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Hamdi v. Napolitano, 09-3285, concerned a challenge to the district court’s dismissal of a complaint for lack of jurisdiction, in a severely disabled minor child’s action under the Declaratory Judgment Act (DJA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from removing his mother on the ground that the mother’s removal violated his own constitutional rights as an American citizen. In affirming the dismissal, the court held that the jurisdictional bar of 8 U....

Abercrombie & Fitch, and its company Hollister, just can’t seem to stay out of court. While it vehemently pursues what it deems brand image, it continues to offend on the basis of religion and disability. In 2009, Julie Farrar initiated an action against Hollister alleging that the steps leading to a “porch” in front of its stores violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). By 2012, the suit grew into a class action that targeted 248 stores, more than half of the 483 Hollister stores in the U....

North Dakota has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. Earlier this year, a federal judge said the law – which prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be heard, which can be as soon as six weeks after conception – was unconstitutional. The state supreme court last week dealt with another provision of the law, this one outlawing non-surgical abortion by medication. The court’s procedure requires four of the five justices to agree in order to rule a statute unconstitutional, but only three agreed....

Rent lied to us. All the singing and dancing about five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred-minutes? Nonsense. In a case to file under “lies-the-justice-system-perpetuates,” the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the only way to measure a year for immigration removal procedures is with the inaccurate 365-day calendar. So how many days are really in a year? This would solve the problem if a natural year was actually 365.25 days, but it’s not....

What good is a law allowing the open carrying of handguns when the police are just going to arrest you for it? Shawn and Denise Northrup of Toledo, Ohio were just walking their dog one evening when a motorcyclist saw them and yelled, “You can’t walk around with a gun like that!” For, you see, Shawn was walking the dog while armed with a semiautomatic handgun. The motorcyclist, Alan Rose, called the police, who confirmed that it was legal to carry openly in Ohio, but nevertheless sent an officer out to investigate....

A religious child-care provider, whose biggest client was the state of Kentucky, will be able to continue a longstanding lawsuit a bit longer, thanks to a Sixth Circuit ruling on Monday. Sunrise Children’s Services provides group housing, foster care placement and other services to Kentucky children in state custody. Those services come with a heavy dose of religious coercion, according to critics. Those critics sued 15 years ago, alleging that the state was violating the Establishment Clause by contracting with Sunrise....

The Seventh Circuit decided two criminal matters and one case involving denial of disability benefits. In US v. Phillips, No. 09-1262, the court faced a challenge to a conviction for Medicare fraud. Defendant claimed that the district court erred by admitting a redacted recording of her conversation with undercover investigators after the government did not give her an unredacted version. She also claimed that the district court erred by admitting certain evidence that was produced close to trial, thereby not allowing her attorney to have a meaningful opportunity to examine them....

Ryan Bounds wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, of President Trump’s controversial picks for the federal courts, especially given his hopes of reshaping the Ninth Circuit. Bounds was nominated to fill a vacancy on the Ninth, however, as his confirmation vote was set to hit the Senate floor, it was announced that the nomination was withdrawn. Apparently, Republican Senator Tim Scott, who happens to be the only African American Republican in the Senate (and one of only three total), took issue with nominee Bounds’s history of racially and ethnically charged (and insensitive) writings....

A large class action law firm has filed a writ of mandamus with the Third Circuit, seeking to prevent a court appointed special master from interviewing its plaintiffs. The firm, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, gained prominence due to its role in the $260 billion tobacco settlement in the late 1990s, but recently received sanctions for thalidomide lawsuits which were described as “bad-faith advocacy” which “gives new meaning to ‘frivolous.’” As the cases began to falter, and sanctions began to mount, Hagens Berman sought to dismiss them en masse....

Anthony Douglas Elonis made statements on Facebook threatening his ex-wife, a local school, the local sheriffs, and the FBI agents who came to question him about all these threats. Maybe that’s how it happened. Or maybe Elonis was merely practicing his “rap lyrics” and exercising his constitutional rights in the process. Whatever he was doing, the Supreme Court vacated Elonis’ conviction for making criminal threats – but didn’t do much beyond that....

