The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. ...
Read More »Few clues on how a Justice Gorsuch would vote on immigration
If Neil Gorsuch wins confirmation to the Supreme Court, he could cast the deciding vote on President Donald Trump’s travel ban against immigrants from certain countries. But it’s far from certain how he would vote. According to an Associated Press ...
Read More »Abrupt dismissals leave US attorneys scrambling
Two days before Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered dozens of the country’s top federal prosecutors to clean out their desks, he gave those political appointees a pep talk during a conference call. The seemingly abrupt about-face Friday left the affected ...
Read More »Top Kansas court rejects tougher rule in self-defense cases
A drunken altercation involving a sword and a separate shooting outside a house party led the Kansas Supreme Court to clarify the state’s “stand your ground” law in rulings Friday in favor of criminal defendants who said they acted in ...
Read More »Defense lawyer still going strong at 94 years old
A New Jersey lawyer isn’t letting his age get in the way of vigorously defending clients with theatrical flare. Frank Lucianna, 94, is still going strong, 66 years after he began his legal career. The decorated World War II veteran ...
Read More »Gorsuch might be tough to predict on criminal justice cases
Judge Neil Gorsuch wasn’t convinced that a teenager who made burping sounds in a classroom should be arrested, handcuffed and taken to juvenile detention in a police car. Gorsuch said the 13-year-old student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, should have been ...
Read More »Advocates say First Amendment can withstand Trump attacks
Whenever Donald Trump fumes about “fake news” or labels the press “the enemy of the people,” First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. hears echoes of other presidents — but a breadth and tone that are entirely new. “Mr. Trump ...
Read More »ACLU sues over initial hearings for detained immigrants
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government to limit the amount of time that people can be held before seeing an immigration judge, saying many are held for months while waiting for an initial appearance. The lawsuit was ...
Read More »Estimated cost of Missouri corporate tax break questioned
Missouri’s House budget leader says lawmakers might not have passed changes to corporate tax law if they had known corporate tax revenue would drop roughly 35 percent the first year those changes were implemented. At issue is a 2015 bill ...
Read More »ICE frees woman facing deportation after protests
An Argentine citizen who grew up in Mississippi and was detained after speaking out about President Donald Trump’s policies was released from custody on Friday by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Daniela Vargas, 22, was released from a detention ...
Read More »A look at legal issues with Trump’s revised travel ban
Some of the states that helped derail President Trump’s first travel ban are mounting efforts to block his second one, saying that while the new order applies to fewer people, it’s infected with the same legal problems. Hawaii on Wednesday ...
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