by Glossip, with the support of the Oklahoma Attorney’s General office, who asked for his May 18 execution to be set aside. The emergency hold on his execution will stay in place while the justices consider his request that they formally take up his case. Glossip has maintained his innocence, having been convicted in 1998 of capital murder for ordering the killing of his boss. Despite Oklahoma’s assertions that it could no longer stand by Glossip’s conviction, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeal declined Glossip’s request that his execution be halted.

Programming note: The full interview with Richard Glossip will air Friday, May 5, on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” which starts at 4 p.m. Lea Glossip, left, wife of death row inmate Richard Glossip, listens with death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean, right, during a news conference on Thursday, May 4, in Oklahoma City. Sneed admitted to killing Van Treese, but at trial, prosecutors portrayed the killing as a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Glossip. Ultimately, Reed Smith concluded “that no reasonable juror hearing the complete record would have convicted Richard Glossip of first-degree murder,” said Stan Perry, a partner at the firm. The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, where Richard Glossip is set to be executed, is seen in 2015.

☆ ProPublica: GOP megadonor paid private school tuition for grandnephew of Justice Clarence Thomas
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A Texas billionaire and GOP megadonor paid boarding school tuition for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ grandnephew, and the justice did not report the financial assistance for the child he helped raised on his annual disclosures, according to a new ProPublica report – the latest revelation raising ethical questions around the high court. The ProPublica report on Thursday revealed that the billionaire Harlan Crow paid tuition for Mark Martin, who lived with Thomas’ family as a child and for whom the justice became a legal guardian. ProPublica cited a 2009 bank statement and an interview with a former administrator at the Georgia boarding school Martin attended. The former administrator at the school, Hidden Lake Academy, told ProPublica that Crow paid for Martin’s tuition for the year or so Martin was at the boarding school. The administrator said, according to ProPublica, that he had been told by Crow that Crow also paid for Martin’s tuition at another school, the Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, which is Crow’s alma mater.

CNN —A New York judge dismissed a 2021 lawsuit that former President Donald Trump brought against the New York Times and its journalists over the disclosure of his tax information in a 2018 Times article. With the order granting the Times’ motion to dismiss the Trump case against it and its journalists, Judge Robert Teed, of New York County Supreme Court, ordered Trump to pay their attorneys’ fees, legal expenses and costs. Reed concluded the journalists’ conduct was protected by the New York Constitution, leading him to dismiss the claims Trump brought against the Times defendants. “The revised anti-SLAPP law was specifically designed to apply to lawsuits like this one,” Judge Reed wrote. “The New York Times is no different and its reporters went well beyond the conventional news gathering techniques permitted by the First Amendment.”The lawsuit also names Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, as a defendant.

☆ Comstock Act: The 150-year-old chastity law that may be the next big fight over abortion
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

“Comstock is really the backdoor way to remove access to abortion across the whole country,” said Greer Donley, a University of Pittsburgh Law School professor who specializes in abortion law. Severino argued that, at least when it comes to the Comstock Act’s prohibitions on mailing abortion pills, Congress is well within its powers to regulate those shipments. Several towns, some in New Mexico and elsewhere, have passed local ordinances that cite the Comstock Act and prohibit business within those jurisdictions from shipping or receiving items used for abortions in the mail, as covered by the Comstock Act. The lawsuits in New Mexico state court that those ordinances have prompted may provide for another opportunity for courts to elaborate on what the Comstock Act means. The Supreme Court, in the emergency order it issued last week, did not say anything about the Comstock Act.

☆ Oklahoma Panel Declines to Spare Death Row Prisoner Richard Glossip
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A divided Oklahoma panel declined on Wednesday to recommend clemency for Richard Glossip, a death row prisoner whose case has been taken on by a diverse range of supporters, including state lawmakers, Kim Kardashian and the Republican state attorney general, who argued that it would be “a grave injustice” to put him to death. Mr. Glossip, 60, was convicted of arranging the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, who owned a motel in Oklahoma City where Mr. Glossip worked as manager. But Mr. Glossip’s lawyers and supporters have argued that the motel handyman who carried out the killing, Justin Sneed, had acted alone. State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said Mr. Glossip should be spared, with one Republican death penalty supporter saying he would vote to outlaw executions in the state if Mr. Glossip was put to death. Gentner Drummond, the state attorney general, told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that though he believed Mr. Glossip most likely arranged the murder, the evidence was not strong enough to warrant a conviction, let alone a death sentence.

CNN —Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin has requested that Chief Justice John Roberts or “another Justice whom you designate” appear before his committee next month for a hearing on Supreme Court ethics rules. The hospitality was not disclosed on Thomas’ public financial filings with the Supreme Court, ProPublica said. In his letter, Durbin argued that there is precedent for justices to testify before the committee, citing a hearing in 2011 when then-justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia appeared for a hearing. These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence,” Durbin wrote. “The status quo is no longer tenable.”The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CNN —Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday extended a hold on a lower court ruling that would have imposed restrictions on access to an abortion drug, a temporary move meant to give the justices more time to consider the issue. The case is the most important abortion-related dispute to reach the high court since the justices overturned Roe v. Wade last term. Alito issued a so-called administrative stay on the ruling while the high court considers an emergency appeal filed by the Biden administration and a manufacturer of the drug, mifepristone. Alito issued the order because he has jurisdiction over the federal appeals court involved in the case. Prelogar, the solicitor general, argued in her filing to the Supreme Court that the FDA’s expert judgment should not be challenged.