Let’s speculate about the future of the Supreme Court together. The New York Times reported last week that only 44 percent of Americans approve of the Court. Barring some kind of magic hat trick in the Affordable Care Act decision, that number is bound to decline. With the Supreme Court’s approval ratings flailing, and members of Congress salivating at the idea of leaving their own stamps on the Court, we wonder when Congress will start meddling in the Court’s affairs....

The Center for Public Integrity just released its findings of a study investigating state supreme court justices’ financial disclosures. Tellingly, not one state received a grade A or B. The top scorer was California with a grade of C; for the states represented in the Third Circuit, the results were not even C-worthy. Here is a breakdown of the Third Circuit states’ rankings. Pennsylvania passed, but barely. With a score of 60 out of 100, it had the lowest, passing grade, a D....

When the majority in Shelby County held that the Voting Rights Act had outlived its purpose, all because minority voter registration numbers had caught up in previously problematic states, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was furious. Actually, lots of people were furious, but she was furious and had the bench to use as a pulpit. We covered her powerful dissent, which pointed out every other sign of voter suppression: gerrymandering, racist southern lawmakers who were caught on tape referring to their black constituents as “aborigines,” the hundreds of discriminatory voting law changes blocked by the DOJ since the 1980s, and more....

How many courts does it take to make Louis Vuitton pack its bags? Three: a U.S. District Court; a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and the U.S. Supreme Court. They all said Louis Vuitton could take its case and go home. In Louis Vuitton Malletier v. My Other Bag, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a summary judgment against the high-fashion company’s trademark and copyright case against a small company that made a parody bag....

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that the House will pursue impeachment proceedings against President Trump created buzz across the country this week. A holdover from Britain’s constitutional system, impeachment provides the House with the power to investigate actions by elected officials, and the Senate with the ability to remove them from office. However, given the dramatic results impeachment can have, legislators in the U.S. have rarely used it. Here’s a look back at the origins of impeachment in the United States:...

Internet service providers like Comcast now have the legal authority under federal law to charge businesses and individuals more for faster bandwidth. The end of “net neutrality” came about when the Federal Communications Commission re-classified broadband internet as an information service under Title I of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Previously, broadband internet was classified as a communications service under Title II of the same Act, under which it was subject to heavier regulations, including preventing ISPs from offering so-called “fast lanes” and “slow lanes”....

Colleen Bradley, director of budget and financial planning at a Pennsylvania university, had a problem with the budgets. They were “false budgets” designed to increase taxpayer-funded appropriations, she alleged in Bradley v. West Chester University of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. When she complained about them, Bradley said, she was fired. A trial court dismissed her case, and an appeals court affirmed. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said it was about government immunity and the limits of free speech....

Conviction and sentence for drug crimes is affirmed where: 1) the evidence was sufficient to show defendant was an unlawful user of marijuana; 2) the evidence was sufficient for a jury to reasonably conclude that defendant was an unlawful user of marijuana in possession of a firearm; and 3) even if the district court procedurally erred in granting the government’s motion for an upward departure in his advisory guidelines range, the error is harmless and the sentence would be affirmed based on the district court’s alternative decision to impose an upward variance based on the U....

Child Pornography Sentence Affirmed In US v. Replogle, No. 10-1544, the court affirmed defendant’s sentence for production of child pornography where 1) the district court properly relied on the factual statements in the presentence report, and that defendant waived his right to argue factual objections on appeal; 2) the district court did not clearly err in applying the vulnerable victim enhancement; and 3) the district court adequately explained the sentence, and the term imposed was not unreasonable....

If you’re a news junkie, a couple of recent items may have left you asking yourself, “What the heck is a godparent, anyway?” First are the recent revelations about the insistence of Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to keep secret the identities of their two young children’s godparents. Harry’s brother, Prince William, has reportedly been “perplexed” by the royal couple’s decision to break from centuries of tradition, and he’s not alone....