By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- The bruising fight in Congress over President Obama's Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- may spill over into the U.S. Supreme Court, where a challenge to the act's contraception mandate is finally on the horizon.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, Senior UPI Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- The new U.S. Supreme Court term starts on the first Monday of October, and the justices plunge into controversy early on as Republicans push for more elbow room on big campaign contributions.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Will the narrow conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court make it easier for communities across the United States to open government meetings with prayer -- almost always Christian prayer? Maybe.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A Washington legal organization says it wants to break through the "blind deference" of the federal courts to the executive branch when it comes to withholding classified material, and has embarked on what may be a quixotic attempt to gain access to photographs showing the death and burial of Osama bin Laden.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- The fate of New York City's "stop and frisk" police program might be something of a morality play for the rest of the United States. How much freedom are U.S. citizens willing to give up in the name of security?
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND
FORT HOOD, Texas, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Is Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood, Texas, killer who insists on representing himself, trying to set up an appeal based on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel? If so, based on court precedent, he's probably whistling in the wind.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates to corporate political contributions for "independent electioneering" in 2010's Citizens United vs. FEC, practically drowning federal political campaigns in money. Now the same five-justice majority that held sway in Citizens United may be poised to loosen restrictions on campaign finance even further.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, Senior UPI Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, July 28 (UPI) -- An American overseas is linked to acts of terror in the United States. He repeatedly calls for more American killings. On the run in a foreign desert, he is beyond the reach of the U.S. justice system. So the president, acting to protect the country, orders him killed. A CIA drone strike takes him out in Yemen. Simple, right?
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND
WASHINGTON, July 21 (UPI) -- If ever there was a dispute destined to land within the cool marble confines of the U.S. Supreme Court, it's the bitter fight between the Obama administration on one side and the owners of for-profit businesses who say their religious beliefs should exempt them from providing insurance coverage for contraception.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, July 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, before going on recess last month, narrowed affirmative action in college admissions as much as it possibly could without killing it. A case accepted for argument next term not only threatens big trouble for what remains of race-based preferential admissions, but for gender-based admissions policies as well.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, July 7 (UPI) -- A number of states, freed from the iron cuffs of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court, are enjoying their newfound freedom in predictable ways -- merrily pursuing voter ID laws and redrawing political districts without any interference from Washington.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision last week striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and its companion ruling that in effect upheld the outlawing of California's Proposition 8, ignited a national conversation -- where does same-sex marriage go from here? For that matter, where does marriage go from here?
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court last week stepped into the national fight over voter identification requirements, and the result won't please those pushing such requirements in at least 30 states.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court last week dealt a devastating blow to the genetics industry -- or opened up new vistas depending on your point of view -- by ruling unanimously that naturally occurring DNA segments could not be patented.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, in a huge victory for law enforcement, ruled 5-4 last week that taking a DNA sample from prisoners accused of serious crimes does not violate the Constitution.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, June 2 (UPI) -- Do the states have the power to protect the right of unions to picket on private property even when a business owner, the property owner, doesn't want them there? The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether it wants to settle the issue when the justices sit in conference behind closed doors Thursday.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, May 19 (UPI) -- Does Islamic law, Sharia, have a place in American courts? A lot of state legislatures don't think so, and there is a large movement to ban its application in the domestic courts, state and federal.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) -- As the entire legal affairs world knows by now, retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor last month expressed a frisson of regret for the U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 decision in Gore vs. Bush, a decision that appeared to decide the 2000 presidential election.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Writer
WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- It's spring, and the U.S. Supreme Court is lifting a mighty hammer. When the justices bring that big hammer down, they may change forever the way the races interact in the United States, and may forever redefine the millennia-old definition of marriage.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding under what conditions a company can patent the building blocks of life -- or in some cases the building blocks of death -- for profit.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- A proposed federal regulation that would undo some of the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling has been languishing at the Securities and Exchange Commission for a year and a half, but there are signs the commission may be making a decision on it relatively soon.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- A ruling last month by a federal judge in San Francisco for the moment has removed one of the FBI's most effective tools against terrorism, or upheld the Constitution's protections against unchecked government power, depending on your point of view.
WASHINGTON, March 31 (UPI) -- While the Texas case on affirmative action in college admissions is still pending, the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly agreed last week to hear an affirmative action case out of Michigan that promises to be a genuine mover and shaker.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court may be holding the political future of the United States in its hand as it tries to decide how far the states may go in requiring identification from those who attempt to vote.
By MICHAEL KIRKLAND, Senior UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent
WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- Republicans ripped the Obama administration when earlier this month it brought the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden to New York for trial instead of to Guantanamo and a military commission.
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