(Adobe Stock)On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear Twitter v. Taamneh, which will decide whether social media companies can be sued for aiding and abetting a specific act of international terrorism when the platforms have hosted user content that expresses general support for the group behind the violence without referring to the specific terrorist act in question. This comes one day after the Court justices debated whether Google and its subsidiary YouTube should be held liable for how its algorithm organizes ISIS content. The closely watched Twitter and Google cases carry significant stakes for the wider internet. An expansion of apps and websites’ legal risk for hosting or promoting content could lead to major changes at sites including Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube, to name a few. Twitter had previously argued that it was immune from the suit thanks to Section 230.

☆ Live updates: Supreme Court hears Gonzalez v. Google case against Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Brian Fung | Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The US Supreme Court is seen in Washington, DC, on January 19. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)The Supreme Court is set to hear back-to-back oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday on two cases that could significantly reshape online speech and content moderation. First up Tuesday is the Gonzalez v. Google case. The case involving Google zeroes in on whether it can be sued because of its subsidiary YouTube’s algorithmic promotion of terrorist videos on its platform. Beatrice Gonzalez and Jose Hernandez, the mother and stepfather of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was fatally shot and killed in a 2015 rampage by Islamist militants in Paris, are seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, on February 16.

☆ Familiar foe: No walk down Sentimental Street for Andy Reid
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

February 8 - Andy Reid will stare across the field against familiar uniforms on Sunday but he isn't going to set aside time to be sentimental. Reid is attempting to shoo away references to Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz., as the "Reid Bowl." Those Eagles Reid is referring to are center Jason Kelce, right tackle Lane Johnson, defensive tackle Fletcher Cox and defensive end Brandon Graham. Philadelphia then lost 24-21 to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. During the 2008 season, Reid's Eagles reached the NFC title contest but lost to the Arizona Cardinals.

☆ Rudy Giuliani: Attorney disciplinary hearing committee says Trump ally violated ethics rules with 2020 election fraud claims
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ DOJ touts first-of-its-kind settlement in racial discrimination case targeting ‘crime-free housing’ policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The US Justice Department on Wednesday filed what it is describing as a first-of-its-kind settlement in a racial discrimination case challenging a so-called “crime-free housing ordinance.”The proposed consent decree was filed Wednesday in a lawsuit the Justice Department brought in 2019 against the central California city of Hesperia, alleging that the city’s ordinance violated the Fair Housing Act’s prohibitions on racial discrimination in housing access. Hesperia continues to deny the allegations. She noted under the program, Black renters were almost four times more likely to be evicted than White renters and Latino renters were 29% more likely to be evicted. According to the Justice Department, Hesperia and its co-defendants – the county of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino Sheriffs Department – have agreed to pay a $950,000 settlement. It will compensate people who were harmed under the policy and will cover anti-discrimination training and other initiatives.

☆ What to know about a judicial privacy bill Congress is passing with a major defense package
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

But the legislation is also rankling court watchdogs who contend the bill could complicate efforts to scrutinize the judicial branch for ethics issues. The bill does not displace the ethical disclosure requirements judges already face, the congressional aide noted to CNN. And it extends the threat-monitoring programs that are being offered to Article III judges to administrative judges as well. Now that the bill has been added to the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive defense package that Congress passes annually, Paul’s options for scuttling it are limited. “Because, if I am sued, someone is going to be bringing it to a federal judge.

“The States will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay from the termination of Title 42 for the reasons discussed in the motion,” the states argue in the filing, citing a separate ruling that blocked the end of Title 42 earlier this year. Since March 2020, when the authority was invoked, border officials have turned away migrants at the US-Mexico border more than 2 million times. “Over the weekend, the El Paso Sector experienced a major surge in illegal crossings, with a 3-day average of 2,460 daily encounters, primarily through the downtown area of El Paso. The Biden administration is asking Congress for more than $3 billion as it prepares for the end of the Trump-era border policy later this month, according to a source familiar with the ask. It is not specific to the end of Title 42, the source said.

CNN —The special master review of evidence seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is no more. Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday formally dismissed the case, which Trump brought to challenge the Mar-a-Lago evidence collection and in which she appointed special master Raymond Dearie, another judge, to make recommendations on whether prosecutors could access evidence. The dismissal of the case now gives the Justice Department full access to tens of thousands of records and other items found among documents marked as classified in Trump’s beach club and private office. The court told Cannon the case must be dismissed and there will be no further proceedings before Cannon in the Southern District of Florida. That critique culminated in a scathing opinion from an appellate court panel – stacked with GOP appointees – that tore apart Trump and Cannon’s rationale for why the special master was necessary.

Lawyer for victims' families explains expected plea dealThe attorney for the families of the victims explained the rationale for the plead deal. “It avoids a lengthy trial that they believe would be very difficult for the families,” attorney Terrence Connors said last week of the plea. “I think it was pretty clear that they had no real defense.”Conors said he represents seven families who lost loved ones in the massacre at Tops Friendly Market carried out by Payton Gendron, now 19, and the families of two people who are seriously injured. Click here to read the full story

☆ Ticketmaster apologizes to Taylor Swift and her fans for ticketing debacle
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Frank Pallotta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN Business —Ticketmaster apologized to Taylor Swift and her fans late Friday night after a ticketing debacle this week that made it difficult for consumers to buy tickets to the pop star’s new tour. “We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans — especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” the ticketing site said in the blog post. “Once we get through that, if there are any next steps, updates will be shared accordingly,” it wrote. The mea culpa comes after Swift spoke out earlier on Friday about how the situation was “excruciating” for her to watch as it unfolded into chaos. Customers complained on social media about Ticketmaster not loading, saying the platform didn’t allow them to access tickets, even if they had a pre-sale code for verified fans.

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