John Roberts is entering the stretch run of his tenth term as chief justice of the United States. In-depth assessments will come, but the preliminary results are plain. The man who vowed to act as a neutral umpire calling balls and strikes has led a Court in which racial and religious minorities, women, workers and
A former Louisiana prosecutor who helped send a now-exonerated inmate to death row in 1984 is condemning the capital punishment process and apologizing for his role in the conviction. In a letter to the editor of the Times of Shreveport, former prosecutor A.M. “Marty” Stroud III said there was no exculpatory evidence in his possession,
By: Richard Hasen, SCOTUS blog Originally published on March 25, 2015 It is easy to read the Supreme Court’s five-to-four decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama as a mostly inconsequential case giving a small, and perhaps only temporary, victory for minority voters in a dispute over the redrawing of Alabama’s
Employees group By: Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post Originally published on March 18, 2015 The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says it’s filed a complaintarguing a state employee was reprimanded for speaking about climate change at an official meeting and keeping notes on the subject in official minutes. The complaint says that on March 9, Barton
By: Jessica Silver-Greenber, Michael Corkery; The NY Times Originally published: March 16, 2015 Charles Beard, a sergeant in the Army National Guard, says he was on duty in the Iraqi city of Tikrit when men came to his California home to repossess the family car. Unless his wife handed over the keys, she would go
By: Ted Genoways Four U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat inspectors, all working in slaughter operations owned or operated by the Hormel Foods Corporation, have come forward this week with shocking allegations in affidavits offered to the whistleblower protection organization Government Accountability Project (GAP). A government-run pilot program experimenting with a reduced inspection protocol in